an essay written 30 years ago that is much more relevant today; even though I didn't agree with every point he made, it was still a very interesting and thought-provoking read.

We are going to have to learn to give up things that we have learned (in only a few years, after all) to ‘need.’ ( )

I enjoy and ponder much of Wendell Berry's writing, an these two essays gave me much to reflect upon but I found the tone of the first one and his response to five letters from readers of it to be rather snarky although Berry's argument is consistent with his values and worth considering by all of us who are entangled with technology. The second essay, which is a more extended reflection on the objections raised to his short title piece, is more substantive and more profound. Also more representative of Berry's principled but polite stand against commercialism, industrialism, the isolation our current social order fosters through information technology. Worth reading. ( )

This is the first work by Berry that I have read and, given his reputation as a visionary writer, I was expecting something a little better.

My first criticism is that his aversion to computers is built on an aversion to technology and electricity. He prefers his pencil and paper. Fine, aren't they in themselves technologies? And doesn't their production need electricity?

My second and biggest criticism is how he writes about his wife. She types up his manuscripts for him, he explains, so he doesn't need a computer. When readers write to the magazine where the article was original published in to suggest this might be sexist (given the long history of 'genius' male writers and their wives labouring in the background typing it all up, the modern muse), Berry gets very, very defensive. He talks about how he and his wife run a cottage industry based on respect and love, implying that it is a joint production, but I only see his name on the spine. ( )

From the title, I loved this book.
It took me many years to pay hard earned teacher money to buy my first one, a printer, and the online connection.

Even now, when I try to go to USPS to arrange a pickup for a package, a computer is required:
mailing one $14.00 package from a rural location now costs around $1,500.00 or more.

A computer is also required = "We do NOT accept checks!" - to pay for my security system connection.

Wendell Berry's essay was a welcome surprise.

Not so great was his response.
Given the lightness that many letter writers offered
and which most readers likely enjoyed for the fact that he shared them,
his words were humorless and pretty heavy handed,
bordering on 'protesting too much.'

He also does not address an obvious truth employed by many writers,
which is to write with pencil or pen on paper first, then transfer to the expediency
of using a computer to send out many copies.

And yet, his truths are right. Today in Wisconsin, houses were destroyed
and land and the environment totally wrecked and concreted down,
all to give to China the right to build a factory to make a tech product
which Wisconsin had expressed no need or desire to have.

Berry's accompanying essay on "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine" felt way off. ( )