The value of agrarianism
[Rod Dreher  03/09 02:38 PM]

Joel Salatin, an Evangelical livestock farmer from the Shenandoah Valley, tells me in Crunchy Cons that there is a deeper value to the agrarian lifestyle, one that can’t be measured on a balance sheet. He sounds a lot like Ross when he talks about monasteries. Here’s Joel, from p. 84 of the book:

”You know what we’re losing? Common sense,” he says. “There is a wisdom that comes into a culture when many of its people have a direct connection to the land and to life, to the living cycles. I seem any of the political agendas today as a total failure to understand life, seasons, accountatiblity, and the connections of life and people to our community. There’s just no connection, and so there’s no reason, there’s no common sense. You can blame as many people on the right as on the left.”