{"id":348096,"date":"2025-09-15T08:18:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/15\/the-objective-as-read-by-wendell-berry\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T08:18:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:18:54","slug":"the-objective-as-read-by-wendell-berry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/15\/the-objective-as-read-by-wendell-berry\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Objective&#8217; As Read By Wendell Berry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"perfmatters-lazy-youtube\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G2iPPpEFn7U\" data-id=\"G2iPPpEFn7U\" data-query=\"feature=oembed\" onclick=\"perfmattersLazyLoadYouTube(this);\">\n<div><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"YouTube video\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" nopin=\"nopin\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/G2iPPpEFn7U\/hqdefault.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/G2iPPpEFn7U\/hqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"YouTube video\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" nopin=\"nopin\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><noscript><iframe title=\"Look &amp; See -- Exclusive Trailer\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G2iPPpEFn7U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>by <strong>Terry Heick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I recently attended a screening of a documentary on Wendell Berry at the Louisville Speed Art Museum.<\/p>\n<p>Drew Perkins and I took in what was then called \u2018The Seer\u2019 back in July. Now titled \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/lookandseefilm.com\/\">Look and See<\/a>\u201d out of, if I\u2019m not mistaken, Berry\u2019s reluctance to be the centerpiece of the film, by far the most moving bit for me was the opening sequence, where Berry\u2019s sage voice reads his own poem, \u2018The Objective\u2019 against a dizzying and fantastic montage of visuals attempting to reflect some of the bigger ideas in the lines and stanzas.<\/p>\n<p>The switch in title makes sense though, because the documentary is really less about Berry and his work, and more about the realities of modern farming\u2013key themes for sure in Berry\u2019s work, but in the same sense that farms and rustic settings were key themes in Robert Frost\u2019s work: visible, but most powerfully as symbols in pursuit of broader allegories, rather than destinations for meaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">See also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/learning\/humility\/\"><strong>Learning Through Humility<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Anyone who has read any of my own writing knows what an extraordinary influence Berry has been on me as a writer, educator, and father. I created a kind of school model based on his work in 2012 called \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/terry-heick\/inside-out-school-21st-century-learning-model\/\"><strong>The Inside-Out School<\/strong><\/a>,\u2019 have exchanged letters with him, and was even <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/terry-heick\/meeting-wendell-berry\/\">fortunate enough to meet him last year<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Right, so, the film. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/lookandseefilm.com\/order-the-film\">purchase the documentary here<\/a>, and while I think it misses on framing Berry for the widest possible audience, it is a rare look at a very private man and thus I can\u2019t recommend it strongly enough if you\u2019re a reader of Berry.<\/p>\n<p>The problem of combining consumerism (ads, selling DVDs, selling books) isn\u2019t lost on me here, but I\u2019m hoping that the theme and distribution of the message outweigh any inherent (and woeful) irony when all of the pieces here are considered in sum. Also, there is a stanza that seems to be missing from the voice-over that I included in the transcription below.<\/p>\n<p>The poem is taken from \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2l0Z4tC\">A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems<\/a>\u2019 1979-1997 published by Counterpoint Press in 1998.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Objective<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by <strong>Wendell Berry<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the objective\u2013the soil bulldozed, the rock blasted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the planners planned at blank desks set in rows. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I visited the loud factories where the machines were made<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that would drive ever forward toward the objective. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I saw the poisoned river\u2013the mountain cast into the valley;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered footfalls of those <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of those who had died in pursuit of the objective <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and who had long ago forever been forgotten, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">according to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">forget that they have forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Men and women, and children now pursued the objective as if nobody ever had pursued it before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The once-enslaved, the once-oppressed, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were now free to sell themselves to the highest bidder <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and to enter the best paying prisons in pursuit of the objective, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which was the destruction of all enemies,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which was the destruction of all obstacles, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which was to clear the way to victory, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which was to clear the way to promotion, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to salvation, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to progress, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the completed sale, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the signature on the contract, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which was to clear the way to self-realization, to self-creation, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from which nobody who ever wanted to go home would ever get there now, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for every remembered place had been displaced;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">every love unloved,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">every vow unsworn, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">every word unmeant<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to make way for the passage of the crowd of the individuated, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless with their many eyes <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">opened toward the objective which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">having never known where they were going,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">having never known where they came from.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>From \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2l0Z4tC\">A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems<\/a>\u2019 1979-1997, by Wendell Berry, Counterpoint, 1998<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018The Objective\u2019 As Read By Wendell Berry<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/learning-posts\/wendell-berry-objective\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] by Terry Heick I recently attended a screening of a documentary on Wendell Berry at the Louisville Speed Art Museum. Drew Perkins and I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":348097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}