Wikipedia on Wendall Berry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry
Oh, I know, Wikipedia. How droll (dull?). I too have been indoctrinated to frown upon this source, but really, one can find their truth by reading between the lines almost anywhere. And here, I find my truth in the very first line of Wiki's entry:
"Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934 Henry County, Kentucky) is an American man of letters . . .Go ahead, click the link, and see what Wiki says constitutes a "man of letters." Now check out just a bit of what Berry himself has to say about "specialization":
"The specialist withdraws from responsibility for everything not comprehended by his specialty. Each specialization . . . 'has had to resist the insidious charms of aesthetic experience before its own perfection could arise.' But this kind of perfection . . . depends upon the abandonment of all the old ideals of harmony, symmetry, balance, order, in favor of the singular totalitarian ideal of control, which is typically achieved by leaving out or discounting or destroying whatever is not subject to control. Our achievement of this sort of control over certain particles of the Creation has given rise to the supposition that such control is possible on a much grander scale, which would permit us to bring nature and history into line with our intentions. There is no need, I think, to dwell on the moral degeneracy, the spiritual misery, the abuses and wastes of power that are the result of this ambition. . . .
. . . So much said, it remains true that the poet is isolated and specialized and that the old union of beauty, goodness, and truth is broken. It remains true that, as [Edwin] Muir said, 'The public has become one of the subjects of poetry, but is no longer its audience.'
As I said previously, I am a writer and I stalk myself. This is symptomatic, I think, not only of my own narcissism but of a general public "malaise" (Berry, Standing by Words, "The Specialization of Poetry, p.19) — of "Dulness" (Alexander Pope, The Dunciad).
