There was the information carried by a farmer who looked to the sky and then to the blowing trees or grasses and made a quick decision as to whether or not to make two more rounds before quitting to do chores. tion. At the same time he heads the library committee for his university and is much impressed with the “knowledge explosion,” how much we now know, and how much better educated graduate students are now than they were when he was a student. As do most Americans, he sees Silicon Valley and the computer industry as representing an expansion of knowledge. When I-suggested that there is less total cultural information in the U.S. today than fifty years ago, he did not agree. I was thinking about the cultural information just mentioned, the information that has left the countryside, the kind of information that is a necessary basis for a sustainable agriculture. Of course, there was too much rural ignorance, cruelty, and xenophobia, and no one would want to romanticize that side of humanity of culture. Nevertheless, where we were then was a better takeoff point for where we need to be than where we are now. There was more resilience in the culture at large because more people were on the land. (And though in rural areas it was a “cream and eggs economy” more than a “money economy,” most people in the cities had relatives on farms and therefore had this second economy to fall back The loss of cultural information due to the depopulation of our rural areas is far greater than all the information accumulated by science and technology in the same period. on during hard times.) Because the fabric of community was more intact, ordinary human problems were dealt with more directly, inside the community rather than outside it. Under the watchful eyes of adults, rural teenagers experienced rites of passage, such as putting up hay or canning tomatoes. With those rites of passage largely gone, it’s little wonder that teenage drug and alcohol abuse and teenage suicide are so high. Illustration by Jill Dooley-Michell Illustration & Design, Gail Swanlund Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1988-89 29
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