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On the tragedy of 'absolute loss' in the countryside

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 27

Latest essay on Over the Field explores the theme of loss in the British countryside, especially those losses that we will never get back.

overthefield.substack.com/p/all-that-w...

All That We've Lost

The Little Church That Was Not All That It Seemed...

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

I enjoyed looking round some spectacular half-timbered churches recently in the Staffordshire-Cheshire borderlands.

However, one little church among the three I visited, was engaged in a quite extraordinary form of deception…

thevillagegreen.substack.com/p/the-little...

Half-timbered delights in the Staffordshire-Cheshire borders

thevillagegreen.substack.com

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

“The future is always the heir of the past; the penalty for neglecting, at the right time, prepare it, is to live on the surface of things.” p.7

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

"That presupposes you come to the intellectual life with unselfish motives, not through ambition or foolish vanity. The jingling bells of publicity tempt only frivolous minds." p.6

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

“All roads but one are bad roads for you, since they diverge from the direction in which your action is expected and required.” p.5

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

"Love truth and its fruits of life, for yourself and for others; devote to study and to the profitable use of study the best part of your time and your heart." p.5

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

"The athletes of the mind, like those of the playing field, must be prepared for privations, long training, a sometimes superhuman tenacity. We must give ourselves from the heart, if truth is to give itself to us." p.4

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

“A vocation is not fulfilled by vague reading and a few scattered writings. It requires penetration and continuity and methodical effort so as to attain a fulness of development which will correspond to the call of the Spirit, and to the resources that it has pleased Him to bestow on us” p.3

A Curated Agrarian Reading List

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 21

On the Cultivate Course I am doing at Crosslands Seminary, we are going to read this little book over the next few months. It is densely packed with life-giving wisdom for the writer and the intellectual.

This thread will be an ongoing repository of the wisdom I mine from its pages.

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 20

What are the best books on agrarianism, techno-scepticism, creation care, and rurality?

I give my opinions here:

overthefield.substack.com/p/books-from...

Books From My Shelves

Where Do Farmers Get Their Food From?

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 16

Latest essay is on the broken economics of our food system, based on a quote from H.J. Massingham

overthefield.substack.com/p/where-do-f...

The answer is logical, rational, and ludicrous

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 5

A few more noteworthy mentions. This time with more of an ecological focus. For my writing at thevillagegreen.substack.com

The Living Library Apocalypse

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Aug 5

The top 11 books that define my writing at Over the Field

The best (in my opinion) books on agrarianism, creation care, and rural philosophy.

overthefield.substack.com

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · Jun 13

Intergenerational transfer of precious knowledge is vitally important. And with each passing day, and each passing death of a 'living library', we are running out of time.

overthefield.substack.com/p/the-living...

What will we do when all of the old folk are gone? What precious things will die out with them?

Wisdom From the Agrarians: Humanity struggles to cope with big numbers

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 31

In a world of sometimes overwhelming scale, agrarianism offers a refuge for humanity, where our limits can be embraced and affections realised.

This is what I argued in a recent reflection with some help from Wendell Berry
overthefield.substack.com/p/unfathomab...

Unfathomable Numbers

Our 'Manifest Destiny' is the Soil on Which We Stand

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 24

Spent a few hours yesterday sitting in the presence of a pair of Pied Wagtails. Their ability to catch flying insects mid air (including when they already have a mouthful) is quite extraordinary.

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 22

An essay on what I believe Wendell Berry would say about the whole Martian Manifest Destiny nonsense that was doing the rounds earlier in the year.
#mars #soilhealth

overthefield.substack.com/p/our-manife...

We should protect the planet we already have rather than try to colonise Mars

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 13

Ultimately, the risk of making the problem (or other problems) worse through our simplistic and overly abstract solutions rises.

Once you become aware of this dynamic in modern society you begin to see it everywhere - especially on social media.

A Grim Parable of the Modern Food System

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 13

The ‘popular problem’ (such as water/sewage pollution) is communicated in bitesized chunks and simple facts and figures, and becomes in people’s minds, easy to fix. Nuance and complexity is stripped away, so too are competing/confounding problems and values...

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 13

In his essay, The Total Economy, Wendell Berry notes that though the awareness and publicity of problems is a good and necessary thing, as problems rise in the public consciousness and become ‘popular problems’, this can lead to a new problem - that of oversimplification...

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Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 12

“Power deals efficiently with numbers that affection cannot recognise” - Wendell Berry

However, as this piece shows, power can also deal 'destructively' with numbers affection cannot recognise - as happened when 18,000 cows exploded on a factory farm.
overthefield.substack.com/p/a-grim-par...

18,000 cows went up in smoke but will we learn our lesson?

Hadden Turner @haddenturner.bsky.social · May 1

I imagine if principle was applied, that we would get much wiser, saner, and more appropriate laws and projects - and that politicians and businesses would invest more time providing what the community actually needs and also resolving the externalities that result from their actions.