Below are some select pages from The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Barry.

He saw trends with vivid clarity (even way back in the 70-s) that have culminated in exactly what he predicted they would. One might describe passages like this (circled in red in one of the pics below) as very prescient indeed.

Here are a few examples of how what Wendell Barry predicted in the pages below, has in fact, now come to pass.

1.

charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/an-edi…

2.

joebot.substack.com/p/an-unholy-invasio…

3.

marypoindextermclaughlin.substack.com/p…

I do not share all the views he expressed (over 40 years ago now in the updated edition of the book I own) regarding to the ideal role of government, the supposed benefits of organized dogmatic religious belief systems and what an ideal form of food cultivation would look like, however I do agree with a lot of what he shares in the book.

Based on what I have read so far, I will also say that I have great respect for him having tried to encourage people to give back to the land (the soil). Also, I am impressed with how he accurately pointed out that hyper-specialization/compartmentalization in society/education ( leading to “trust the expert-ism”) is a trend that leads to totalitarianism.

We can see the fullest expression of that totalitarianism he warned about in the last 4 years.