Wendell Berry Reading Group No. 6 - Quantity Versus Form (part one)

Quantity over quality seems to be the message of the day - but should it be?

Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash

Welcome to the sixth Wendell Berry Reading Group. We are making our way through essays from The World Ending Fire, and this time we are looking at a short but incredibly ‘wisdom-dense’ essay ‘Quantity verses form’. It may be a short essay, but there is so much in here that I will split this into two posts - one focusing on the human/medicine part of the essay and the second focusing on the agricultural application - Berry’s essay is spilt neatly into these two sections which aids treating both separately. For new subscribers, you can find the previous WBRGs here. These posts are for paid subscribers (but I give everyone a free preview of the first few questions). If you would like to subscribe to access all these posts, you can do so by clicking subscribe below (and if you are financially pressed at this time of economic uncertainty you can find a discount link on the Wendell Berry Reading Group tab on my homepage or the shortcut here):

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Essay Summary (part one)

We live in a world that is enamoured with what can be measured and quantified. Largely this pertains to our societal love for growth - economic and productivity growth, performance enhancement, and measurable achievements that we can look back on. Wendell Berry in this essay critiques our infatuation with growth and advocates for an emphasis on ‘form over quantity’. The well-formed life that has reached a stage of ‘ripeness’ Berry says, should be our goal not mere growth in quantifiable longevity. Along the way, Berry highlights the fallacy behind our focus on longevity and medicine’s ultimate aim to keep people alive as long as possible even when it counterintuitive/prolonging unnecessary suffering, and introduces the ingenious concept of ‘cultural humus’ as something we pass on to future generations. In short, Berry is forcing us to question entrenched beliefs concerning the value of longevity and life expectancy statistics and instead pleads with us to consider the ‘Good Life’ alternative which is not dependent on life-duration, but life-fulfilment.

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Guided reading questions and reflections

These questions (split into sub-questions) are for you either to work through systematically or for you to pick and choose which questions to focus on.

1. Berry opens this essay by retelling the story of ‘Lily’ - a woman who he came to greatly admire for her neighbourliness and generosity. He introduces her to us when she is near the end of her life, having just sold off all her worldly possessions. Her response? - “But, yes it is a load of my mind.” Why do you think Lily was able to describe this event as a weight being lifted? How are our possessions/the keeping of them burdensome to us?¹

2. We then come to the final days of this graceful woman who so impressed Berry. Here Berry lambasts the attitude of the doctor who took Lily off her pain medications in the hope of encouraging her to get back on her feet (even when this looked extremely unlikely). Berry argues this merely prolonged unnecessary suffering in a life already well spent and at its fitting end. Do you agree with Berry that the doctor was at fault here? How does the difference between ‘life expectancy’ and ‘healthy life expectancy’ influence your view? What is the difference between what Berry is arguing for and assisted suicide?

3. The difference between ‘life expectancy’ and a ‘healthy life expectancy’ starts to engage with the main argument of this essay: that there is a fundamental difference between mere quantity (life expectancy or longevity) and quality or form (healthy life expectancy). To use Berry’s terms, the contrast between a long life with a complete life. However, in the modern age there is further issue we need to reckon with - the transhumanist desire to defeat death. (See my essay here on this topic). Do you agree that this is a highly problematic (and futile) ambition? If so, why (especially think of how the difference between quality and quantity intersects with this ambition).

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   Paid subscriber questions, reflections and explanatory notes