Wendell Berry when you saw him being interviewed had such a quiet unassuming manner, if you weren't paying that much attention to what he was actually saying. Because the ideas he talked about in his lectures, books and poetry were far from unassuming. They were trenchant and important reflections on the nature and consequences of modern industrialised agriculture. How our relationship with the land and cultivation, through becoming entangled with the agro chemical industry, had lost its sensitivity to the quality of soil, food and health. And what the consequences actually were upon us of how something is grown, upon the health benefits of what we eat and drink. Through the unbridled pursuit of increasing yields and profits, the balance and harmony of man's needs with natures fertility has got seriously out of wack.
Wendell Berry, wasn't some folksy countryman, with a misty eyed nostalgia for the olden days, he was frequently hard hitting, a thoughtful man who examined motivations, saw their outcomes, and in detail would show you what result was meted out upon the health of the soil, the health of animals, the health of rural communities, of humanity and the planet we inhabit. And that breadth of perspective was what made him extraordinarily influential upon the wider organic food movement, ecological campaigners and agrarian movements.
He was certainly not a household name. I'd say most people who saw his death being announced would not have had a clue who he was. The written word was his choice of weapon, the range and style of things that he wrote about was impressive. Yes, he wrote about environmentalism and rural communities, but also novels, longer form non fiction, essays and evocative yet direct poetry. He has had as great, if not more influence as a poet than he has had as an environmental campaigner. As able in the delineation of the state of our inner world as he was in his statements about the outer. Wendell Berry was that very rare individual, who could expertly identify and go straight to the root of the problem, and write about this with such unshowy eloquence, yet heartfelt precision.
For example. There is a video on You Tube where Wendell Berry gives a short lecture on the subject of the politics of gay marriage. His response was to say that what anyone chooses to do with their private life, how they wish to relate to each other as consenting adults, is entirely theirs to decide, and no one else's business. That this should not require sanction or seek approval from anyone, political or otherwise, outside of it. The problem, as he saw it, with treating private things such as marriage as public rights, is that this requires public political interventions into what is essentially a private decision between two people. That any right to marry that is dependent upon political approval, can just as easily be removed by political disapproval. The fundamental thing to defend is your liberty, your freedom to choose whatever you wish for you and your chosen partner, to be able to live your life together however you want, free from outside pressure, need to conform, or any requirement for external approval.
If you want to know a good place to start with his writing then there is an excellent compilation called The World- Ending Fire.
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