The one thing I want to share at this time is actually a quote that was referenced by one of the keynote speakers at the conference. One of the keynote presentations was titled What We Learned Making GMO OMG by Jeremy Seifert and Joshua Kunau. The duo recently made a documentary movie titled GMO OMG that will be released later this year. During the presentation, the audience got to see a sneak peak at some scenes from the new movie. I'm really excited to see the entire movie when it does get released! The URL for this film is: www.gmofilm.com. Anyhow, at one point during the keynote presentation, Jeremy explained one of his personal motivations for making the movie -- a quote from Wendell Berry's book The Unsettling of America. The quote is sometimes referred to as The Exploiter -vs- Nurturer. Here is a URL with more information about Wendell Berry: www.wendellberrybooks.com.
These words from Wendell Berry hit me hard. I find the Exploiter -vs- Nurturer concept he describes to be deeply profound. This concept describes many, many internal (and external) conflicts that I've been dealing with when I try to understand who I am, what I stand for, why I do what I do, and what I want to do with the rest of my lifetime. It's like a light bulb was just turned on for me!
Here is the passage from the beginning of The Unsettling of America (HD1761 .B47):
We can understand a great deal of our history... by thinking of ourselves as divided into conquerors and victims. in order to understand our own time and predicament and the work that is to be done, we would do well to shift the terms and say that we are divided between exploitation and nurture...
Let me outline as briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds of mind. I conceive the strip-miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health --his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order --a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind. (pp 7-8)I think each and every one of us has both the exploiter and nurturer within us. I ask, which is dominant? When? Why?
I think that much of our society can be boiled down to the blend of exploitation and nurture as well. Is it in balance? Think about Republicans, Democrats, Monsanto, McDonald's, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, artists, vendors, musicians, Uranium mining, XL Pipeline, TV programming, commercials, advertising, school systems, scientists, men, women, children, and on and on. It seems that much of our society encourages exploitation more than nurture. Could this be true? Should this be true?
I generally don't make New Years' resolutions, because in part, I find it difficult to identify a worthy goal that is truly meaningful. But now I have one. My resolution is to strive toward a mindset of a Nurturer. Not only for this year, but more.
Rick Grosek
Bear Butte Gardens
Sturgis, SD
www.bearbuttegardens.com
Rick@BearButteGardens.com
