Wendell Berry, “Life Is A Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition”, CBC Radio Ideas, 2008/01/17 March 26, 2008
Posted by daviding in Talk Audio Download.Tags: wendell berry
trackback
Wendell Berry was interviewed by Ideas producer David Cayley.
Wendell Berry is known to the reading public mainly for his poems, essays and novels, not his commentaries on science. But in the year 2,000 he published a surprising book called Life Is A Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. The superstition the book denounces is the belief that science will one day give us a complete account of things. Science is admirable, Wendell Berry says, but it can only be deployed wisely when we recognize the limits to our knowledge. Science must submit to the judgement of Nature.
Wendell Berry is a scholar who packed it all in, and returned to a farm. While he’s well known for his prose and poetry, I’m was blown away by his insight into agricultural systems.
I listened to this recording twice, and have been to library to look more deeply at his writings. I’m hoping that understanding the agricultural economy will give me some insight into the service economy.