Wendell Berry’s agrarian values

From this interview, via Sarah Hendren

1. An elated, loving interest in the use and care of the land.

2. An informed and conscientious submission to nature.

3. The wish to have and to belong to a place of one’s own, as the only secure source of sustenance and independence.

4. A persuasion in favor of economic democracy; a preference for enough over too much.

5. Fear and contempt of waste of every kind, and its ultimate consequence in land exhaustion.

6. A preference for saving rather than spending.

7. An assumption of the need for a subsistence or household economy.

8. An acknowledged need for neighbors, and a willingness to be a good neighbor.

9. A living sense of the need for continuity of family and community life.

10. Respect for work, and (as self-respect) for good work.

11. A lively suspicion of anything new, contradicting the ethos of consumerism and the cult of celebrity.