"You can't figure out the bag l'm in"

Rod Dreher and I had a rare exchange in the combox over here. I commented on someone else's reporting that Wendell Berry was kind of a globetrotter before he became a staunch localista. My original comment was this:

It's funny that Wendell Berry lived all over the world and writes romantically about people who live in one place their whole life. Not right, not wrong, not good, not evil, not "hypocritical" -- whatever that means... just FUNNY. I hope he makes millions of dollars selling his books and farm produce and has a very happy life. To me he's a very funny guy.

To which Rod responded:

Pauli, I don't think that's fair to Berry. He did live elsewhere as a young man, but chose to move back to his family home in rural Kentucky and take up farming and writing. He could have had a great career had he chosen to stay in New York or in some academic center -- but he had the conviction that he should return home. Why is that wrong? It's an overblown analogy, I concede, but isn't this the same logic that would damn the repentant sinner for urging people to choose to follow Christ, on the grounds that he had his fun, and has no grounds on which to deny the same experience to others?

Anyway, I'd be real surprised if Berry was getting rich off his books, or doing much more than breaking even, if that. The overwhelming majority of books published today lose money.

For what it's worth, Rod Dreher is a much better writer than Wendell Berry. But this was my response to his comment in multi-part format with his remarks in Italics:

Pauli, I don't think that's fair to Berry. He did live elsewhere as a young man, but chose to move back to his family home in rural Kentucky and take up farming and writing.

And there was nothing wrong with what he chose to do.

He could have had a great career had he chosen to stay in New York or in some academic center -- but he had the conviction that he should return home.

Well, it sounds to me like does have a great career. And insofar as he followed his own personal conviction, great.

Why is that wrong?

Re-read my post. I specifically stated that it's not wrong, whatever he did or does.

It's an overblown analogy, I concede, but isn't this the same logic that would damn the repentant sinner for urging people to choose to follow Christ, on the grounds that he had his fun, and has no grounds on which to deny the same experience to others?

It's an overblown analogy because living a bunch of places and then moving back home isn't repenting simply because you haven't sinned to begin with.

Anyway, I'd be real surprised if Berry was getting rich off his books, or doing much more than breaking even, if that. The overwhelming majority of books published today lose money.

OK — my overblown remark was talking about making millions of dollars. My bad. What I mean is that Wendell Berry should live and be well and ride horses and roll his own smokes and have a kick-ass farm. That is his choice.

Judging from what I've read, his material is chock full of over-the-top condemnation of people's lifestyle choices and a tendency to manufacture pharisaical moral dilemmas in a kind of pre-Christian cult of blood and soil. So my main point is still that it is funny to me that he went Bilbo-like off on adventures elsewhere and returned home enlightened. He should certainly suffer all others to choose the same path, or those equally licit.

I then apologized for saying "cult of blood and soil" because of the connotations. But if you want to talk about overblown analogies, the "bloom where you're planted" is a good place to start. Everyone know what it means generally, but the fact remains that people aren't plants. We are made to move around. Some people don't have a family farm to move back to and others are called to serve their fellowman elsewhere.

Well, anyway, this explains it all: