NOVAE MILITIAE

In Praise of Southern Agrarianism

David Alan Black

The storm this weekend brought a deluge of snow and sleet—and reporters’ clichés. It seems that web essayists are not immune from foot-in-mouth disease either. When I read the offensively-titled essay Mike Tuggle Is A Jackass by Navy Lieutenant Michael Tomlinson, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Among the many inane remarks in the article, particularly pathetic to my ears was the pompous declaration, “We [pro-interventionist Southerners] are now beyond the naive agrarian society that Jefferson pined for.” Well, speak for yourself, Herr Leutnant!

Several years ago, while living in the erstwhile Golden State , I was privileged to do some preaching among the Amish community in central Ohio . I quickly came to respect their culture for its simple, family-oriented wholesomeness. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Amish, and I’d like to share with you (and with the good Lieutenant, if he’s listening) what I’ve learned.

The Amish, being the practical-minded people they are, have classroom instruction only through the eighth grade. In 1968 the state of Wisconsin tried to force Amish residents to formally educate their children through the twelfth grade. Before, the Amish would simply move to another state when faced with such opposition. But the Amish in Wisconsin decided to do a remarkably un-American thing. Rather than sucking their thumbs and resorting to duct-tape seclusion, they fought it out, taking their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Amazingly, the Court ruled in their favor (which surely was a supernatural event), and the Amish retained their freedom. Some Amish enjoy exemptions from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid taxes. After all, to them the care of the elderly is a family and community responsibility (novel idea #1). The Amish do use hospitals and doctors, but they pay as they go. If the patient can’t afford the bill, guess what happens? Members of the community help out (novel idea #2).

The Amish isolate themselves, not from a fear of technology, but from their common-sense “Can Do!” approach to life and a reasonable estimation of what technology can do to their communities. Cars? Because automobiles would spread them out and make it too easy to sink into the popular culture, they don’t own them. Electricity? Because electrical energy would bring the popular culture into their homes, they don’t use it. But the one thing that impressed me the most about the Amish was the fact that they needed almost no government. Independent, self-reliant, competent, skillful—all these adjectives come to mind when I think of these hardy and resilient people. But their lack of government should not be confused with anarchy or lawlessness. The Amish are extremely (I use the adverb deliberately) tightly-knit, peaceful, industrious, and productive. No “Let’s-live-on-the-government-dole” mentality here. At the same time, they’ve had the backbone to stand up to our national government, which routinely uses intimidation and force to enslave its underlings, “We the People.”

At the heart of Amish life is the concept of agrarianism—a concept unknown to me before I abandoned the Left Coast . Agrarianism is a social theory that champions the cause of free-holders of property. Agrarian communities experience a large measure of self-reliance and a high degree of independence. In Colonial America, John Randolph and John Taylor were prominent agrarian advocates, as was our third president, Thomas Jefferson . Agrarians believed that the dependency of city populations and factory laborers bode ill for the country. Their reasoning? Throngs of people in crowded cities sans property easily become manipulated for increasingly wealthy elitists. For very good reason, it was felt that a life of prolonged separation from creation was morally and culturally destructive.

Agrarians, particularly in the South, were opposed to social and economic industrialism, especially in light of what industrialism had done in the North after Lincoln ’s War. Giant corporations and big-government grew to dominate life and culture, and the worship of science and technology began to enshrine a pagan philosophy of progress that devoured all in its path. (Read: Hollywood and the Eastern Establishment.) The twentieth century, however, saw the beginning of a return to the land. The agrarian vision for small, independent farming communities, carefully “husbanding” their own land and actively caring for their own people, was revived.

Stereotypes about agrarianism—such as the one being perpetuated by ill-informed pundits like Tomlinson—still abound. Agrarians don’t believe that everyone should become a farmer. Yet they do note the many social and cultural benefits that derive from strong rural farming communities. Secularists incessantly denigrate the value of farming and small independent rural communities, portraying them as backward, unprogressive hicks who just can’t make it as modern urbanites. The truth is far different. Both Scripture and history indicate that closeness to the soil, plants, and animals is inherently healthy and offers a humble alternative to the smug self-sufficiency of middle-class city life.

Agrarians see population concentrations in urban metropolises as inherently dangerous. Modern cities beget an unhealthy sort of citizen (not to mention night club stampedes). Believe me, I know. I lived in Los Angeles County for 27 years before moving to the rural South. The city-dweller is almost completely dependent upon various governments and corporations to meet his most basic needs, while at the same time being almost totally estranged from nature, except when he takes an occasional vacation to the beach or to the mountains. Life becomes fragmented. Urbanites forget that their very lives depend upon good stewardship of creation. After all, grocery chains do not produce food—they only move it great distances for profit. This became clear to me when we had our first “chicken-pickin” at the farm. (If you don’t know what a chicken pickin is, you’ve been an urbanite too long.)

Five years ago my wife and I said, “Enough is enough!” We relocated to rural North Carolina and bought a mini-ranch that could accommodate our horses, chickens, and goats. Last year we acquired a humble farm in southern Virginia within commuting distance from the seminary where I teach—123 acres of pine forest and cleared fields with a wonderful old farm house and numerous well-kept outbuildings. We are proud and honored to have buried in our cemetery a Confederate soldier who willingly neglected his own interests to answer the bugle call and the roll of the drum. One day I will be buried beside him under the hallowed sod of Virginia .

We spend a good deal of time at the farm and will move there permanently as soon as we finish building our home on the property. (We just had a portable sawmill cut our flooring from our own trees.) We have already found that the farm offers a context for life in all its fullness, that rural settings do indeed foster real community, and that returning to the soil is not “backwards,” despite what some of our friends have inferred (“You’re moving where?”).

We have learned to delight in the wonders and riddles of God’s creation—who needs TV when you can watch goats butting heads, or mother hens clucking to their chicks as they scurry about looking for bugs, or sheep lazily grazing in a pasture? Besides, who has time for TV when there are fields to bush-hog, hay bales to gather, animals to care for, and neighbors to chat with? We are learning to reject Modernism’s worship of science and technology; and we are realizing that nature is a gift of amazing beauty, resilience, and wealth.

No, we haven’t become Amish. Frankly, I don’t have their courage, their ability to endure the simple life with long hours of hard work, or their willingness to forego certain modern conveniences. But we are becoming more and more Amish-like. We have rediscovered the beauty of God’s creation, the joy of tending the land, and the closeness of family, church, and community.

No, country living isn’t perfect. Far from it. But one thing’s for sure. I will never again live in or near the city unless the Lord sends me there as a missionary! City-dweller, you can keep your shopping malls and traffic jams. I am quite content with the naïve agrarian society Jefferson pined for.