It is easy to look at a field of corn in Iowa or a massive dairy operation in California and see a success story. We see rows of identical green stalks or stainless steel tanks filled with milk and think: efficiency. But back in 1977, a Kentucky farmer and poet named Wendell Berry looked at that same industrial landscape and saw a catastrophe. He saw a crisis of culture, a crisis of character, and a crisis of agriculture that he famously documented in his seminal work. The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry published nearly fifty years ago wasn't just a book about farming; it was a warning that by industrializing our food, we were effectively dismantling our souls.
Honestly, the book feels like it was written yesterday.
Berry’s core argument is that we’ve stopped being "nurturers" and have become "exploiters." He doesn't pull his punches. To him, an exploiter is someone who sees land as a resource to be used up for profit, while a nurturer is someone who sees land as a sacred trust to be cared for over generations. When we moved from small, diversified family farms to massive, monoculture "agribusiness" operations, we didn't just change how we grew food. We changed how we lived. We unsettled the very foundation of human community.
The Specialist Problem and the Loss of the Whole
One of the most jarring things about reading The Unsettling of America today is how Berry predicted our modern burnout. He talks about "specialists." You know the type. We’re all specialists now. We have a job that does one tiny thing, we buy our food from a store that does another, and we pay someone else to fix our house, entertain us, and educate our kids.
Berry argues that this specialization makes us helpless. It divides the human being into "functions." When we are divided, we become easier to control and easier to sell things to. In the old model of the American farm, a farmer had to be a bit of everything: a vet, a carpenter, a meteorologist, and a soil scientist. They were "whole" people. By moving away from that, Berry suggests we've lost our competence and, by extension, our freedom.
It’s a heavy thought. If you can’t feed yourself or fix the things you own, are you actually free? Or are you just a consumer waiting for the next software update or shipping notification?
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Agribusiness vs. The Culture of Agriculture
The shift Berry tracks is the move from "agriculture" (a culture of the land) to "agribusiness" (the business of the land). He specifically calls out the policies of Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon and Ford. Butz famously told farmers to "get big or get out." He wanted fields planted "fence row to fence row."
The result? We got very good at producing cheap calories. But we got very bad at maintaining the health of the soil and the health of rural towns.
What we lost in the trade-off:
- Topsoil: We started treating soil like dirt. Instead of building it up with compost and crop rotation, we pumped it full of chemicals. Berry points out that you can't treat a living thing like a machine without breaking it.
- Community: When a machine can do the work of ten families, nine families have to leave. This is why so many small towns in the Midwest and South look like ghost towns today. The "unsettling" wasn't just metaphorical; it was a physical displacement of people from their homes.
- Health: Berry was one of the first to link the way we farm to the way we feel. If the land is sick, the food is poor, and the people eating it eventually get sick too. It's a closed loop.
The "Marginal" People and the Moral Crisis
There is a section in the book that focuses on how we treat "marginal" people—the elderly, the poor, the small-scale workers. Berry argues that in an industrial system, anything that isn't "efficient" is seen as waste. If a 70-year-old farmer can't keep up with a multi-million dollar tractor, the system sees that farmer as obsolete.
But Berry asks: what is the value of that person’s memory? What is the value of their connection to that specific hillside?
He suggests that our modern "unsettling" has created a nomadic culture. We move for jobs, we live in houses we don't plan to die in, and we have no roots. Because we have no roots, we don't care what happens to the land once we’re gone. It’s the ultimate "not my problem" mentality. He contrasts this with the Amish, whom he admires deeply. Not because he wants everyone to drive buggies, but because the Amish have a culture that prioritizes the health of the community and the land over the speed of the technology.
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Why This Matters in the Age of AI and Climate Change
You might think a book from 1977 about tractors and topsoil is outdated. You’d be wrong.
Basically, we are seeing the "unsettling" reach its final form. We are now talking about "unsettling" the human mind through generative AI and "unsettling" the entire planet’s rhythm through climate change. The logic is the same: the pursuit of efficiency and profit at the expense of everything else.
Berry’s solution isn't a massive government program or a new app. It’s "localism." It’s the idea that the only way to save the world is to save your specific "little bit" of it. If you care for your backyard, your neighborhood, and your local farmers, you are resisting the unsettling.
It’s about "the art of husbandry." That’s a word we don't use much anymore. To husband something is to use it with care, to make it last, to keep it beautiful. It’s the opposite of "consuming."
Actionable Steps to "Resettle" Your Life
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the industrial machine, Berry’s work actually offers a very practical, if difficult, roadmap. You don’t have to move to a 40-acre farm in Kentucky to start.
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1. Shorten your supply chain. Start with one thing. Maybe it’s eggs. Find a person near you who has chickens. Buy your eggs from them. You’re not just getting better food; you’re reinvesting in a neighbor. You're becoming a "participant" instead of just a consumer.
2. Learn a "whole" skill. Stop outsourcing everything. Learn to bake bread, fix a leaky faucet, or grow a tomato in a pot on your balcony. These small acts of competence are a direct strike against the "specialist" trap Berry warns about. They remind you that you are a capable human being.
3. Stay put, if you can. Commitment to a place is a radical act. When you know you’re going to be in a neighborhood for twenty years, you start caring about the local park, the school board, and the trees. You stop being a nomad and start being a citizen.
4. Read the book slowly. Don't skim it for "takeaways." Read it like a long conversation with a grumpy, brilliant uncle. It’s meant to be chewed on.
5. Question "Efficiency." The next time someone tells you a new technology is better because it’s "faster" or "cheaper," ask: what is it replacing? What is the human cost? What does this do to the community?
The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry wrote about is still happening. It’s in our grocery aisles, our scrolling habits, and our empty rural counties. But the "settling" can happen too. It starts with the realization that the earth is not a machine, and neither are we. We are biological creatures who need healthy soil, clean water, and real, physical communities to thrive.
Everything else is just agribusiness.