Conclusion…Part 9 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

16 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 10 of this book is the final chapter and it is titled, The Curious Return of the Small Family Farm. I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter, much like I thoroughly enjoyed the introduction to this book. 

But as I was reading, I kept thinking to myself that I had read it before.  A little research brought me to a blog post I wrote almost six years ago. Agrarianism Reborn was my report on an article by Allan Carlson that appeared in The Intercollegiate Review of Spring 2008. There is a link there to the article.

That 2008 article is pretty much exactly Chapter 10 of this book.

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Anyone who writes a book with "New Agrarian Essays" in the title (or anything akin to that) can expect that I will purchase a copy, and report on the book at this blog. That word… agrarian… is like a magnet to me.

And I'll buy any book Allan Carlson writes because I've read several of his books and I've learned from them. I admire and respect him for his defense of the "natural family." I also greatly appreciate him promoting the agrarian way of life as the ideal for raising a natural family.

Mr. Carlson has long understood and articulated the importance of re-establishing the family economy as a way of strengthening families; as a way of restoring the functionality and vitality of family life that was lost to industrialism.

The first book I read by Allan C. Carlson was From Cottage to Work Station. That book has an excellent quote about the family economy, and I included it in my own book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian...

"Nor is love enough to hold a family together… Meaningful family survival depends on the building and maintenance of a true household economy, one that exists apart from the national and international economies… Toward [this end], both men and women are still called home to relearn and recommit to the deeper meanings of the ancient words husbandry and housewifery."

Also, when I was writing my Deliberate Agrarian book (back in 2005), I agonized a bit over how to define the word, "agrarian." I remember discussing this with Rick Saenz and he advised me to read Allan Carlson's book, The New Agrarian Mind. A copy was on my shelf. I read it carefully, and it was a big help.

So, no doubt about it, I'm a fan of Allan Carlson. But I have to admit that this book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays, disappointed me a bit. I do not regret buying the book and reading it. I learned some things that I didn't know before, and there were some parts of the book that I really enjoyed. But with that title, "New Agrarian Essays," I expected something different. I expected the essays to be a little more "rooted" in the agrarian ideal, and some of them were not rooted quite as deeply as I would have liked.

Part 8 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

16 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 9 of this book is titled "Patriarchs Triumphant?" It is an academic defense of patriarchy. There are a lot of people (men and women alike) who practically recoil in horror when patriarchy is discussed in a positive way. If you are one of those people, you won’t like this chapter.

One definition of patriarchy is  “a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family.”  Modern feminist ideology tells us that patriarchy is a system by which men dominate, control, and oppress women. 

Carlson points out that patriarchy is on the ropes these days, citing the now-defunct Patriarch magazine, which ceased publication back in 2004. Patriarch magazine sought “nothing less than a return to patriarchy, a society led by strong, godly men.”  Without Partiarch magazine, Carlson opines,...“Today’s would-be patriarch now has nowhere to turn for advice and inspiration.”

Well, I happen to be a former reader of Patriarch magazine. In fact, I was introduced to the whole idea of Christian agrarianism reading Patriarch magazine. It was an excellent publication. Any man who wants sound biblical advice and inspiration on the subject of patriarchy (as God designed it) should get a copy of the book Family Man, Family Leader, by Phil Lancaster. Mr Lancaster was the editor of Patriarch magazine.

Besides that, you can read this chapter of Allan Carlson’s book. Mr. Carlson seems to be in his best form when taking on modern feminism (not to be confused with more traditional feminism), and modern feminism is the primary force allied against anything of a patriarchal nature.

An interesting quote from this chapter...

Women are no longer restricted to the domestic hearth, but have the whole society in which to roam and be exploited.

Allan Carlson provides facts and figures to support his contention that the patriarchal order is part of a “rightly ordered world, where the natural complementarity of man and woman finds fulfillment; and where women are most likely to find health, wealth, happiness, and fulfillment.”

Comments like that are guaranteed to drive equity feminists wild. I envision some growling and gnashing of teeth. Here's more...

Women cannot successfully raise children on their own. When they try to do so in large numbers, the results are poverty, violence, and misery (for proof, simply visit the average American urban ghetto). Women need some entity that will help them secure property, gain food and clothing, and control the boys. There are only two practical options: either the private patriarch (who is, in the end, simply a contemporary form of the husbandman found in the agrarian past), a figure who is adept at breadwinning and taming the lads; or the public patriarch (i.e., the welfare state), which provides food stamps, public housing, and day-care subsidies and eventually jails a large share of the lads. The first choice is compatible with health, happiness, wealth creation, and political liberty. The second choice is a sure path to the servile state. Women of the world, there is no third way here: which patriarchy do you choose?

Mr. Carlson does not bring the Bible into this book, and he does not distinguish between different kinds of patriarchy. That being the case, I would like to say that patriarchy as God designed it is not selfish, cruel, overbearing, or oppressive to women. On the contrary, a biblical patriarch loves, protects and sacrifices for the good of his wife and family. 

Furthermore, just as women cannot successfully raise children on their own, I dare say that men cannot successfully raise children on their own either. This "family thing," with one man and one woman, husband and wife, working together to raise their children, is ordained by God. He designed it to work a certain way, and it can be a beautiful thing. That's what I believe. End of sermon.

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Click Here to read the conclusion of this book review.

Part 7 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

Dateline: 16 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 8 of the book is titled Family-Centered Neighborhoods.  The chapter begins with Allan Carlson making the point that "over the grand sweep of human history, in all parts of the world, the normal circumstance was that persons worked and lived in the same place." 

Whether they lived on small farms or they were town dwellers, their homes were places of daily work and productivity, and children were an integral part of this family life. Carlson adds, "we might even say that human beings were created or conditioned for this way of living."

Then came the industrial revolution, and the industrial economy. Traditional economic functions of the home were replaced with new industrial institutions like factories, offices, and schools. "Homes became little more than shared sleeping quarters."

A host of problems followed, most involving questions of family and home: Who will care for the children? What should we do with the aged? How should we treat marriage, which no longer has a firm economic base? How should we accommodate the innate differences between women and men? Why even have children, who instead of being productive helpers have now become expensive luxuries? What sort of living arrangements are best suited to urban-industrial life?

Carlson then explains "the suburban experiment" which "grew out of the nineteenth century conflict between agrarian, village-oriented America and the emerging urban-industrial order."

It turns out that the original suburbs "display[ed] many positive qualities." Although fathers were at their industrial jobs each day, and suburban families were generally displaced from extended family, the mothers were home, the neighborhoods were full of children, and there was a strong sense of community. This was, to some degree, my own experience growing up in a suburban development in the late 1960s.

Then, "starting sometime in the 1960s, the suburbs ceased working well as communities." What happened? Well, families stopped having so many children, "divorces soared," and the number of mothers working outside the home dramatically increased.

The suburban home had been designed around the full-time homemaker. As she disappeared, an eerie silence spread over the daylight ghost towns of late twentieth century suburbia.

Allan Carlson then explains the "socialist model" of housing that emerged in Sweden during the 1930s. This model was translated into America when urban planners tore down old neighborhoods in the cities and built "public housing complexes."

Carlson introduces a couple of "new-urbanism" schemes that are being attempted in an effort "to reclaim at least some aspects of village life, within an urban setting." Then we get to another option… "The Function-Rich Home."

The problem with all the industrial-world planned communities is that they "look for ways to reassemble family homes shorn of productive functions. All accept and accommodate industrialism, rather than challenge it; all accept the weakened, non-productive family as a given."

The truly exciting prospect for the twenty-first century actually lies in the opportunity to undo the industrial revolution at least in certain ways, and to the benefit of the natural family. … As noted at the outset, the authentic village was also a place to work, to make things, and to provide services.

Allan Carlson then explains that this reuniting of home and work and family is "a counter-revolution… already well-advanced in America" as evidenced by the rise in homeschooling, telecommuting, and new home businesses. The internet is a tool that's being used by many to re-create family economies. 

That's something I can sure relate to. I've been advocating this counter revolution here for the past nine years. I've seen this counter revolution grow. And many of you reading this blog are counter revolutionaries.

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Click Here to read Part 8 of this book review.

Part 6 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

Dateline: 15 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 6 of the book is titled Wilhelm Roepke’s Conundrums over the Natural Family, and Chapter 7 is titled Russell Kirk: Northern Agrarian. These chapters serve to introduce each man and his contribution to the political-social-economic discourse.

Wilhelm Roepke (1899-1966) was a German-born, Christian, anti-industrial thinker who understood the importance of property ownership and productive families on the land. Roepke is quoted as follows...

“the industrial worker... can and ought to become at least the proprietor of his own residence and garden... which would provide him with produce from his own land.” This alone would render each family “independent of the tricks of the market with its wage and price complexities and its business fluctuations.”

Indeed, Roepke held an almost religious faith in the transformative power of the private garden. As he wrote, the keeping of a family garden “was not only ‘the purest of human pleasures’ but also offers the indispensable natural foundation for family life and the upbringing of children.”

One of Roepke’s conundrums was a preoccupation with overpopulation; on the one hand, he was an advocate of the natural family while, on the other, he was opposed to big families.

Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was a conservative heavily influenced by Southern agrarian thinking. Here is a quote from Kirk...

To plan effectively the nation’s future we must foster Jeffersonian principles. We must have slow but democratic decisions, sound local government, diffusion of property-owning, taxation as direct as possible, preservation of civil liberties, payment of debts by the generation incurring them... a stable and extensive agriculture... and, above all, stimulation of self-reliance.”

That was written in 1941 and it reflects a true conservative ideaology.

In reading this chapter, I discovered that Russell Kirk was a friend of Richard M. Weaver, another Southern agrarian conservative, and the author of Ideas Have Consequences. Weaver was a deep thinker and a consummate intellectual. His book is one of the hardest I have ever read.

I have made the review of these two chapters brief because neither of them was especially interesting to me (though I found them far more interesting than the one about the Iowa poet, Jay. G. Sigmund). 

There are three chapters left in this book. I hope to read and report on them over the next two days.

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Click Here to go to Part 7 of this book review.

Part 5 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

Dateline: 15 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 4 of the book is titled, Hilaire Belloc’s Servile State. Hilaire Belloc wrote The Servile State in 1912. Of Belloc, Allan Carlson writes...

"Belloc... saw Europe’s High Middle Ages (circa A.D. 1250) as the era when human society embodied moral virtue, good order, and social justice; and they saw philosophical nominalism, scientific logic, and capitalism (properly defined) as the modern enemies of the good society.”

Belloc insisted that the critical parts, or cells, of this good society were productive families, secure in their property. The whole objective of his political economy was to break down the corruptions of modern capitalism and socialism, and re-establish families in working homes set on land in freehold tenure. His models were the artisans and the free peasants of the High Middle Ages, a community held together by the Christian church and a religiously infused aristocracy attentive to its duties. To be understood The Servile State must be read through this lens, one rarely used by Tea Party enthusiasts or talk-show pundits."

The rest of the chapter continues this line of discussion and introduces Belloc’s “distributist alternative.” Distributism is a common theme in Allan Carlson’s political and agrarian writings. Distributism is not capitalism and it is not socialism. It is what’s often referred to as the “third way.” It is an economic system worth understanding. Carlson ends the chapter....

“From Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson to contemporary writers such as Wendell Berry, the linkage of property ownership and a vital home economy to true liberty and security has endured as a basic political vision. Whereas raw capitalism ends up in an unholy alliance with collectivism known as the Servile State, the distributism of Hilaire Belloc would deliver an economy fit for families. Far from being a reactionary medievalist, Belloc may actually represent the most prescient of analysts and guides to a sustainable and child-rich future.”

I find that paragraph mighty compelling.

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Chapter 5 of the book is titled, Bard of the Wapsipinicon: Jay G. Sigmund. It is a biography and introduction to the poetry and prose of a largely forgotten man from Iowa. 

I really bogged down in reading this chapter. I wanted to understand the importance of Jay G. Sigmund and his literary work, but I just couldn’t connect with it. My mind wandered as I read, like it tends to do when I’m sitting through a lackluster Sunday sermon. 

That said, I will freely admit that I am totally unrefined when it comes to most poetry. If you have a mind and a love of the art, I suspect that you will really appreciate learning about Jay G. Sigmund.

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Click Here to read part 6 of this book review.

Part 4 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

15 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 3 of this book is titled The “Good War”: World War II and the Displacement of Community in America. It is about how that war pretty much wiped out the last vestiges of traditional agrarian culture in America. 

Allan Carlson refers to a couple of interesting books in this chapter. One book is The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890—1990, by anthropologist Jane Adams. Carlson writes of Adams’ book...

“As late as 1940, she reports, the agriculture-based economy of this place [Union County, Illinois] was intact. Its family farms specialized in fruits and vegetables sent north for sale in Chicago Small dairy and poultry operations were ubiquitous. The annual collective butchering of hogs remained a community ritual. A few small factories making wooden shipping crates and shoes provided supplements to farm incomes. While strained by the Great Depression, Union County’s towns and villages were still vital, active places; the town squares and local shops busy; the schools full of children. Rural Union County homes “retained their multiple functions as workshop, warehouse, mess hall, dormitory, recreation center, infirmary, and funeral parlor for the farm and the people who worked on it, and women’s and children’s hard work was approvingly contrasted with urban idleness.”

All of this changed with the war as “young adults poured off the land: the men to war and the women to urban offices and factories.” Carlson writes that labor shortages hit the farms and “real horsepower finally gave way to a surge in tractors.” Also, the federal government became more involved in agriculture. Carlson returns to The Transformation of Rural Life...

“Without people being fully aware of it,” writes Adams, “the [Union County] economy shifted from dependence on agriculture and [light] manufacturing to a heavy reliance on government services.” As war factories and government bureaucracies transformed rural women into wage workers, the once creative home economy changed as well. As Adams explains, “they no longer had the time to raise a garden and put up quantities of food.” Industrial food processors in distant places supplanted them.

Speaking of this death of agrarian civilization, Carlson quotes from Wendell Berry...

“[p]eople ... began to move to the cities, and the machines moved from the cities into the fields.”

After two beginning chapters of this book not being directly related to the subject of agrarianism, this chapter was more of an agrarian essay. I enjoyed the historical and cultural perspective (which I have only briefly explained here). I even bought a used copy of Jane Adams’ book (for a dollar) so I could learn more.

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Click Here to read Part 5 of this book review.

Part 3 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

15 February 2014

I am reviewing Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays (Click Here if you would like to begin with Part 1 of this series). 

Chapter 2 of the book is titled The Curious Case of Gender Equality. It is not an agrarian essay. It is about “the ideology known as liberal or equity feminism.” 

Carlson and an informal gathering of fellow historians (including two Pulitzer Prize winners) once identified equity feminism as a possible top contender for the most influential world-view ideology of the 20th century. That’s kind of a surprise, but when you think about it, they might be right. Equity feminism certainly has reshaped “ideas, attitudes and institutions.”

This chapter was kind of fun to read because feminism is not something that very many people disagree with, at least not publicly. To do so invites all sorts of misunderstandings and vehement straw-man arguments. Challenging feminism is, as they say, politically incorrect (and it’s probably more politically incorrect than challenging the notion of “gay” marriage) So I appreciate that Mr. Carlson, a learned man (especially when it comes to such things), is brave enough to state the obvious... men and women are created differently.

For example, the fact that women are equipped with breasts, with which to feed their babies (and men aren’t), is but one obvious difference. Carlson launches into an interesting few paragraphs about how breast feeding has been proven to be incredibly good for the child and the mother, not to mention society as a whole. And yet, he notes that “feminist theorists retain at best a stony silence and at worst an outright hostility toward breastfeeding.”  

Carlson then points out that...

“The core equity feminist dilemma, of course, is that this movement—like all modern ideological movements—is at war with human nature.”

Then he has the unmitigated gall (that’s sarcasm on my part) to state that...

“In the fields of human biology and biochemistry, for example, dramatic findings highlight the important effects of hormonal and psychological differences between women and men: in everything from the functioning of the nervous system and the brain to emotional drives. These lessons, of course, do not teach that one sex is “better” than or “superior” to the other; such claims are at once wrong and irrelevant. The true lesson is the remarkable complimentarity of woman and man; in the creation of families and in the rearing of children, men and women are designed to work together, each bringing special gifts and aptitudes which make the union greater or stronger than the sum of its parts.”

I dare say that most agrarian-minded folks, especially those who have raised a family of their own, would agree with that statement.

Allan Carlson takes a few pages to explain the truly curious political goings-on that led to an event, 50 years ago, when the “American social-political order underwent a seismic shift, and equity-feminism won arguably it’s most important policy victory.”  

You’ll have to read the book yourself to get the story. The lesson I took away from it is that actions have consequences and when government policy and law is involved, the actions often bring powerful culture-changing consequences. Worse than that, the future consequences are often not what those who pushed through the changes would have ever expected.

What is the opposite of feminism?   Allan Carlson says it is maternalism. I never knew that. I like the sound of the word. Maternalism. Yes, I like that. 

I sure am thankful that my mother was a maternalist instead of a feminist. And my grandmothers too. There isn't a doubt in my mind that I am the recipient of the blessings that come into families and lives because of maternalism.

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Click Here to go to Part 4 of this book review

Part 2 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

Dateline: 14 February 2014

In My Previous Blog Post I wrote a review about the introductory chapter of Allan C. Carlson’s new book, The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays. With agrarianism in mind, I thought the introductory chapter was excellent. But Chapter 1 (titled, Creative Destruction) was not what I expected. 

Chapter 1 is about market capitalism and socialism and it’s affect on the family. Carlson discusses several books that address the “conflict between work and family.” This conflict comes when fathers and mothers are working outside the home, and are, therefore, not able to properly care for their families. The conflict between work and family is a clearly recognized problem in our society, but solutions to the problem are not clearly seen.  Carlson shows that the mainstream solutions being offered serve to further strengthen the power of “state capitalism” and the welfare state, while further weakening the “natural” family. 

It is clear that Allan Carlson is no fan of capitalism and what capitalism has done to the family. Here is a pertinent quote:

“The new capitalist economic order and the welfare state grow together. Each picks up functions from the ever-diminishing family household. Business starts by taking over the  production of clothes and shoes; it ends by absorbing family meals (e.g., fast food) and home cleaning (e.g., Merry Maids). The government begins by acquiring education and claiming child protection; it ends by giving care to all who cannot work: the elderly, the sick, preschool children; and even newborns.”

In other words, the industrial order (which is the term I like to use, and it may be synonymous with Carlson’s “capitalist economic order”) has slowly but surely taken over a great many of the functions that were once performed by families and households living in close-knit communities. This has happened (and is continuing to happen) in order to liberate fathers and mothers so they can work outside the home for a wage and better serve the needs of the industrial order.

Mr. Carlson then focuses on what he terms “the quiet burial of the homemaker and full-time mother,” which he blames on “feminist-driven capitalism’s creative destruction of the home.”  That term, "feminist-driven capitalism" is sure to upset a lot of people. Carlson has more to say on this subject in an upcoming chapter.

As I noted above, this first chapter of the book was not what I expected. What I realized in reading this first chapter is that Allan Carlson is, primarily, a social scientist and historian with a keen interest in what he terms the “natural family.” In fact, the main title of this book is “The Natural Family.”  Agrarianism is addressed in the book’s subtitle. I suspect that agrarianism will be presented later in the book as the proper solution to the problems of the family in our modern culture, but Carlson’s main interest appears to be less on agrarianism and more on the family. 

Also, it is clear from reading this chapter (and Mr. Carlson’s other books) that he is an intellectual. As such, his insights and his writings reflect an interest in statistics, obscure data and historical minutia. He takes a methodical approach to making his points. Thus, his books are, for the most part, not what I would call “light reading.” It isn’t necessarily hard to read and follow his writing, but it does require more thought and analysis on the part of the reader than is required for most other books (like, for example, my own book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian).

All of which is to say that, based on the title and description of this book, I suspect a lot of people are going to expect it to be something it isn’t. They are going to expect it to be primarily and largely about agrarianism, and that doesn’t appear to be the case.


Nevertheless, the book does address the family, and families are a fundamental part of any agrarian revival. So I can say that, even though this book is not what I expected (maybe I was hoping too much), it still interests me. I have a lot of respect for Allan Carlson’s insights and the principled, countercultural stand he often takes. So I’m going to continue to read the book and glean what I can from it. And I will continue my report in the next installment of this blog.

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Click Here to read Part 3 of this book review.

Part 1 ofAllan C. Carlson's"The Natural FamilyWhere It Belongs"(a book review)

Dateline: 13 February 2014

I have received my hot-off-the-press copy of Allan C. Carlson’s The Natural Family Where It Belongs: New Agrarian Essays. This is the much-anticipated book that I blogged about (Here) a few weeks ago. It was hard to not immediately drop everything I was doing and just start reading the book. But I held off until the evening. Thus far, I have only read the Foreword and an introductory chapter titled, “The Natural Family at Home.” 

If the introductory chapter, “The Natural Family at Home,” were a sermon (and it could easily be adapted into a sermon) I would have been saying “Amen!” repeatedly, and I would have walked out of church thanking God for such a powerful exposition of fundamental truth. 

I can imagine, though, that “The Natural Family at Home” has been presented to a class as a lecture at Hillsdale college where Allan Carlson is a visiting professor. If it isn’t taught there, it should be. Better yet, this beginning chapter in the book could be adapted into a wonderful homeschool lesson. 

“The Natural Family at Home” presents the necessary elements for a strong, healthy, resilient social structure. First comes the “most crucial social bond” of marriage. Carlson explains that marriage, as a covenant between one man and one woman, for life, is the “foundation on which humans build other social bonds.” Carlson writes...

“Humans instinctively understand that the strength of their community is dependent, in the end, on the strength of their marriages. If the marital institution weakens—or worse, if it is politicized and subordinated to ideology—then the social pathologies of suicide, crime, abuse, poor health, and crippling dependency surely follow. If continued over several generations, these pathologies, born from the decay of wedlock will consume the community itself.”

Carlson states that marriage creates a household, and collected households make up the second tier of “natural social life.” Regarding these households he writes (read this carefully)...

“Successful households are the natural reservoir of liberty. They aim at autonomy or independence, enabling their members to resist oppression, survive economic, social, and political turbulence, and renew the world after troubles have passed. Complete households must have the power to shelter, feed, and clothe their members in the absence of both state and corporate largesse. Such independence from outside agency is the true mark of liberty, making possible in turn the self-government of communities. Households functionally dependent on wages, benefits, and services provided by an outside agency or the state have surrendered a significant portion of their natural liberty, and have accepted a kind of dependency indistinguishable, at its roots, from servanthood. Independence requires that responsible adults in a household be able to forego these forms of support, if necessary, and still be able to ensure the survival of themselves and other household members.

The basic human need for functional independence in food, clothing, and shelter dictates the eternal importance both of a household’s bond to property in land and of husbandry skills. Full autonomy requires the capacity to produce a regular supply of food, and the ability to preserve a substantial share of this bounty for consumption during the adverse seasons. The keeping of grazing and meat-producing animals, supplemented by hunting and fishing, adds further to the independence of households and their ability to survive wars, famines, stock market crashes, depression, inflation, and bad government. In arable climates, intensive cultivation of even a few acres of land can provide the necessary bounty that delivers such autonomy; ten to a hundred acres of soil and timber offer an independence more sure and complete.”

I would love to continue quoting from this introduction but I don’t want to overstep my bounds. If this book were an old and long-out-of print volume, like Liberty Hyde Bailey’s, The Harvest (from which I have recently excerpted long passages at this blog), I would post the whole chapter. It’s that good.

Suffice it to say that Allan Carlson goes on to explain the importance of “functional households” being a place where “responsible patriarchy” operates. 

Responsible patriarchy? Why, it was just a few days ago that I was quoting Liberty Hyde Bailey’s use (in his 1927 book) of the term, “independent patriarchal units” in a discussion about families on the land being a bulwark of freedom.

Allan Carlson has, undoubtedly, read Bailey. But Allen Carlson is a social and cultural historian. He has read far more than L.H. Bailey, and studied the historical evidence to support the validity of what he writes. I find it fascinating.

The third layer of a healthy social order, after the family and household, is the village, town, or neighborhood. Within this layer we find the natural bonds of things like shared religious faith, an extended network of kin, shared ethnicity and common history. 

Carlson also writes of the importance of attachment to the physical and biological environment of a place at this third level. I can’t resist giving another quote at this point...

“This grounding in a small niche of the natural world is vital to the full development of the human personality, and necessary to the attachments which define and hold households and communities together. Deep affection for a place is normally the product of growing up there, whether it be the lake country of Michigan or the soaring mountains of Switzerland. Persons without this sense of native place are left incomplete. They often become perpetual nomads, given to grand visions and ideological constructs designed to fill the emptiness of their hearts.”

That is profoundly insightful and it's a paragraph that I hope to further discuss in a future blog post.

The fourth tier of society is the state, then comes what Carlson calls the “wild card in human social relations,” which is the corporation. Of the corporation he writes...

“The common characteristic of the corporation is the manner in which it transcends the natural social constructs of family, community, state, and nation, by claiming the direct and primal loyalty of individuals. Persons joining the corporation weaken, or in some cases even abandon their bonds to the tiers of natural family order, accepting a new master.”

And there again we see shades of the agrarian writings of Liberty Hyde Bailey that I recently quoted here. Coincidence? I think not. Marriage and traditional family economies (working households), rooted on the land, are fundamental to the agrarian ideal, which is fundamental to freedom. 

To see these contra-industrial understandings clearly expressed in just the introductory chapter of Allan Carlson’s new book is a delight. 

These understandings are critically important to those of us who are looking to restore agrarian-based "islands of freedom" (a term I've borrowed from Kevin Swanson). These islands of freedom consist of families on the land, developing productive, autonomous family economies, to the best of their ability, within the industrial culture we live in.

These understandings, and these agrarian families, represent a way of life that is not only "natural" but biblical. As I've stated many times, I believe the agrarian context is the proper paradigm for Christian life.

Beyond that, these understandings will be especially important in the aftermath of the collapse of the industrialized economic and social structures of Western civilization. 

Thus far, I'm certainly enjoying Allan Carlson's new book, and I haven't even read Chapter 1 yet.

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Click Here to read Part 2 of this book review

The Freedom Contest...Olahoma vs New York

Dateline: 12 February 2014

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You may have heard in the news recently that the governor of my state (New York) has publicly said that anyone who disagrees with him on matters of abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control are “extremists.”  He then said that such extremists “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

It is astounding to realize that people who hold to traditional American understandings about right and wrong are now boldly characterized as “extremists” by scheming, elitists in the political realm. And now the governor of New York has told us that we are not wanted in this state. I have never seen a politician who so blatantly demonized and attacked such a large portion of the people he was elected to serve. 

Andrew Cuomo has more than once disrespected the people of this state by bypassing the accepted democratic process to advance his political agenda. He is a sly political animal. I believe he is a wicked, dangerous man. The hardness of his heart reveals itself not only in his actions but in his countenance. He has presidential aspirations.

Not everyone in New York is a liberal who thinks and walks in lockstep with Andrew Cuomo. Not hardly. I’m here to tell you there are still a lot of God-fearing, freedom-loving folks in New York state. And among those who call themselves conservative, I dare say there are many who would even classify as Richard M. Weaver conservatives.  

In the map of New York State at the top of this page, the green area shows those counties in the state that have passed resolutions against the governor’s gun control law. The red areas show counties that have not passed resolutions against the law. The stars represent municipalities that have, apart from county government, passed their own resolutions against the law. My town has a star.

That picture clearly illustrates a fundamental rural-urban dichotomy that is taking place to some degree in every state in America with large urban populations. The rural areas are politically conservative, while the urban areas are politically liberal. This reality was something that Thomas Jefferson was concerned about and warned against.

Elitist liberal politicians seem to be more emboldened than ever to ignore the concerns of the land-mass-majority conservatives and push through laws that they know the urban masses will support. Rural people are effectually disenfranchised by this alarming reality.

I’ve asked the question before. Where can freedom-loving people go to be free in this country? One thing is for sure.... it’s not New York. My friend Ron Woodburn has recently blogged about the differences in freedom between New York State and Oklahoma. His family has, in recent years, partly moved to Oklahoma from New York, so he has an informed perspective.

You can read Ron’s essay At This Link.

And when you go there, check out the “Bee Soothe” skin balm Ron makes. You won’t find a better all-purpose balm for run-of-the-mill skin irritations. A lot of people I know around these parts have a can of “Bee Soothe” and speak highly of it, myself included.

My Only Interview

Dateline: 11 February 2014

I've decided I should put together a "media page" for this web site…. one of these days.  It's becoming more of a necessity, or so it seems, as I'm getting more requests for interviews. I've explained here a few times in the past that I am not comfortable with spoken interviews. I know this for a fact, Jack, because way back in September of 2003 ( a couple years before I started this blog) I agreed to do a radio interview.

I recently found an online recording of the interview and played it. Marlene listened and afterwards remarked that she remembers I "died a thousand deaths" after I did that interview. I've never heard my wife use that phrase before, but it pretty much sums up how I felt.

After 11 years, the interview doesn't sound as bad to me as it once did. But I can tell you that the conversation was significantly edited to help me out. For example, it doesn't reveal that, upon being asked the first question, my mind went blank and I wasn't sure how to answer it. I stuttered and stumbled and apologetically told the interviewer that I wasn't expecting that question. I felt like a real idiot. And when it was all over, instead of saying "good bye" or "Thanks, it was great talking with you," I just said, "Okay." I was traumatized.

Well, anyway, that was then and I learned a lesson. The lesson I learned is that I really am an idiot when it comes to a spoken interview. I'm only comfortable with the written word, which gives me time to consider and reconsider what I want to communicate.

If any media outlet wants to interview me in writing, and I'm not too busy, I'll oblige. But I'm playing really hard (like pretty much impossible hard) to get when it comes to a spoken interview. 

Did you notice that I wrote "pretty much" before impossible? That right there is the beauty of writing and editing. I originally wrote that paragraph without "pretty much" before impossible, and I thought to myself, hmmmmm, I might change  my mind… someday (but I doubt it, and it won't be anytime soon).

Now, to satisfy your curiosity, I'm going to give you the link to my interview with Lynne Rosetto Kasper, on the NPR radio program, The Splendid Table. It's a mercifully short interview at the very end of the program. When you get to the program, fast forward to 53:50 to get to the start of my interview. Among other things, you will hear Lynne Rosetto Kasper exclaim "Oh, wow!" and "Holy cow!" after opening a jar of my homemade garlic powder. 

Here's The Link

And if you would like to learn how to make your own garlic powder, Click Here.