We noted the passing of Wendell Berry here on September 1, but I didn't go into much introspection on him in relation to us. This omission was, ironically, time caused.
I didn't have time to.
Since Berry's death I've ready comments by people, principally on Twitter, reflecting on how influential Berry was on them. He was certainly influential on me, but not quite in the way that he was on others. Berry wasn't the source of my world view. Rather, what he was was the distiller of it.
I had an Agrarian mindset before I'd ever heard of Berry. I came into Berry, in fact, because I had an agrarian mindset. Indeed, I had an agrarian mindset before I had heard of agrarianism in a philosophical sense. I was really a nascent agrarian by the time I graduated from high school, although only vaguely so.
By the time I had graduated from university as an undergrad, I was a full blown, if undefined, agrarian. What I really wanted to do was to hunt, fish and garden, and be allowed to do so. If I could have, I would have ranched. I didn't have the means to do that, or to make my other goals my present habitus or mode of living, at least in full, although at the time wildgame provided most of my meat, and my father's garden most of my produce. What I didn't have, was a good and steady income and the destruction of the extractive economy, which I was disenchanted with anyhow, kept me from having one. I had already found a literary fellow traveller in the form of Aldo Leopold.
Law school seemed my only option, and so I went.
The Agrarian impulse however only strengthened during that time. Getting out of law school in 1990 I recall telling a friend of mine that I had no ambition, as all I wanted to do was ranch. He told me that didn't mean I had no ambition, that was my ambition. Well, that's one of those insights that is a bit shocking when you first hear it, but it was correct. At that time I still carried a sort of weltanschauung that required me to make something of myself in the eyes of the world, something that had been instilled by my mother.
In spite of starting practicing law, my agrarian world outlook only increased. At that time I discovered the Southern Agrarians somehow, which was mind blowing. For the first time, really, I learned that there others who held the same viewpoints on many things that I did. The Southern Agrarians, who are very problematic on some things, nonetheless really helped define my philosophical worldview to me and I realized that what I was, was an agrarian.
The Southern Agrarians were almost all dead by that point in time. Only Andrew Nelson Lytle was left alive. So the movement seemed to be dead itself, but the arrival of the Internet allowed even a very isolated person such as myself to learn who else was out there. That lead me to Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry. Berry was by far the more influential.
Indeed, Berry took the world out look I had and really distilled it. There were a lot of things I believed but I didn't have the existential nature of defined. Berry did that for me. His influence on how I sese the world was massive.
Distilling my world view didn't stop with Berry. Sometime after discovering him I discovered the Distributist, including Chesterton, and that really completed it, basically. I often say, when there's ears to hear it, that while not all Distributists are Agrarians, all Agrarians are Distributist.
Berry stands in my intellectual formation with Leopold and Chesterton, three men who now are at some lively gathering beyond the veil.
Berry's death is a major and tragic loss for the intellectual life of the nation. Not just agrarianism, but the soul of the United States itself. Berry lived life the way it really should be lead. He was deeply Christian (he was a Baptist) and a man of letters who farmed. He saw America for what it was, what it had become, and what it should return to. He advocated for Christian principles and lived a Christian life, while having a deep land ethic and understanding of the land itself. He urged us to "become native to this place".
I've never really been able to pull off what he lived and advocated. But I may be about to.
Berry, in his youth, was an opponent of the Vietnam War in a region that was likely not opposed to it. His departure comes during the reign of Donald Trump.
Berry, like all true agrarians in contemporary society, likely knew that what he stood for was not going to be adopted by the culture at large. The Southern Agrarians were already lamenting the destruction of the last of agrarianism during the 1930s. The Unsettling of America, a masterpiece, was published in 1977. Particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan, each passing year has made the plight of agrarians worse in this country, as its yielded to an unprincipled culture and greed. Restraints placed on the evolution by the law, which do exist, and by the culture, which also exist but which are greatly weakened, have nearly fallen by the wayside.
Berry was 93 when he died this past week. Donald Trump, suffering from dementia in the Oval Office while nearly ruling as a dictator, is 80 years old. Berry was of the Silent Generation (Leopold was of the Lost Generation). Trump is a Baby Boomer and virtually defines that generation, in spite of what many in it would like to believe.
Berry stood for, and will continue to stand for, the opposite that everything Donald Trump does. He was a sincere Christian deeply in nature and the virtues of self control on al things. Trump is, at best, a faux Christian who stands for destruction and avarice. They represent the two poles that struggle for the soul of the nation, one who would anchor us in a quiet and unassuming harbor, and another who would drag us out into and down under in the tempest.
Wendell Berry, August 5, 1934 – August 31, 2026. May the perpetual light shine upon him.
By Guy Mendes - Guy Mendes, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57041629
The great agrarian philosopher Wendell Berry has died at age 92.
A giant in the agrarian community, and a great intellect, he was an English professor, a novelist, social critic, environmentalist and dedicated Christian pacifist.
Probably more than any other figure, he defined the post World War Two agrarians in the United States.
Back when the Rocky Mountain News was still a thing, they used to run columns by Charley Reese. I didn't always agree with them by any means, Reese was a dyed in wool Confederate Gray Southerner, but they were often quite interesting. I can recall his final column when he noted he was going to retire. On the timing he said something like "when you know, you know".
I'm at that point.
My wife, however, definitely isn't at that point for me, an ongoing source of conflict.
In Wyoming, and maybe in most places, lawyers are admitted to the bar in August for the most part. A second, smaller crops, is admitted in March or so. I was admitted in August, 36 years ago.
Back in September 2025 I started a thread about having passed the 35 year mark but never published it. I was angry about something at the time, pretty clearly, and it was a very bitter posts. I thought better of it and didn't post it, but I didn't wipe it out until recently. I reread it and then did so, even though much of what I wrote in it is still true.
All careers are individual, of course which is what makes career advice so dangerous. I've known people, for instance, who served in the military and absolutely hated it. The entire film M*A*S*H and the television series is, in no small part, based on a hatred of military service, although the book's author, a conservative, ironically did not hate his. The same is true, for what it's worth, of Catch 22. Heller actually admired the military he lampooned. Both books were hugely successful, however, as they not only tapped into the oddities of military life, but also into a hatred of it in some quarters.
In contrast, I've known people who loved it, and I myself liked it.
I note that as I suppose that the law is the same way, maybe all careers are.
That aside, the law is unique and is well known for being so.
The law has an alcoholism and alcohol abuse rate that's far higher than other professions. That isn't the only abusive trait in it, however. It's estimated that something like 60% of lawyers have had in the office sexual infidelities and while I haven't tried to add up percentages, and that percentage seems high, there are indeed a lot of them. The law also has some really screwball personalities in it, although I'm at the point where I now wonder if those personalities became that way due to the law, or entered the law because of it. In my current Gen. Jones stage of life, I'm amazed by the number of burnt out husks of people who won't retire from the law as that's all they have.
I'm not the only one who's noticed that, and a recent conversation is part of what brought me back to this thread. In speaking to an opposing lawyer I've known a long time by phone, on a holiday, he brought up the very things I've noted, this included. Indeed, he noted that for a lot of people, they'd become lawyers, that's what they now were as part of their personality. That's all that's left.
That should never happen, but the law is an all consuming job.
He was actually a bit angry about it. I'm not angry, but I don't want to become one of those people. My friend noted that what he "is", is a hunter and mountain climber. What he "does" is be a lawyer. That's pretty much true for me as well, although I'd substitute outdoorsmen for climber.
He also had the observation that after working years at the law, late nights, early days, weekends, that he and his wife did things together rarely. The pressure of work brought that about. That's pretty much the same story in my own life. Another lawyer I know just had his wife of about 30 years just up and leave him, leaving him wondering why. It seems a "therapist" suggested that, and frankly I have a dim view of most therapist or counsellors, but what I suspect is that the same thing was at work. That fellow had told me not all that long, before the disaster came, that he was never going to retire, because he enjoyed the fellowship of the lawyers.
Well, nothing that we do at work is something "enjoyed" by our spouses, except for perhaps the money. If the lawyer is really one of those ones who enjoys the courtroom combat, or the intellectual challenge, the spouses don't participate in that at all.
Money can matter, however. Yet another lawyer I know, about my same age, is trying to retire but is upset as his wife just can't grasp that the funding burn rate has to stop. I think a lot of lawyers who keep on keeping on face that with a family member or perhaps themselves. From the outside, you know they'd be fine. But to them, or a loved one, the fear of no further income will just drive them into the grave, working. Fears of that type, and not my own, have kept me working for the past four years.
The law is not only an all consuming occupation, it's one that's soul destroying. Many "plaintiffs' lawyers" have really lost their humanity. Not all by any means, but quite a few. They really don't care about the people they represent in many instances. It's one of the thing that makes practicing law so dispiriting and damaging to your own soul. Most of the propaganda that lawyers and law firms of a certain type being there to help people is pure crap. They don't mean it, and everyone inside the law knows that. Simply practicing law, at some point, or perhaps more accurately being in litigation, is participating on a fraud on the public.
I'm told I'm really good at the law. If that's true it's proof you can be good at something that you really don't love. I'm beyond the point of not loving it anymore.
I entered the profession for the same reasons a lot of people do. My earlier career had not worked out and I didn't seem to have any other place to go. I had started off obtaining a very difficult science degree only to graduate into an economy where I was unemployable. This is, I'd note, more common than a person might suppose. There was no family business to step into. What I really wanted to do, and still do, wasn't open to me. Even at that, I hesitated and I chose not to enter the law school class I was admitted into. I waited a year hoping to find work, and didn't. Soldiering was the work that year. I guess I could have chosen to make that a career, and in some ways I"m surprised I didn't.
The last year of my undergraduate degree I tried switch to a different field:
I'd be offered a summer position with them, but not until years later, at which point I was already practicing law and engaged. I've posted on that before.
If 'd had my druthers, which hardly anyone does, I would have have been a rancher. I have been around agriculture which is to say that I would have ranched full time. I came close it without really realizing it after law school right as my father was looking at retiring. We came close to the two of us starting a place, and then he died. I abandoned that particular effort in order to help my mother, who had no such interest. Laster I found she was baffled why I hadn't let her know.
My wife and I have always had cattle, but it's never been a full time thing. Sometimes it's promised to almost be that, but it never has. Now I'm 63 and time has moved on. It's something I'll never recover from. It was one of the goals that kept me at my desk job, and now the goal can't be met.
Time and effort wasted.
There are some things that are quite scary about time moving on, I'll note. Fear of death is not one of them. I constantly hear that people are supposed to be afraid of death, but I've lived pretty close to death my entire life and I'm not. If death arrives before my plans play out, well, so be it. Nobody knows the day nor the hour. Momento mori.
But what has moved on is the opportunity to complete a bunch of things I used to do and be engaged in before I started practicing law. That must show something about my own character, as other lawyers take long vacations and the like, but I don't really seem capable of devoting time to vocations and avocations. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is which. The interest in those pursuits remains, however.
Gone is interest in the law itself. I'm not interested nor fascinated in it. I never loved it in the first place, but I have had over the years a reputation as being a legal scholar. I still get calls from various lawyers about legal situations which are rare or difficult. The difference is that I no longer find them interesting at all.
At one time, seeing as I was a lawyer, I really wanted to be a judge, which is a position for legal scholars, and I've applied within our system a bunch of times, and been encouraged to do so by judges. Now I'm too old, as mandatory retirement is at age 70 and the committee isn't going to appoint somebody at age 63 for a single term. Or I suppose not. To my surprise, they recently almost in fact did that in a district in which very few people were applying for the position. The past two Governors and the Judicial Nominating Committee have pretty much wrecked the process for successful lawyers, so applications are way down.
Indeed, one of my frustrations with the practice of law has been watching the decline of the judicial nominating system, which has grown much more political over the last few decades. When I started out you could really see why various judges got appointed to their positions. When Matt Mead became Governor, however, he had an agenda of appointing women and that's what he was going to do. That was a politically motivated bias and it meant if there was a man up for the same position, he wasn't getting it.
Governor Gordon has had a very strong bias towards prosecutors, although there are some exceptions.
The oncoming Governor, Barlow, will be interesting to watch in this regard. He's a professional himself (veterinarian) and perhaps he'll take a more informed and balanced view.
Anyhow, after 36 years of this, it's time to move on, so I'm moving on. I'll complete this year, but I'm not starting another one.
Indeed, on the topic, I'm capable of reading the signs. The American dream is that you live to age 100 and die in your sleep. You probably aren't going to.
Over the last couple of years I've watched some of the lawyers who are older than me decline pretty seriously in some ways. And I'm declining too. I had colon surgery out of the blue, something that probably could have been averted if I'd had regular colon checkups like you are supposed to. Going through that process I ended up having an odd thing on my thyroid discovered. Half my thyroid ended up coming out, although I probably could have avoided that if I was willing to risk it being nothing, which didn't seem to be a solid risk at the time. Now I have to take pills every day for the first time in my life.
A year ago the eye doctor noted something peculiar in my eye. Last week, on my follow up exam, it was clear it was a tiny cataract It's not a problem yet, but it probably will be in "ten years". I'm young for a cataract, but it's due to an injury.
I've endured a lot of injuries over the years.
I'm considerably more tired than I used to be, and my physical stamina, still pretty good, has declined. I could probably address this as people ought to at my age by exercise, but my schedule is incredibly burdened.
I don't handle stress anywhere near as good as I used to, however, and stress is a killer.
So, in four months, I'm done.
The big challenge now is letting everyone know, and getting my wife to accept it. That part isn't going to be easy at all.
It's not going to be easy as at least my long suffering spouse doesn't want to believe I'm at this point. I've been mentioning it, but when retirement comes up, it's always "you can't". Retirement is, she suggests, a year further in the future than I imagine it.
A year isn't much, but it's a year. I hear all the time that somebody retired and then died, as if retirement killed them. Really, they just hang on too long.
And again, that hanging on is a funny thing. I've watched one lawyer who has no family (divorced) and who has no faith keep on going to work. I guess it's his identify . I mentioned retiring to him once and he scoffed, saying "good luck". Of course, I don't have to pay alimony and I don't take expensive trips.
I've also watched a couple of very ill lawyers hang on after their illness set in. It provided a distraction I guess. Indeed, on the very odd occasion I mention this to anyone people always suggest a law job I could take in retirement, which isn't what I have in mind at all.
In contrast, one lawyer who experienced a health care scare recently, one year younger than me told me that next year was definitely the date. When I expressed doubt, the reply was "watch me".
What you are supposed to say, like Edith Piaf, is that you have no regrets about your career as a lawyer.
I can't say that.
I probably should feel that way. Just yesterday, once again, thinking over the past 36 years I came to the conclusion that with the box I was in, I did the only thing I could do. True or not, and it's probably true, hindsight being 20/20, I'd have avoided the law like the plague if I'd known what it was like. As noted above, I'm sure there are people who look back and say they loved every second of it.
I'm not one of them.
To compound things, I've been in litigation the entire time. That was a mistake, as I'm not well suited for it internally. I'm an introvert and I don't like being in extroverted situations. I just couldn't find a way out of it.
Well, anyhow, page one of the concluding chapter.
So now, I have to start informing people. This isn't going to be fun at all, but knowing myself, if I don't, it won't become real.
I've never liked doing trials. Some lawyers claim to love them, and I suppose they do. There's something in their personalities, a defect really, which requires them to test their wits against other people. Most lawyers don't like doing them, and most of the lawyers who say they do, are lying.
Like baseball players before a game, most lawyers have some sort of ritual before they try a case. At one time, as late as the early 90s, that ritual for quite a few involved heavy drinking. I don't think that's the case so much anymore. Frankly, while conservatives are all worked up about it in some quarters, I think that's one of the things that the massive introduction of women into the law changed, and for the better.
When I get close to trials, I usually rewatch The Wild Bunch. I know that's odd, but I love that movie and I find it very engaging. Part of the reason that I watch it in this context is that the protagonists in the move are basically all mercenaries of a sort. Yes, I know that they're criminals, but still. And there's not one redeeming person in their whole contest.
Everyone who likes movies is familiar with the famous concluding gunbattle of the movie. But that's not the last scene. Former gang member turned bounty hunter Deke Thornton is waiting outside the town gate as evening arrives, having sent the dead bodies of the gang back with the other bounty hunters. Elderly gang member Skyes rides up with Mexican Indians and the following exchange occurs.
Sykes: I didn't expect to find you here.
Deke Thornton: Why not? I sent them back. That's all I said I'd do.
Sykes: They didn't get very far.
Deke Thornton: I figured.
Sykes: What are your plans, now?
Deke Thornton: Drift around down here. Try to stay out of jail.
Sykes: Well, me and the boys got some work to do. You want to come with us? It ain't like it used to be, but it'll do.
That's how I feel about things. I intend to hunt, fish, work cattle, write and put in a garden.
But even if I only do a faction of that stuff, it'll be okay.
While this will aid beef producers, it doesn't address the existential problem of the packing industry monopoly. Breaking that, and particularly breaking that on Distributist principals, would have a massive impact. That won't be happening, however.
Instead, this basically would allow producers to sell their own beef across state lines. While some people will buy beef in that fashion, most people won't, and that doesn't do much at all for the cost of beef sold at restaurants and the like.
As noted, applying the Sherman Anti Trust Act to the meat packing industry would have a real impact. A bigger one would be limiting corporate ownership to a single packing facility.
Small herd size is a problem, but it will take years to address. By that time, given the very small herd size, we may very well be seeing a meat production climate that hasn't existed since the introduction of refrigerated rail cars in 1878. The massive increase in the Western herd during the Civil War and the invention of the refrigerated rail car shifted the American diet from pork to beef. Various factors have been making inroads on beef for years, and the price at the counter, which this will certainly not immediately address, is shifting it once again, and has been for many years.
Whether this will serve as a salve on farmers and ranchers so they can justify voting for a party that has screwed them for years is yet to be seen.
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