WB -259 (Quantity v. Form... Feminism, the Body, and the Machine)...
- What's the difference between a whole life and a long life? Is our culture confused about that? 220
- Have you achieved "ripeness"? Do you have any role-models who have? 223
- What do you think of Wendell's remarks on the failures and futility of the civil rights, women's, and environmental movements? 229-30
- Are we a nation of fantasists? 232
- Does writing with a computer (or even just electrical lighting) make you complicit in "the rape of nature"? 234
- Do you know anyone who does not own a TV set? 235
- If "most electrical power comes from strip-mined coal" [still more than half, according to my research], are we in too big a hurry to electrify everything (as Paul Hawken urges)? 240
- Should we expect women to exert a "civilizing influence" on the workplace? 248
- Is "industrial education" now mostly a form of "baby-sitting and career preparation"? 251
- Do "educated people" now know more about sports than history?
- Is writing "of the body"? Is writing with computers "flirting with a radical separation of mind and body"? 257
- Add your questions and comments...
• What's the difference between a whole life and a long life? Is our culture confused about that? 220
ReplyDeleteMy purpose here is only to notice that the ideal of a whole or a complete life, as expressed in Psalm 128 or in Tiresias’ foretelling of the death of Odysseus, now appears to have been replaced by the ideal merely of a long life. And I do not believe that these two ideals can be reconciled.
Berry, Wendell. The World-Ending Fire (p. 220). Catapult. Kindle Edition.
Psalm 128:1-6 (NRSV)
1 Happy is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways.
2 You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.
3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
4 Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
5 The LORD bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
6 May you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel!
I have been present with many people who were dying. Few of them begged for longer life, some begged for death to come quickly, most expressed their love for family and friends and appreciation of the care they were receiving, and many spent time in their final days joyfully recalling the experiences and stories of their life.
• What do you think of Wendell's remarks on the failures and futility of the civil rights, women's, and environmental movements? 229-30
ReplyDeleteIt is readily evident, for example, that you can’t conduct a relationship with another person in terms of the rhetoric of the civil rights movement or the women’s movement – as useful as those rhetorics may initially have been to personal relationships. The same is true of the environment movement. The favorite adjective of this movement now seems to be ‘planetary.’ This word is used, properly enough, to refer to the interdependence of places, and to the recognition, which is desirable and growing, that no place on the earth can be completely healthy until all places are…The environment movement has not changed our parasitic relationship to nature. We have failed to produce new examples of good home and community economies, and we have nearly completed the destruction of the examples we once had.
Berry, Wendell. The World-Ending Fire (p. 228-230). Catapult. Kindle Edition.
An opinion piece in the NY Times 9/12/22 states rhetorically “All Biden has to do now is change the way we live”. That is our dilemma. Many of know what needs to be done but are not sure how we can do our part in changing things locally, in our own homes. Should we get a hybrid car, electric car, or wait for hydrogen? Should we invest in solar panels? Should we dig up our yard and plant a garden after we fight the rules that forbid this now.
• Is writing "of the body"? Is writing with computers "flirting with a radical separation of mind and body"? 257
ReplyDelete…in using computers writers are flirting with a radical separation of mind and body, the elimination of the work of the body from the work of the mind. The text on the computer screen, and the computer printout too, has a sterile, untouched, factorymade look, like that of a plastic whistle or a new car. The body does not do work like that.
Berry, Wendell. The World-Ending Fire (p. 257). Catapult. Kindle Edition.
My Dad wrote his entire book on legal pads by hand. He said he could not write any other way, the thoughts just would not flow for him. I have worked on a book for many years now on my computer. It is hard for me to get into the flow of writing and I feel overwhelmed by the information I so easily collect for the book. I keep hoping someday I will dream the book in its entirety and it will flow out of my the next morning when I will type it out on my computer.
What's the difference between a whole life and a long life? Is our culture confused about that? 220
ReplyDeleteA whole life is one where you have made many mistakes as well as great memories, one where at the end you are truly at peace with the life you've lived and everything it entails. A long life is one according to medical professionals, one where the individual is trying to slow the clock, simply "last" longer, whether that includes a quality experience or not.
I do think our culture is confused about it, it's obvious, especially in the media, the society is (or should be) obsessed with remaining young and not looking your age, as if the goal is to live forever. I really enjoy Berry's perspective regarding his friend Lily and the respect in which he speaks about her life. He knew her personally for years and years, ups and downs, and he said that in the end she had accepted her circumstances with grace and comfort even. It was later revealed that her doctor took her off of pain medicine before she passed in order to "get her on her feet again," so when she passed she was in immense pain. This is Berry's problem with the current medical industry, always trying to squeeze out more time regardless of the patients quality of life.
Ideally, we would convert our thinking to that of cherishing life in all aspects rather than hack it for more time. This passage has definitely made my brain think differently about my own perspective about life and how I think about and handle things.
I agree with a lot of what you said Abby. I think this passage has done a lot for me in that it was a reminder to live. We as humans have always been so fixated on how much time we have and how long something will last, and I think the story of Lily reminds us to live, and that its ok for this life we are living to come to and end.
DeleteI also agree that this societal notion of 'long life' has corrupted industries like the medical field. I think they do want to squeeze as much life out of people, whether for personal, monetary, or other reasons I'm not sure. I personally think money plays a large role in it. I think there is a fine line between fighting to live and for your love ones, and accepting your time has come, but I think we as humans have that option, and the issue with our societal mindset is that we have taken away option 2.
Have you achieved "ripeness"? Do you have any role-models who have? 223
ReplyDeleteI would say that I have not achieved "ripeness" in my life. There are many things and places and people in this world that I have yet to experience, and I would like to experience them before I come to my own 'ripe' conclusion on my life. I am not afraid of death in the sense that I know it is inevitable. I believe that our impending death is what makes life special and worth living because we know that none of this is permanent, we will die one day.
I obtained this outlook after reflecting on the death of my grandfather in April of this year, for he was a man who had obtained ripeness. He had live to 79, had seen much of the world, experienced wars and conflicts, dealt with trauma, and loved more than anyone I had ever known. On his death bed, he was not scared or dismayed, he was curious. Curious to know what was beyond the veil. As far as I am concerned, he had lived the truest definition of a whole life that could ever be known