To Have and Have Not: The New Equal Rights

As you may have gathered from my reading list, I’ve been bingeing on Wendell Berry’s poetry. He writes transcendently about place, nature, farming, food, land conservation, and life cycles. If you’re unfamiliar with this Kentucky icon, I encourage you to get acquainted with him. (Start with Mark Bittman’s overview in Humanities, “The Thing (or Things) About Wendell Berry,” or read Berry’s 2012 Jefferson Lecture, “It All Turns on Affection.”)

Here’s a snippet from “The Reassurer,” published in Berry’s 1994 Entries. It made me chuckle when I read it because it might just as well have been written today.

from his smile they understand that the fortunate have
a right to their fortunes, that the unfortunate have
a right to their misfortunes, and that these are
equal rights.