Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition
Author: Wendell Berry
Translator: Kyong-mi Park
Publisher: Noksaek-pyongnonsa
238 pages | 188*156mm
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| >>>This book is written in Korean only. |
About This Book
From Publishers Weekly
Living for almost 40 years on a family farm in Kentucky has led Berry to
place a high value on local knowledge born of a long and affectionate engagement
of the intellect and imagination with a particular place. To readers of his
poems, novels (Memory of Old Jack, etc.) and essays (The Unsettling of America,
etc.), it will be no surprise that in his latest essay collection, he argues
cogently and passionately against the proposition E.O. Wilson puts forth in
Consilience, that our best hope for preserving the biosphere lies in linking
facts and fact-based theory across disciplines under the hegemony of the natural
sciences. Though a conservationist, like Wilson, Berry strongly believes that
the materialist prescription for what ails usAecologically, culturally and
spirituallyAwill simply bind us more tightly to the often destructive,
profit-driven triad of science, technology and industry. It will also move us
further away, avers Berry, from what he sees as the sense of propriety that
calls on us to base our thoughts and actions on our inescapable interdependency
with the planet's other life forms. Berry also opposes the belief underlying
Consilience, that scientific analysis can ultimately explain everything: "to
reduce the mystery and miracle of life to something that can be figured out is
inevitably to enslave it, make property of it and put it up for sale." In
opposition to this view, Berry proposes evaluating our behavior and work on how
they affect "the health and durability of human and natural communities." To do
that, he contends, we must go beyond Wilson's empirical knowledge to imaginative
knowledgeAto knowing things "intimately, particularly, precisely, gratefully,
reverently, and with affection."
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