“Outrage for Dummies” [continued]
Wolf became party to the legal battle with the farmer responsible and so learned over the years the nitty, gritty, ins and outs of how Iowa politicians and farm groups worked to make this spoiling of the Iowa countryside legal, in the name of keeping Iowa the nation’s #1 hog producing state. This is the most strident part of the book, but also the most personal and human, providing a wonderful counter point to the more historical and philosophical themes in the book.
The second thread of the book is historical and fascinating history at that. Starting with Jefferson and Hamilton, Wolf chronicles the ongoing tension over the decades between America’s agrarian origins and ideals and its growing urban, industrial realities. Arriving at the 1950’s, for example, Wolf shows how the steady and dramatic decline of farmers was in large part the result of carefully planned economic policies, which had the intent to drive farmers into urban areas where they could become a source of cheap labor for America’s factories. The historical context Wolf provides puts the plight of the American farmer today in a very different light, a light that forces one to step back and reflect more deeply on a historical trajectory that neither popular uprisings nor enlightened farm programs nor niche markets have yet been able to change.
It is this invitation to a deeper, philosophical reflection that lies at the heart of the book, which gives the book its title, and which makes it unique among efforts of its kind. For Wolf, the ultimate source of America’s decline in farmers and rural life, lay not simply in the play of power politics or economic upheavals, but rather in the steady loss within western culture of an all encompassing “worldview,” that is, an image of the universe, of society, of the human being and of nature that gives meaning to our lives and direction to our actions. The history of this loss of creative, moral imagination is the most interesting part of this book, partly because Wolf manages to make this erudite topic so tangible and accessible. Wolf shows how the loss in the West of a feeling for the transcendent, for the higher reality of thoughts and ideals has lead to a growing emphasis on rationality and reductionism, and eventually to the triumph of what he calls technique, which Wolf characterizes as a kind of modern all consuming idol of efficiency.
One of the most remarkable thing about The Triumph of Technique, is how all this perspective has been captured in a sparse 120 pages. This book has conscience and courage and depth, but it is also short, accessible, and to the point. This is no 400 page academic argument for a 10% reduction in pesticide use, nor a long winded new age treatise on the loss of matriarchal cultures. The book could and should be read by every college student entering an agriculture related line of study. It can be read in a day if you try. Call it “Outrage for Dummies.” [back]