At Ways of Resistance I’ve tried to cover various topics–the ones that interest me most–primarily by wading through popular opinion and forming (at least within myself) some sort of resolution to resist practices and notions that are destructive to people and God’s world. In many ways I’ve come to think of myself as an amateur radical, fumbling my way towards the kind of community that embodies this ethic and incites creativity and conspires alternatives.
Wendell Berry’s clear language and beet-red provocations have helped me along the way more than I probably understand. The quote below is from his essay Compromise, Hell! (2004) and needs only a question to make its connection to my mission obvious: Are we radical enough?
We are destroying our country–I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so.
We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all–by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians–be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so, and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.
How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.
