In a Touchstone book review of The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, A.W. Hunt skillfully summarizes agrarian writer Wendell Berry’s economic critique as well as possible pathways to wholeness:
“We now live under what Berry calls a ‘total economy,’ one where everything has a price. The market no longer serves the culture; rather the culture serves the market. …
“Berry is not anti-technology per se, but he believes that man was made to use tools rather than to be someone else’s tool. …
“Both Republicans and Democrats seem hopelessly given over to autonomous individualism: Democrats to sexual autonomy and Republicans to economic autonomy. Rod Dreher protests that neither party offers a credible solution to our current crisis because neither is able to address Berry’s penetrating question: ‘What are people for?’
“Since America cannot agree on a common good, Dreher suggests that traditionalists who long for community should consider the ‘Benedict Option’ as described in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. That is, they should start constructing ‘new forms of community to repair and redeem the moral imagination distorted by modern life.’ The homeschooling movement, the growth of local agriculture, and the renewed interest in craftsmanship are examples of ways in which new, creative minorities are bringing healing to the wounded.”