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Tragedy of the Commonwealth and the Vision of Wendell Berry, The
Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Spring 2006 by Stewart, Nathaniel
Berry appears unwilling to acknowledge, however, the implicit meaning of his lament. Were the executives and stockholders, that is, the maligned corporation, to live in the shadow of the mine and witness or experience the uprooting, the avalanche, the polluted water supply, and the wreckage of their birthright, they would be moved and changed and humbled, much as Berry hopes his readers to be. That the corporation is treated like a person for the purposes of law, rights, and duties should not bear the brunt of Berry's ire; rather, his scorn should fall upon any corporate body insofar as it behaves callously, maliciously, or with ambitious ill-will-in short, like some persons.
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This section has critically approached Berry's efforts to save the commonwealth from a tragic demise. It has focused on the ironies, tensions, and deficiencies in his prescriptions for private property, local and intimate knowledge, and protectionism, and his frustration with the corporate person because of the central role they play in his prose and vision for environmental restoration. A rich and provocative writer, Berry's ideas and proposals deserve thoughtful consideration and, where appropriate, a thorough and critical analysis. And this section has attempted to engage Berry and his supporters in an important and ongoing debate over the condition of our environment, our commonwealths, and how we might best preserve them both.
V. CONCLUSION
In the commonwealth, Wendell Berry hears something close to a four-part harmony of agrarian economy, faith, knowledge, and an affectionate respect for land and people. The rise and dominance of industrialization, a progressive and expanding free market founded upon competition, and a citizenry removed from the land and its agriculture, however, have threatened the health of the commonwealth for decades and now its future as well. To save it, Wendell Berry has written poems and essays, novels and short stories extolling the virtues of the agrarian life, one rooted in faith and a profound sense of mutual belonging to the earth. He has advocated limited rights in private property, a moratorium on the folly of corporate ownership and agribusiness, state and federal tariffs to protect local farmers and merchants, and a community-based economy of subsistence. His vision is not a perfect one, though it is hard to conceive that he believes it could be, and his ideas and proposals should be weighed judiciously, for they hold in tension many of our most fundamental understandings and provisions of law and economics. This article only scratches the surface of the rich landscape in Wendell Berry's writing, and, like the farmer-poet has himself acknowledged, "Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told."317
NATHANIEL STEWART[dagger]
[dagger] Roe Fellow in Law at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana. J.D., Case Western Reserve School of Law; M.A., John Carroll University; B.A., Hillsdale College. The author thanks PERC for the funding that made this research possible and is indebted to Jonathan H. Adler, Deanna P. Ducher, Jennifer R. Gowens, and Andrew P. Morriss for their guidance, comments, and patient help in the course of drafting this article. All errors are, of course, the author's. © 2006, Nathaniel Stewart
Copyright Georgetown University Law Center Spring 2006
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