(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Wendell Berry

“I conceive a strip miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health—his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order—a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, “hard facts”; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.”

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
Read more quotes from Wendell Berry


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!

1 like
All Members Who Liked This Quote



This Quote Is From

The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry
1,954 ratings, average rating, 193 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag