Like almost everybody
else, I am hooked to the energy corporations, which I do not admire.
I hope to become less hooked to them. In my work, I try to be as
little hooked to them as possible. As a farmer, I do almost all of my
work with horses. As a writer, I work with a pencil or a pen and a
piece of paper.
My wife types my work
on a Royal standard typewriter bought new in 1956 and as good now as
it was then. As she types, she sees things that are wrong and marks
them with small checks in the margins. She is my best critic because
she is the one most familiar with my habitual errors and weaknesses.
She also understands, sometimes better than I do, what ought to be
said. We have, I think, a literary cottage industry that works well
and pleasantly. I do not see anything wrong with it.
A number of people, by
now, have told me that I could greatly improve things by buying a
computer. My answer is that I am not going to do it. I have several
reasons, and they are good ones.
The first is the one I
mentioned at the beginning. I would hate to think that my work as a
writer could not be done without a direct dependence on strip-mined
coal. How could I write conscientiously against the rape of nature if
I were, in the act of writing, Implicated in the rape ? For the same
reason, it matters to me that my writing is done in the daytime,
without electric light.
I do not admire the
computer manufacturers a great deal more than I admire the energy
industries. I have seen their advertisements. attempting to seduce
struggling or failing farmers into the belief that they can solve
their problems by buying yet another piece of expensive equipment. I
am familiar with their propaganda campaigns that have put computers
into public schools in need of books. That computers are expected to
become as common as TV sets in "
the
future" does not impress me or matter to me. I do not own a
TV set. I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer
to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice,
ecological health, political honesty, family and community stability,
good work.
What would a computer
cost me? More money, for one thing, than I can afford, and more than
I wish to pay to people whom I do not admire. But the cost would not
be just monetary. It is well understood that technological innovation
always requires the discarding of the "old model"—the
"old model" in this case being not just our old Royal
standard. but my wife, my critic, closest reader, my fellow worker.
Thus (and I think this is typical of present-day technological
innovation). what would be superseded would be not only something,
but somebody. In order to be technologically up-to-date as a writer,
I would have to sacrifice an association that I am dependent upon and
that I treasure.
My final and perhaps
mv best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to
fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the
assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily
with a computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be
as scientific about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a
computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and
when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a
computer, then I will speak of computcr with a more respectful tone
of voice, though I still will not buy one.
To make myself as
plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological
innovation in my own work. They are as follows:-
1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it
replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it
replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably
better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than
the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of
solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable
by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the
necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as
near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small,
privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance
and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that
already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
1987
After the foregoing essay,
first published in the
New England Review and Bread Loaf
Quarterly, was reprinted in
Harper's, the
Harper's
editors published the following letters in response and permitted
me a reply. W.B.
LETTERS
Wendell Berry provides
writers enslaved by the computer with a handy alternative: Wife—a
low-tech energy-saving device. Drop a pile of handwritten notes on
Wife and you get back a finished manuscript, edited while it was
typed. What computer can do that? Wife meets all of Berry's
uncompromising standards for technological innovation: she's cheap,
repairable near home, and good for the family structure.
Best of
all, Wife is politically correct because she breaks a writer's
"direct dependence on strip-mined coal."
History
teaches us that Wife can also be used to beat rugs and wash clothes
by hand, thus eliminating the need for the vacuum cleaner and washing
machine, two more nasty machines that threaten the act of writing.
Gordon
Inkeles Miranda, Calif.
I have no quarrel with
Berry because he prefers to write with pencil and paper; that is his
choice. But he implies that I and others are somehow impure because
we choose to write on a computer. I do not admire the energy
corporations, either. Their shortcoming is not that they produce
electricity but how they go about it. They are poorly managed because
they are blind to long-term consequences. To solve this problem,
wouldn't it make more sense to correct the precise error they are
making rather than simply ignore their product ? I would be happy to
join Berry in a protest against strip mining, but I intend to keep
plugging this computer into the wall with a clear conscience.
James
Rhoads Battle Creek, Mich.
I enjoyed reading
Berry's declaration of intent never to buy a personal computer in the
same way that I enjoy reading about the belief systems of unfamiliar
tribal cultures. I tried to imagine a tool that would meet Berry's
criteria for superiority To his old manual typewriter. The clear
winner is the quill pen. It is cheaper, smaller, more
energy-efficient, human-powered, easily repaired, and non-disruptive
of existing relationships.
Berry also requires that this tool must
be "clearly and demonstrably better" than the one it
replaces. But surely we all recognize by now that "better"
is in the mind of the beholder. To the quill pen aficionado, the
benefits obtained from elegant calligraphy might well outweigh all
others.
I have no particular desire to see Berry use a word
processor; or he doesn't like computers, that's fine with me.
However, I do object to his portrayal of this reluctance as a moral
virtue. Many of us have found that computers can be an invaluable
tool in the fight to protect our environment. In addition to helping
me write, my personal computer gives me access to up-to-the-minute
reports on the workings of the EPA and the nuclear industry. I
participate in electronic bulletin boards on which environmental
activists discuss strategy and warn each other about urgent
legislative issues. Perhaps Berry feels that the Sierra Club should
eschew modern printing technology which is highly wasteful of energy,
in favor of having its members handcopy the club's magazines and
other mailings each month ?
Nathaniel
S. Borenstein Pittsburgh, Pa.
The value of a
computer to a writer is that it is a tool not for generating ideas
but for typing and editing words. It is cheaper than a secretary (or
a wife!) and arguably more fuel-efficient. And it enables spouses who
are not inclined to provide free labor more time to concentrate on
their own work.
We should support alternatives both to
coal-generated electricity and to IBM-style technocracy. But I am
reluctant to entertain alternatives that presuppose the traditional
subservience of one class to another. Let the PCs come and the wives
and servants go seek more meaningful work.
Toby
Koosman Knoxville, Tenn.
Berry asks how he
could write conscientiously against the rape of nature if in the act
of writing on a computer he was implicated in the rape. I find it
ironic that a writer who sees the underlying connectness of things
would allow his diatribe against computers to be published in a
magazine that carries ads for the National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association, Marlboro, Phillips Petroleum, McDonnell Douglas, and
yes, even Smith-Corona. If Berry rests comfortably at night, he must
be using sleeping pills.
Bradley C.
Johnson Grand Forks, N.D.
WENDELL
BERRY REPLIES:
The foregoing letters
surprised me with the intensity of the feelings they expressed.
According to the writers' testimony, there is nothing wrong with
their computers; they are utterly satisfied with them and all that
they stand for. My correspondents are certain that I am wrong and
that I am, moreover, on the losing side, a side already relegated to
the dustbin of history. And yet they grow huffy and condescending
over my tiny dissent. What are they so anxious about?
I can only conclude
that I have scratched the skin of a technological fundamentalism
that, like other fundamentalisms, wishes to monopolize a whole
society and, therefore, cannot tolerate the smallest difference of
opinion. At the slightest hint of a threat to their complacency, they
repeat, like a chorus of toads, the notes sounded by their leaders in
industry. The past was gloomy, drudgery-ridden, servile, meaningless,
and slow. The present, thanks only to purchasable products, is
meaningful, bright, lively, centralized, and fast. The future, thanks
only to more purchasable products, is going to be even better. Thus
consumers become salesmen, and the world is made safer for
corporations.
I am also surprised by
the meanness with which two of these writers refer to my wife. In
order to imply that I am a tyrant, they suggest by both direct
statement and innuendo that she is subservient, characterless, and
stupid—a mere "device" easily forced to provide
meaningless "free labor." I understand that it is
impossible to make an adequate public defense of one's private life,
and so l will only point out that there are a number of kinder
possibilities that my critics have disdained to imagine: that my wife
may do this work because she wants to and likes to; that she may find
some use and some meaning in it; that she may not work for nothing.
These gentlemen obviously think themselves feminists of the most
correct and principled sort, and yet they do not hesitate to
stereotype and insult, on the basis of one fact, a woman they do not
know. They are audacious and irresponsible gossips .
In his letter, Bradley
C. Johnson rushes past the possibility of sense in what I said in my
essay by implying that I am or ought to be a fanatic. That I am a
person of this century and am implicated in many practices that I
regret is fully acknowledged at the beginning of my essay. I did not
say that I proposed to end forthwith all my involvement in harmful
technology, for I do not know how to do that. I said merely that I
want to limit such involvement, and to a certain extent I do know how
to do that. If some technology does damage to the world—as two of
the above letters seem to agree that it does—then why is it not
reasonable, and indeed moral, to try to limit one's use of that
technology? Of course,
I think that I am right to do this.
I would not think so,
obviously, if I agreed with Nathaniel S. Borenstein that "
'better' is in the mind of the beholder." But if he truly
believes this, I do not see why he bothers with his personal
computer's "up-to-the-minute reports on the workings of the EPA
and the nuclear industry" or why he wishes to be warned about
"urgent legislative issues." According to his system, the
"better" in a bureaucratic, industrial, or legislative mind
is as good as the "better" in his. His mind apparently is
being subverted by an objective standard of some sort, and he had
better look out.
Borenstein does not
say what he does after his computer has drummed him awake. I assume
from his letter that he must send donations to conservation
organizations and letters to officials. Like James Rhoads, at any
rate, he has a clear conscience. But this is what is wrong with the
conservation movement. It has a clear conscience. The guilty are
always other people, and the wrong is always somewhere else. That is
why Borenstein finds his "electronic bulletin board" so
handy. To the conservation movement, it is only production that
causes environmental degradation; the consumption that supports the
production is rarely acknowledged to be at fault. The ideal of the
run-of-the-mill conservationist is to impose restraints upon
production without limiting consumption or burdening the consciences
of consumers.
But virtually all of
our consumption now is extravagant, and virtually all of it consumes
the world. It is not beside the point that most electrical power
comes from strip-mined coal . The history of the exploitation of the
Appalachian coal fields is long, and it is available to readers. I do
not see how anyone can read it and plug in any appliance with a clear
conscience. If Rhoads can do so, that does not mean that his
conscience is clear; it means that his conscience is not working.
To the extent that we
consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent
that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd. But
what can we do ? Must we go on writing letters to politicians and
donating to conservation organizations until the majority of our
fellow citizens agree with us? Or can we do something directly to
solve our share of the problem?
I am a
conservationist. I believe wholeheartedly in putting pressure on the
politicians and in maintaining the conservation organizations. But I
wrote my little essay partly in distrust of centralisation. I don't
think that the government and the conservation organizations alone
will ever make us a conserving society. Why do I need a centralized
computer system to alert me to environmental crises ? That I live
every hour of every day in an environmental crisis I know from all my
senses. Why then is not my first duty to reduce, so far as I can, my
own consumption?
Finally, it seems to
me that none of my correspondents recognises the innovativeness of my
essay. If the use of a computer is a new idea,
http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/berrynot.html
