Wendell Berry\u2019s Citizenship Papers<\/em> is not an easy book to work through chp by chp because it is quite repetitive \u2014 but the chp \u201cTwo Minds\u201d seems to me to put together some of his central ideas about a more sensitive concept of existing in the world in a responsible way. Wendell Berry\u2019s Citizenship Papers is not an easy book to work through chp by chp because it is quite repetitive \u2014 but the chp \u201cTwo Minds\u201d seems to me to put together some of his central ideas about a more sensitive concept of existing in the world in a responsible way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[476,425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-missional"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nNow, I\u2019m not a specialist in these areas, but I\u2019m keen on hearing what you have to say.
\n\u201cHuman orders \u2014 scientific, artistic, social, economic, and political \u2014 are fictions. They are untrue, not because they necessarily are false, but because they necessarily are incomplete\u201d (85). This sets the tone for his theory that there are two minds at work:
\nRational Mind:the official mind of science, industry, and government. Factual; like a system. Exclusivist. He sees it as \u201cthe superstition of the modern age\u201d (89).
\nSympathetic Mind:refuses to limit knowledge or reality to the scope of reason or factuality or experimentation; loving mind; considerate of all; inclusive.
\nThe Rational Mind exploits humans and nature; the Sympathetic mind has a humane approach to science.
\nBerry knows that solutions are not more science but adapting science to the realities of our resources and our natural world. That if we respect nature we are the best kind of scientists.
\nHe exploits (himself \u2014 knowingly) the parable of the lost sheep by suggesting what the Rational Mind would do \u2014 calculate the loss and insure itself against losing sheep \u2014 and the Sympathetic mind, which would risk the 99 for the one lost sheep. And he reuses a story about a young man who knew how to cure pigs in a factory farm but lost his job because it wasn\u2019t in the job description. If you want someone to care for your sheep, you need not ask an \u201canimal scientiest\u201d but the shepherd of the parable.
\nBerry typifies, if he doesn\u2019t also stereotypify, in his rhetoric \u2014 but there\u2019s an insight here that intrigues me: how we learn to do science and economy that are neither exploitative of nature or people. I think about this sometimes in my commute: is it good for anyone, is it best, to have thousands of cars blowing exhaust into the air in one space? And I am torn: sure, I\u2019d like to live in the country, but could I do what I do living in such a place?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"