Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

“We are not getting something for nothing. We are getting nothing for everything,” the epigraph with which Berry opens Life is a Miracle, is apt and concise. Modern society appears miraculous, the product of man's industry and ingenuity. It looks (and is advertised largely as) a kind of perpetual motion machine, powered by little other than human inventiveness. Attentive observers have noticed that appearances are, as usual, deceptive: we are living on fossil fuels, energy created over eons by geological processes, and in a matter of decades, we've used up more than half of what's available. But there are problems even greater than the depletion of our main energy sources, destroying our ability to perpetuate our society and culture without much notice from anyone. We (and many other animals) have been passing our knowledge and ways of life the old fashioned way (and the only way) from parent to child as long as we've been on this planet without giving it a thought, but it appears that this simple and irreducible aspect of our species existence can be interrupted. When this happens locally, tribes and cultures die. It's not clear whether it is possible for this to happen globally, but it seems that this is the direction we are heading. Globalization and the “market economy” have been at work disrupting and destroying local cultures and replacing them with a universal mono-culture known to its practitioners and captives variously as “capitalism," "market economy," or “democracy” in the west, “communism” or “socialism” elsewhere. Whatever name it goes by, its effects on the living beings and the environments they inhabit is the same.Life is a Miracle is about this process, the loss of the ability to perpetuate the culture we've built over millenia. Wendell Berry looks to science for a culprit, because science is our culture's founding myth, governing paradigm, and much more, and he picks E. O. Wilson's Consilience as the book through which to analyze the subject. The choice is appropriate for a number of reasons: Wilson is a mainstream scientist, and in Consilience, he tackles questions like ethics, religion, art, and culture in general- necessarily, since his stated goal is to bring the different disciplines together into a working whole. He is also a conservationist, as is Berry.Science approaches all questions as problems to be solved, and all unanswered questions as questions yet to be answered. “(Consilience) reads as though it was written to confirm the popular belief that science is entirely good, that it leads to unlimited progress, and that it has (or will have) all the answers.” (p. 24) This means that mystery, an essential and critical part of human culture, is an impossibility: Wilson attributes it entirely to human ignorance. Without mystery, reverence and propriety are impossible, leading to a society governed by profit and raw power as we've arrived at today, whether the power is cloaked in the accoutrements of “democracy,” “socialism,” or more transparent forms. What Wilson calls “consilience” turns out to be an invitation (or an ultimatum, taken more broadly) for religion and the arts to take on the goals and methodology of science, an impossibility if the words mean what we all think they mean. “Like a naïve politician, Mr. Wilson thinks he has found a way to reconcile two sides without realizing that his way is one of the sides... One cannot, in honesty, propose to reconcile Heaven and Earth by denying the existence of Heaven.” (p.99)The crisis we face can't be solved with more science or technology, since these are part of the cause. We have to address the way we think and talk about the world and ourselves.The language we use to speak of the world and its creatures, including ourselves, has gained a certain analytical power (along with a lot of expertish pomp) but has lost much of its power to designate what is being analyzed or to convey any respect or care or affection or devotion toward it. As a result, we have a lot of genuinely concerned people calling upon us to “save” a world which their language simultaneously reduces to an assemblage of perfectly featureless and dispirited “ecosystems,” “organisms,” “environments,” “mechanisms,” and the like. It is impossible to prefigure the salvation of the world in the same language by which the world has been dismembered and defaced. (italics in original) (p. 8)Berry's solution to this crisis, if there is to be any solution to it, is for scientists, artists, and religious people, whether they can work together in the end or not, to root their work in local considerations and return to such considerations at their works' end, as well as, ideally, throughout the process.Directly opposed to this reduction or abstraction of things is the idea of the preciousness of individual lives and places. This does not come from science, but from our cultural and religious traditions. It is not derived, and it is not derivable, from any notion of egalitarianism. If all are equal, none can be precious. (And perhaps it is necessary to stop here to say that this ancient delight in the individuality of creatures is not the same thing as what we now mean by “individualism.” It is the opposite. Individualism, in present practice, refers to the supposed “right” of an individual to act alone, in disregard of other individuals. (p.42)Any new invention or idea or practice should, in the end, be weighed on the merits of its impact on our communities. “Suppose we learn to ask of any proposed innovation the question so far only the Amish have been wise enough to ask: What will this do to out community?” (p.134) Obviously, most people don't have the benefit of living in anything resembling a community, so we would have to break up the corporate capitalist society into local communities first.Life is a Miracle elicits some hysterical reviews on Amazon, as one would expect with books that challenge our most basic assumptions about ourselves and the world. I expect that if it were more widely read, the greater part of our country would be foaming at the mouth over this book. God I wish it were. This is likely one of the most important books of the decade, or century, or however long we plan on living miserable lives governed by anti-human precepts.

This book is a response to E.O. Wilson's "Consilience", a book which purports to bring all academic disciplines under the rubric of scientism. Berry strongly objects, pointing out the slippery slopes abounding in academia and culture when scientific pursuits are given preeminence. Berry is at his best in this book when he critiques the university system, particularly its penchant for specialization and the funding streams within which mitigate against the good of the community. This book was written at the turn of the 21st century and it is apparent to this reader that in the intervening years the problems Berry addresses have gotten worse. Berry's theme of community may be the most important and most needed theme for our world today, as we live in an isolated, divided culture where ideologies are at war.

Having read many of Wendell Berry's work I can say that this is probably not to use as your introduction to his writing. Better to start with a collection of his agrarian essays. This is one of his most difficult essays to come to terms with, and a review that attempts to analyze it would almost work in opposition to the (anti-reductionist) points Berry tries to convey.In a way I think Berry made an error in choosing his subtitle. The use of the word superstition is unnecessarily inflammatory, and the word against distracts the reader from the fact that Berry's work in general and this essay in particular focus largely on things that he is for.A casual approach to this book could leave the reader unfamiliar with his other work feeling that Berry is a Luddite polemicist. A more careful reading of the, somewhat uncharacteristically, dense prose here will reveal Berry's thoughtful passion for what it means to be human. One needn't agree with every point Berry attempts to make in order to use this book as a way to simply stop and think.In the chapter A Conversation Out of School Berry quite plainly asserts that science and art are not inherently at odds with one another. He clearly sees limits in what science can help us know and accomplish, but he doesn't dismiss entirely the pursuit of empirical knowledge. This is a provocative and challenging piece of work, but well worth the effort.Reasonable people can disagree. Read it with an open mind and see where the discussion takes you. The very fact that it has led to pointed discussions on all sides of the issue just among these reviews shows that it touches on crucial issues for our society and world.

Wendell Berry has come up often enough over the last couple of years that I finally had to buy one of this books. I have to admit, I was kind of put off by the reverence that his readers showed when talking of him, but once I read his book, I could understand the fanfare. This book is clearly written, thought provoking, and one that made the most compelling argument for the limits of science...and I am a science buff. I have since ordered two more of Berry's books. I know I will return to my highlights in the book over and over again.