What Rod describes in his book is not an ideology — not even an ideology of beauty, or of the land, but a way of life. His idea of sacramentality to my mind captures something very important. It is a rejection of consumerism (which can be termed simply greed, but really captures something more widespread — our willingness to compromise principles in the name of comfort) rooted in an insistence on right conduct. The call, I think, is one to a life lived rightly, through enjoyment of work, family, etc. as things-in-themselves. More than anything else, consumerism infects every aspect of our lives by turning them into mere means toward ends we still never achieve. Working overly long hours to "make it" — by having more stuff, a bigger house, nicer car, whatever it might be — simply misses the point. It leaves us strangers to one another among our many useless things, and our many fun, pretty, enjoyable things. It leaves us entertaining ourselves, distracting ourselves from the people around us and (sorry, folks) the God who will judge us when, inevitably, we die.

And a popular culture (and ideology) that insists on cheaper goods at all costs can't help but leave us mere consumers as it sucks the value out of work. We who write know the joy that can be had in crafting something with a point and, we hope, a beauty in the making. But more and more jobs (and more and more writing for that matter) are increasingly flattened, made intrinsically uninteresting as we all become cogs in a machine intended to make the most of x good at the cheapest price possible, then maximize our profit on each unit.

Sound like a caricature? Of course it is! But the point remains that the cult of efficiency, and the drive to measure success as maximum wealth and consumption take us away from the thing-in-itself — the work, the family, the relationships of local life.

I am no agrarian; I've always thought America was built in our small towns more than on the farm itself, which can be too isolating. And Kirk didn't grow crops. He grew lots and lots of fir trees. But I would think that we can disagree on such things while still recognizing the need for a return to valuing work, people, and relationships over processes and things.