Sarah Smarsh on farming and humility

This essay, by the author of Heartland:  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago.  The headline is "What Growing up on a Farm Taught me About Humility." An excerpt follows: 

During those formative years, witnessing death did not desensitize me to the plight of our fellow animals. Rather, life on the farm in general strengthened my reverence for the more-than-human world, which so plainly dictated our lives. While we opened and closed the gates that trapped farm animals, we were often at their mercy.

* * *

We were aware each day, when we entered the pasture to check the water in the stock tank, that even the smallest of the Charolais cattle could beat us in a fight.

* * *

Our humility was not just the result of doing hard, undervalued work. It was also the result of being undervalued people.

* * *

Even as a child, I understood that families like mine, poor rural farmers, were low in the pecking order. Television shows and movies portrayed us as buffoons and hicks, always the butt of the joke.

* * *

We didn’t need those cues to know that society held us in low esteem, though. All we had to do was look at our bank accounts.

We worked the land and killed animals so that others would eat, so that we would afford propane for the winter, and so that the rich, rigged industry we supplied grain to would become a little richer.

The profound humility instilled in me by my upbringing left no room in my worldview for exceptionalism of any sort.

* * *

Ironically, our culture associates eco-consciousness with higher socioeconomic status, as though greater wealth denotes greater character. But in my experience, environmental impacts are most keenly felt and understood by the poor and unheard.

Don't miss the rest of the essay by Smarsh, who is a graceful writer.  It is, at the end of the day, about industrial agriculture and sustainability.