Monday, October 08, 2007
Back to the land
There’s been an undeniable movement in the last few decades of “going back to the land”. I never really knew about it until I had decided to go back to the land myself.
What drives this movement? Why do people want to go back to the land? What could possibly make people want to give up the cushy jobs and lifestyles that we’ve worked for thousands of years to achieve? This year is the first time in history that less than 50% of the world’s population is employed in agriculture. That’s an undeniably good thing, right?
Unquestionably, it’s been a good thing. With increasing technology and industrialization, more people are fed with less effort, achieving several things simultaneously. First and most obviously, more people have more to eat, meaning longer better lives for more people. Second, more people have time to do other things, like service jobs that increase quality of living for everyone, research things like drugs to further increase quality and length of lives, or even work toward further technological sophistication in the agricultural sector, allowing even more people to come in from the fields. It’s no wonder world population increases exponentially. Obviously it should by the very nature of population growth, but only very recently (on a historical time scale) have we really taken the brakes off the growth curve.
Now, people are far more likely to be working in an office, factory, barber shop, grocery store, or something similar than they are to be working in agriculture. Agriculture has grown to the point that it is truly an industry, in that machines costing a significant fraction of a million dollars do a large portion of the work. It is not for the faint of heart.
Now that we’re living in unprecedented luxury, with food and leisure time aplenty, why are some people choosing to go back to the land?
There seem to be several camps, mostly splitting into two broad groups.
The first is the “anti” camp. Anti-consumerism, anti-globalization, anti-industry, etc. You know the types. As far as I can tell, their motives are skin deep - simple teenage rebellion taken as a life’s philosophy. You can identify them by their geodesic domes and patchouli oil.
The second seems a bit more complicated. I think a significant fraction of mankind is just not built to thrive in a flourescently lit cubicle environment where a completely sedentary job is the norm.
Mankind spent the majority of it’s existence hunting, gathering, or farming. Labor under the sun was a way of life, and we evolved to fill that role. As we become sedentary, we get fat, weak, and sickly. As we stare at computer screens all day we get headaches, achy eyes, and an ever growing need for vision correction of some sort.
That’s what modern life does to the body. How about the mind? Rates of depression have skyrocketed in the last few decades. Evidence of previous underdiagnosis? Or evidence of some more fundamental problem with our modern lifestyle? If we were bucking our evolutionary niche, how would that manifest itself?
Clearly not everyone has a problem with office work. Probably not even a majority of people. Possibly not even a very significant minority. But for some, bringing home a paycheck by performing indoor sedentary labor is the fastest way to sap one’s energy and zest for life. Some people just aren’t happy without a good bit of sweat.
One benefit of our modern lifestyle is that our work is generally productive enough to give us a good amount of leisure time and money. Those with the itch to go back to the land can usually scratch it with gardening, hobby farms, or weekend horseback riding. Though not all of us get off so easily.
Comments
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To be very honest I don’t get either choice. The cube or the farm choice leaves me cold. I love being outside and working the ground, as a hobby, the idea of trying to feed my family off those results is a bit terrifying. Feeding the family by working in a cube would not be a problem because I would have swallowed a gun barrel before it ever became an issue.
Dbltap | 10/8/2007 01:29 PM CDT -
I’m fortunate that I get to work from home, but the cubicle thing never really bothered me. It did bother me at first, until my Big Brother had a word with me. I think for a lot of people (and because of the amount of time people spend at work) it is because they define who they are and their life’s value based on what they do, not who they are inside or what they do after work. Decide that your job doesn’t define you, and Voila! no more general fretting about having one.
I came up with a game for it… I would ask myself if someone offered me $200 (or pick the amount people are offering either for a part time gig or a full time job) to sit someplace for X number of hours, would I do it?
If I would be willing to sit there for that amount of money/time without having anything to do, then applying something TO DO to cut down on the boredom seemed like a good deal. If I wasn’t willing to sit there and do nothing for that time/money, then it wasn’t really the job.
Would I do it for free then? Something I loved for free, something I hated (or people I didn’t like) had to have an attractive $$$ amount to compensate.
There’s a wonderful Drew Carey joke where a guy starts moaning about his job and how much he hates it, as if that is something unusual. Drew Carey responds:
You hate your job? Welcome to the club. It is called the “human race.” We have regular meetings. We meet at the bar every Friday.
I like being outside, but the backyard or a car trip is enough. For others, they have to be outside more and define “outside” as something more rugged than I do.
I’m amazed and how much less time I have to work at a job than I did as a consultant. You can’t bill for administrative time as a consultant. I don’t get to set my hours, but I have a lot more free time… it just isn’t at my whim (which I do miss). I hate being structured, but that’s the gig until I figure out something else. The people issues drive me crazy, but that was true with consulting (but I could quit more easily).
Never had any real desire to “get back to the land.” It seems romantic at times, but it is HARD WORK. I do hard work, but it is brain tiring not physically tiring (unless I’m teaching).
Mrs. du Toit | 10/8/2007 06:07 PM CDT -
I wonder if many people want to get back to the land because it’s one of the less capital intensive ways to actually produce something.
People in cubes generally have nothing tangible to point to and say, “I made that.” The secretary to the comptroller of the nail manufacturer in the headquarters 50 miles from the plant just pushes papers. And they don’t use the nails in her city - they use self tapping screws in metal studs in the city buildings. Nothing much to give meaning to the time spent.
Most people can’t afford to set up a factory to make chairs, and if they make the chairs by hand, they can’t sell them for enough to support their family - too much time/piece.
It’s the curse that goes along with Adam Smith’s division of labor.
But if you go back to the land, you can eat some of the stuff you planted, nurtured, and harvested. You can eat the beef from the cattle you raised in the back 40. You have tangible results for your hard work.
Very cool.
Weetabix | 10/10/2007 08:33 PM CDT -
“Tangible results for your hard work.”
That would be wonderful. A long time ago I worked as a janitor during semesters off from college. It was actually satisfying work just for that reason. At the end of the shift, I could look around and say - Yep, I did a damn good job.
I’ll be looking for a new job soon - victim of the global economy - hopefully I’ll find something where I’ll be able to say that again.
clembrewer | 10/12/2007 09:53 AM CDT -
I find that there is a difference between HARD WORK for your body or for your mind, and both can be exhausting.
PHYSICAL Hard Work is something that the body can be trained to do, but only to a certain limit. This “level of exhaustion” is different for different people, depending on your conditioning (are you in shape?), your stamina, and your level of nutrition (are you well fed?)
MENTAL exhaustion is something completely different, at least in how the body reacts to this stress. My own metabolism can handle physical exhaustion better, as long as I allow for proper nutrition and rest. Mental exhaustion is something completely different, and can sometimes rob your body of the rest you need to rejuvinate yourself, to get ready for tomorrow.
I guess the best mix for me would be to exercise my body to a level that will allow for me to be tired enough to get adequate sleep, and also stay in shape, but to also exercise my mind, either through mental work, or learning something new all the time.
I hope this rambling entry makes sense to some of you, because even though I have been raised “in the city/suburb,” I still feel the draw to go “back to the land”cas6039 | 10/13/2007 03:37 PM CDT -
I want to get back to “a little more land” (half an acre or an acre outside city limits), I guess one could say. I’m not going to farm full time or seek autarky, but I’d like about half a dozen or a dozen dwarf apple trees and a small greenhouse like the ones I saw at the county fair.
The apple trees are so I can have early-harvest eaters, late-harvest eaters, some baking apples, and a couple of gallons of cider (not hard cider, plain old cider for the kids and me), instead of having my one big old Golden Delicious where everything ripens at once and half of them get tossed, which makes me sad.
The greenhouse is so we can have salad greens and fresh herbs year round. Salad greens because they, they who are responsible for such things, in the San Joaquin Valley don’t seem to be able to keep the poo out of the romaine.
I think those things plus a sourdough starter and some homemade wine would scratch my itch nicely. Maybe some ducks, if we get a place with a pond.
MiddleAgedKen | 10/17/2007 07:23 PM CDT
