THE INDUSTRIALSATION OF SEX

'The triumph of the industrial economy is the fall of community. But the fall of community revels how precious and how necessary community is. For when community falls, so must fall all the things that only community life can engender and protect: the care of the old, the care and education of children, family life, neighborly work, the handing down of memory, the care of the earth, respect for nature and the lives of wild creatures. All of these things have been damaged by the rule of industrialism, but of all the damaged things probably the most precious and the most damaged is sexual love. For sexual love is the heart of community life. Sexual love is the force that in our bodily life connects us most intimately to the Creation, to the fertility of the world, to farming and the care of animals. It brings us into the dance that holds the community together and joins it to its place.'

Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, p.133.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DESTROY

'If you destroy the ideal of the "gentle man" and remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration towards women and children, you have prepare the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between these two people but as a bond between these two people and their forbears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold.'

Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, p.125.

THE LIMITS TO LEGAL PROTECTION

'The belief that as sex worker will be helped by the criminalisation of her trade rests on the assumption that she has other choices available to her - that it is prostitution, rather than, say, poverty or immigration law, that is her fundamental problem.. Likewise the, the belief that incarceration is the way to deal with domestic violence does not take into account the women whose fates are bound up with the men who perpetrate it: the women who are financially dependent on the men who beat them, and who have a large stake in how the men in their communities are treated by the police, courts or prison.'

Amia Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, p.162.

AN UNTOLD STORY OF OUR TIME

'Increasingly, one of the marks of a fully and uncompromisingly secular environment is the notion of undifferentiated time. There are, for mature late capitalism, no such tings as weekends. The problem with this kind of secularism is not so much a denial of the existence of God as the denial of the possibility of leisure - of time that is not spent serving the market. That is to say, for a particular mindset, acquisitive and purpose-driven, the passage of time is precisely the slipping away of a scarce, valuable commodity, every moment of which has to be made to yield its maximum possible result, so you can't afford to stop. This kind of secular understanding of the passage of time is perhaps one of those areas where there is most open collision between the fundamentally religious and the fundamentally anti-religious mindset - and I think that's one of the untold stories of our time.' 

Rowan Williams, Being Human, p.78. 

A DIFFERENT ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE

'Practicing neighborly economics means you don't go for what's cheapest and easiest. You think about which relationships and stores you want to preserve in your town and you shop there.' 

Melody Warnick, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, p.59. 

TRUE ECONOMICS

'...the human economy is dependent upon, and limited by, the natural world, which is dependent in turn upon human cherishing, forbearance, and skill.' 

Wendell Berry, 'The Order of Loving Care' in The Art of Loading Brush, p.183. 

A SOCIETY BASED ON SELF-INDULGENCE

'...industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning.'
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, p.209. 

THE MODERN ECONOMY

'...the modern market economy does not mature into forms of settled relationships. On the contrary, it is a dynamic force demanding ever greater adaptability and complexity in people's lives. On the consumption side, it is in the system's self-interest to create appetities that can never be satisfied and always stand poised to switch to the next big thing. On the production side, the same self-interest demands that economic organizations show little real loyalty to the people who are working for them. In the mdoern firm's striving for operational efficiency and effectiveness, everyone and everything must be ultimately disposable. Because of their higher salaries, retirement benefits, and health costs, employess with a long-term commitment to the organization can appear as little more than a financial drain on the bottom line. Not surprisingly, today's workers have realized that to survive, they must reciprocate with the same lack of institutional loyalty.' 

Hugh Heclo, On Thinking Institutionally, p.167. 

BLIND SPOTS

'The evident ability of most church leaders to be "born again in Christ" without in the least discomforting their faith in the industrial economy's bill of goods, however convenient and understandable it may be, is not scriptural.'

Wendell Berry, 'God and Country' in What Are People For? p.98.

PREACHING

'No wonder so many sermons are devoted exclusively to "spiritual" subjects. If one is living by the tithes of history's most destructive economy, then the disembodiment of the soul becomes the chief of worldly conveniences.'

Wendell Berry, 'God and Country' in What Are People For?, p.96.

ECONOMIC COMPETITION

'Can a university, or a nation, afford this exclusive rule of competition, this purely economic economy? The great fault of this approach to things is that it is so drastically reductive; it does not permit us to live and work as human beings, as the best of our inheritance defines us. Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.' 

Wendell Berry, 'Economy and Pleasure' in What Are People For?, p.135.

PEOPLE & PLACES

'...we need to stop thinking about the economic functions of individuals for a while, and try to learn to think of the economic functions of communities and households. We need to try to understand the long-term economies of places - places that is, that are considered as dwelling places for humans and their fellow creatures, not as exploitable resources.' 

Wendell Berry. 'An Argument for Diversity' in What Are People For? Essays, p.111.