The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

by Wendell Berry

Now some biologists, who have striven all their lives to embody perfectly the Rational Mind, have become concerned, even passionately concerned, about the loss of ‘biological diversity,’ and they are determined to do something about it. This is usually presented as a merely logical development from ignorance to realization to action. But so far it is only comedy. The Rational Mind, which has been destroying biological diversity by ‘figuring out’ some things, now proposes to save what is left of biological diversity by ‘figuring out’ some more things. It does what it has always done before: it defines the problem as a big problem calling for a big solution; it calls in the world-class experts; it invokes science, technology, and large grants of money; it propagandizes and organizes and ‘gears up for a major effort.’