So I have two questions.
I'll try to be quick, though.
One of them is kind of silly, but do you
know about relic forests?
The Ice Age passed over and all the trees died,
but so-- there are a few for-- there's one in Arizona,
there's some in--
where the trees don't change from eons and eons ago
and they're--
I guess not.
So--
Yeah, I don't know that term.
Yeah.
OK, never mind, then.
[LAUGHTER] I guess the other-- the more technical question was
just-- so in writing about ecology,
it seems like there are many, many different interests
to balance, and even in just listening
to you covering so much ground.
Do you have any strategies or technical ways
you decide what-- how to prioritize what
you're going to look at first?
I mean, you're here talking about New Harmony
and that's the big focus.
But then there's so many different places
we go within that.
How do you keep it all organized?
Well, I'm sorry.
When you say so many places we go within that,
what do you mean?
Not physical places, maybe, but so many
different ideas or different, like,
key topics, and different people who are invested in the place.
I think it has a lot to do with audience, knowing
who your audience is.
When Wendell Berry first started writing about strip mining
in Kentucky, the very first pieces he wrote,
he quoted the prophet Jeremiah.
And they were very religious in their scope.
And I think he was doing that because--
I mean, he wanted to remind Kentuckians,
who are very conservative religious people,
what's in the Bible that they read or don't read.
And so I think, knowing that audience,
he used religion in a real obvious way.
But when he went to give the Jefferson Lectures
a couple of years ago in DC, and he had Supreme Court
justices in the audience, he didn't talk about religion
at all.
He talked about affection.
The piece was called "It All Turns on Affection."
And I think what he realized--
affection is a much more ecumenical way of uniting
people than religion is.
Religion is fine for certain audiences.
And I've obviously used it to speak to many audiences.
But it obviously has its limitations, too,
and I think Wendell sensed that.
And so I think it does.
It just-- it has a lot to do with who you're talking to.
Thanks, Erik.
That was lovely.
My question goes to the relationship
between highly traumatic, personal subject matter, which
you started with, and writing that in a way,
knowing that kin and friends and others will be reading that.
Can you talk a little bit about the process of self-selection?
I don't want to use the term self-censorship.
But some of us have to think in those terms, as well.
Can you talk a little bit about that,
and knowing what the out-- or not
knowing what the outcome will be when you put something
in the public realm?
I was talking to some nonfiction writers about this today.
And it's something that is a not--
it's something fiction writers don't really have to worry
about because if somebody gets miffed about a character you
create in fiction, you can just say, well,
that's not really you--
that was somebody else.
But in nonfiction, you can't do that.
And so you really have to make these arduous decisions
about what you're willing to live with in terms
of what you put out there.
And I mean, in a lot of ways, I took the cowardly route, which
was I waited until my grandfather was
dead to publish this book.
If I had published it when it was alive--
when he was alive, our relationship would have ended.
I know it would have.
And so I don't know if I would have had the courage to publish
this when he was alive.
I mean, I wasn't ready to.
It was just a bunch of notes when he was alive.
But my-- I was really settling scores in this book.
And that's not the purest impulse in the world to write.
But I mean, just to talk about my grandfather,
I felt like he'd done a lot of damage.
And I felt like I needed to settle that score,
even if it was with a ghost.
When you're writing about people who are still alive and you
know they're going to read your work, that's--
that's really, really-- that's really difficult.
And I see with my students all the time
trying to make that decision because they so badly want
to tell the truth and they want to get the truth on the page.
And then once it's there, how do they, or can they,
deal with the consequences, with the shrapnel
that's going to occur when family members read it?
And it's just-- it's an occupational hazard
for the nonfiction writer.
There's no way around it.
I mean, when you're telling the truth,
there's a real responsibility that goes along with it.
And there's some real heartache that
goes along with it, as well.
I agree.
But I want to challenge you on the word
"cowardice," if I could, briefly.
I guess, what it--
I mean, isn't it-- is reticence also
kind of a form of compassion, too?
I mean, not telling the story while your grandfather is
alive-- isn't that also sort of a form of compassion for him,
as well?
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I would certainly like to see it that way.
I don't-- this story wouldn't have done him any good.
He wouldn't have--
I don't think he would have really
changed his mind, admitted that I was right,
rolled around on the floor like I would have wanted him.
I don't-- you know-- nothing.
So-- yeah, it's--
yeah, I hope so.
[LAUGHTER]
We have time for one more, if there's another question.
Oh, there's one.
You spoke about a reunification with the natural world.
And I'm wondering whether you think that's actually possible
or whether-- whether we like it or not,
we do have dominion over creation,
as the Hebrew Bible would have--?
Well, we do have dominion over creation.
I mean, you can see it in my state more than any state.
I mean, what strip miners have done in Kentucky
is complete dominion.
And they'll-- they'll stand up at hearings and say it.
They'll say it's in the Bible.
We should have dominion.
But it's also interesting-- the thing that really rattles
a strip mine operator more than anything is when a religious
person gets up at this hearing--
at these hearings-- and talks about the "dress and care"
phrase from Genesis.
And I've seen strip miners get so upset
and just say, why can't we leave religion out of this?
Because I think they know, on some level,
that may be the best argument that the other side has.
And the other side is making that argument
for reunification.
It's a really good question.
It's a complicated question.
Yeah, we'll never have--
obviously, we'll never have total reunification.
We'll never return the world to a pre-industrial level.
But I think it's a pregnant metaphor.
I think it's a powerful metaphor that's worth--
and I think it--
there is a Jamesian pragmatism behind it
that does cause people to want to act.
You had a question.
I have two questions.
One, I'll ask you after we're through, if possible,
about Furnace Mountain.
The other is about grace.
And I was wondering if your grandfather never
talked about grace and what you have learned about grace more
recently?
Man, I never-- I shouldn't have asked you to ask a question.
[LAUGHTER]
I should have stopped with this guy.
Um-- I--
I don't think I even understand what grace is.
I would like to, but it's another one of those words
that, when I try to use it, I just
feel myself becoming more and more dishonest.
And it's just-- it's a big, abstract word that I can't--
I can't really do anything with.
And I wish I had a better answer.
You don't remember your grandfather
talking about grace?
I don't remember him talking about grace.
You know, I didn't--
I wasn't at every sermon--
sermon he preached.
I suspect he did.
And maybe that's what--
maybe that's what he was--
he was counting on.
And maybe that's what we should all be counting on.
Thank you for your patience.
Yes, thank you so much.
Thank you for-- thank you for coming out.
[APPLAUSE]