“Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized.” HumansLittlesGovernmentHuman BeingsUnderstoodInstitutionsGood ThingsComplexesGrantedComplexityAssumptionActivistConceptionFragileLackingIntricateImplicitComplex Systems Book:Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays Source: Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays
“The consumer wants food to be as cheap as possible. The producer wants it to be as expensive as possible. Both want it to involve as little labor as possible. And so the standards of cheapness and convenience, which are irresistibly simplifying and therefore inevitably exploitive, have been substituted for the standard of health (of both people and land), which would enforce consideration of essential complexities.” PeopleWantLittlesHas BeensLandEssentialsStandardsLaborProducersConsumersComplexityExpensiveConsiderationConvenienceCheapness Author:Wendell Berry