Thursday, August 25, 2011

When Will the Forgotton Day Arrive?

Berry, Wendell. “Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limits.” Harper’s Magazine. The Harper's Magazine Foundation, May 2008. Web. 25 Aug. 2011.

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The end of an era... Wendell Berry is experiencing a rationalization that the end of America's perception of unlimited resources, "spending, wasting, and driving, as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves" is going to come to a point where it has consequences that are inevitable occur, the ones people seem to just to be trying to delay or profit off of. Wendell Berry knows that the American way of life will never be able to sustain itself completely; we will only be able to find short term alternatives such as our national coal reserve, that will eventually run out just as the debt, oil, and lust for greater technology will. As a man who farms his food and can identify draws the question is all the new technology a good thing or will it be the destruction? With the idea that unlimited consumption is the end all, he thinks the people think there is a “possibility of limitless growth, limitless wants, limitless wealth, limitless natural resources, limitless energy, and limitless debt” but that’s just not true.

The fantasy of uncontrolled consumptiveness makes Wendell try to find the origin of this idea, in order to find how a culture was formed you must first look to the past. His search takes the reader into look into the way the New World’s morals were set up, showing a culture that thrives on greed which is a honorable way to live. He’s trying to show that there has to be limits; and show there is different ways to live. His idea needs to listen to; he shows in great depth how our ways will catch up to us. Wendell’s article makes you take a step back and try to view America not as an American or a human, but as a being of the world. To really take a deep look into the destructive ways of the new normal of life, trying to prove we can live within the limits of our resources, economy, and of energy. To stop trying to live on the cutting edge and take comfortable step back, to not be appalled by the thought of living a smaller more content life.

1 comment:

  1. --Citation incorrect
    --1st paragraph goes off-topic
    --2nd paragraph goes off-topic/lacks detail/needs some quotes
    --Sentence style/grammar problems

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