I am of course grateful for this award and all that it means. And I am of course necessarily humbled and somewhat troubled by it. There is something a little odd, after all, in giving an award associated with peace to any member of an industrial society, for the industrial economy, from agriculture to war, is by far the most violent the world has ever known, and we all are complicit in its violence. Our prevalent ways of using our land—land use plus industrial technology, minus care—produce commodities highly profitable to corporations at the unaccounted cost of massive waste and destruction. Our ways of war—politics minus neighborly love, plus industrial technology—are ever more profitable to corporations and ever more massively wasteful and destructive. Because these ways are so immensely profitable, their political and scientific defenders are accredited by wealth and power, hence by respectful listeners. Advocates for kinder ways are mostly unheard.
On Receiving One of the Dayton Literary Peace Prizes [ 2013] (Wendell Berry)
I am of course grateful for this award and all that it means. And I am of course necessarily humbled and somewhat troubled by it. There is something a little odd, after all, in giving an award associated with peace to any member of an industrial society, for the industrial economy, from agriculture to war, is by far the most violent the world has ever known, and we all are complicit in its violence. Our prevalent ways of using our land—land use plus industrial technology, minus care—produce commodities highly profitable to corporations at the unaccounted cost of massive waste and destruction. Our ways of war—politics minus neighborly love, plus industrial technology—are ever more profitable to corporations and ever more massively wasteful and destructive. Because these ways are so immensely profitable, their political and scientific defenders are accredited by wealth and power, hence by respectful listeners. Advocates for kinder ways are mostly unheard.
I am of course grateful for this award and all that it means. And I am of course necessarily humbled and somewhat troubled by it. There is something a little odd, after all, in giving an award associated with peace to any member of an industrial society, for the industrial economy, from agriculture to war, is by far the most violent the world has ever known, and we all are complicit in its violence. Our prevalent ways of using our land—land use plus industrial technology, minus care—produce commodities highly profitable to corporations at the unaccounted cost of massive waste and destruction. Our ways of war—politics minus neighborly love, plus industrial technology—are ever more profitable to corporations and ever more massively wasteful and destructive. Because these ways are so immensely profitable, their political and scientific defenders are accredited by wealth and power, hence by respectful listeners. Advocates for kinder ways are mostly unheard.
