Essays From West of 98: Contrary

Adopting the unruliness of Wendell Berry's Mad Farmer in defense of rural place and people

“I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my

inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission

to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.”

--Wendell Berry, The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

The word “contrary” has a certain connotation in society. It is not particularly positive. When you visualize a “contrary” person, they are possibly grouchy, negative, or unlikeable. They oppose fresh ideas as a reflex. In the world of community development, they call this the “CAVE” person: Citizen Against Virtually Everything. If you have ever watched the sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” these types of citizens find their way to the microphone at seemingly every town hall or community meeting.¹

But is that the only valid image for a “contrary” person? Enter Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer.² I have previously introduced you to the Mad Farmer. He appears in a series of Berry’s poems and to my knowledge, he is the only recurring fictional character in Berry’s poetry. Is he “mad” because he is a bit crazy or because he is angry? It is hard to say. It might vary from poem to poem. Regardless, the Mad Farmer cannot abide the state of the world around him. He sees foolishness, greed, and ill-conceived priorities running amok wherever he looks. He is troubled and seeks to do something about it.

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You need not be a Berry scholar to figure out that the Mad Farmer is Wendell Berry’s own alter ego of sorts. He is a work of fiction, but only to a point. Berry places the Mad Farmer in exaggerated situations in which the character may behave outlandishly, but the Mad Farmer is quite clearly based on Berry’s view of the world. In one such poem called “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer,” the character announces his intentions to act contrary in every conceivable manner. The poem begins with the lines that I quoted at the opening of the essay, but he becomes even more contrary throughout the poem. He laughs at funerals. He grits his teeth at weddings. He is told to dance and stands still, but then dances once everyone else stands quietly.

English professor Andrew S. Andermatt wrote a fascinating scholarly examination of the character called “Invoking a Calamity of Peace: The Private Revolution of Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer.” He describes the character’s behavior in this poem as deliberately unruly and disobedient, rebelling in meaningful ways as a catalyst for deep-rooted change.

This is how I encountered the Mad Farmer recently, as I read this poem for the umpteenth time. I have rarely been described as unruly and disobedient in my life, except for maybe a few times in elementary school when I would not stop talking or reading. If you consider real-life examples of “unruly” and “disobedient,” you are not likely to include either a lawyer or the elected mayor of a small town in rural Texas. But this is what makes the Mad Farmer’s example so powerful. He is not disobedient and unruly because (to borrow a phrase from the film “The Dark Knight”) he wants to watch the world burn. It is quite the opposite. The Mad Farmer is disobedient and unruly as a contrarian because he cares so deeply about his God, his neighbors, and the world around him. The Mad Farmer sees a society that needs change but is too constrained by conformity to actually change. The Mad Farmer refuses to conform his actions, his faith, his farming practices, his politics, or how he goes about improving the world. If that makes him contrary, so be it.

“When they asked me would I like to contribute

I said no, and when they had collected

more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.”

Our entire society is built around conformity. I do not have enough room to discuss all the reasons why that is the case, but it is. Not all conformity is bad. Conforming to basic rules of decency and natural law are necessary to operate a functional society. Yet, there is a fine line between operating a functional society and demanding conformity within arbitrary boundaries. How often have you encountered someone who was just a little bit…different? Whether it is their hair, their clothes, their ideas, or their general outlook on the world, were you a little bit taken aback? Why? Was it because of something meaningfully problematic or did they simply live beyond an arbitrary set of boundaries in a manner that caused discomfort? The world conditions us to treat conformity as the comfortable default. We view these independent types as a concerning deviation, even if we profess to value independence and raise our children to be independent!

I turned 40 years old this year and I feel less need to conform than ever. Some of that is personal, but much of it is not. The Mad Farmer is no mere contrarian who defies social mores simply to be a jerk. No, the Mad Farmer cares deeply about the world. He revolts against unnecessary conformist attitudes that hold back positive change in the world. That resonates with me.

“When they asked me to join them I wouldn’t,

and then went off by myself and did more

than they would have asked. ‘Well, then,’ they said

‘go and organize the International Brotherhood

of Contraries,’ and I said, ‘Did you finish killing

everybody who was against peace?’ So be it.

I am not ignorant of my roles and responsibilities in life. I have been elected to the office of Mayor four consecutive times by the good people of Stamford. Thanks to marginal writing skills, a bit of persistence, and a big mouth, I have staked out a small reputation on the internet as an advocate for rural places. More people read my newsletters each week. Rural America does not need leaders and advocates who are conformists rolling with the flow and accepting the conventional wisdom of the mainstream. With all due respect, rural America has done just that for decades and our reward is a state of chronic decline.

I do not say that to criticize most rural leaders of the past. Those leaders had a reasonable belief that their state and federal government would not actively cause the demise of rural places. We all possess enough human charity to hope that the people representing us do not actively and irreparably undermine us, right? Yet, I cannot help but ask: if the state and federal governments were intentionally trying to destroy rural communities and drive populations into the cities, what would they be doing differently over the last 75 years?³

Unlike rural leaders of yesteryear, I write today with the benefit of hindsight. Hindsight is still instructive. Rural communities can no longer afford to just continue along the same path and assume our country’s leaders will eventually help us return to prosperity. That would require hoping against all hope, reality, and reason. The national political parties patronize our rural places when they are not mocking or outright ignoring us. It is more likely that the political class would dismantle our places and sell them to the highest bidder than they would come around to a level of genuine support anytime soon.

So what to do? A person could look at all that and easily lapse into despair. The Mad Farmer does not despair, nor does he accept that change is futile. The Mad Farmer rebels against the attitudes that make change seem futile in the first place. The Mad Farmer speaks out. He speaks up. He stands for the good of his place and his people. The Mad Farmer stands tall and loud against anything that would harm that place and those people or hold them back. The Mad Farmer might come across as crazy, but only to the extent that he does not fit with the prevailing conformist views of the mainstream. The Mad Farmer is a contrarian, a disobedient and unruly soul, only because he cares about the things that matter to him and his family the most.

The world needs more contrarians like the Mad Farmer, willing to defend and promote rural places and rural people no matter the seeming futility of that task. At age 40, I find myself becoming a contrarian of just that sort. I am becoming unruly and disobedient of all things that would restrain the prosperity of Stamford and places like it. Rather than accepting that change is futile, I strive to rebel against the attitudes that make it seem futile. Will the world at large understand me? Probably not. I don’t care. As the Mad Farmer says, if it is my destiny, so be it! Will I strive to aggravate and perplex the viewpoints of both political parties in the name of my people and my place? I have only just begun that task! If rural America is to survive and thrive, then it needs contrarian catalysts for change. It needs unruly and disobedient leaders who care more about their people and their place than about mainstream conformity. Rural America needs us to bring the Mad Farmer’s attitude to life.

I don’t know about you, but I choose the way of the Mad Farmer. My people are counting on me.

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James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.

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1. For my money, you can’t beat the guy who shows up and starts a chant at evey town hall meeting. I stand for ham any mayonnaise!

2. The Mad Farmer appears in numerous collections of Berry poems, with his other wide body of poetry works, but “The Mad Farmer Poems” is a slim volume that collects only the poems with the Mad Farmer. It’s one of my favorite Berry texts that I’ve ever purchased and I keep it close at hand for meditations over whichever poem strikes me in a given moment.

3. For more on this sobering point, I would refer you to “The Unsettling of America.”