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as basically pliable. Traditional agriculture, on the other hand, regards the land as having a reality of its own. Farming in this way has the chancy, elusive character of a stochastic art, and indeed it often fails. It is subject to contingencies that do not arise from the will of the farmer, and he must subordinate his intention to them. This was especially so in the days of animal power, but remains true to some degree of traditional agriculture as practiced today. Adam Smith wrote that “the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or oxen, works with instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different upon different occasions. The condition of the materials which he works upon too is as variable as that of the instruments he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment and discretion” (The Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976], Bk. 1, Ch. X, Pt. II, p. 142). Recall George Sturt’s description of similar variability in the work of the wheelwright on p. 41. Traditional agriculture is opportunistic like a conversation; paths forward open up through a dialectic between what one wants and what nature affords. For a richly descriptive account of industrial versus traditional agriculture, see Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his various works, Wendell Berry reflects on how agricultural practices give rise to another sort of rural ecology—a web of human relationships that may be flourishing or impoverished.

8 Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, p. 84.

9 Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1974), p. 32.

10 Ibid., pp. 32-3.

11 Ibid., pp. 33-4.

12 If it is surprising for us to learn that our word “idiot” has an origin in the idea of privacy or self-enclosure, it is surely because our thinking takes place within a horizon shaped by modern philosophy, beginning with Descartes. It was Descartes who insisted on the radically private character of rationality, thereby driving a wedge between reason and ethics.

13 Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, p. 82.

14 Ibid., p. 91.

15 Ibid., p. 88.

16 Hoxie, Scientific Management and Labor, p. 134.

5: The Further Education of a Gearhead

1 The wages of motorcycle mechanics are considerably lower than those of car mechanics. The economics of this are complicated, and made a bit opaque by the fact that it is a touchy matter. I have asked more experienced independent motorcycle mechanics, with shop rates of sixty, seventy, or even eighty dollars per hour (in more expensive, northern and West Coast urban markets), what percentage of time they spend in the shop is billable, and I have never gotten a straight answer.

2 Paul J. Griffiths, “The Vice of Curiosity,” Pro Ecclesia XV/1 (2006), pp. 47-63.

3 Amy Gilbert, “Vigilance and Virtue: In Search of Practical Wisdom,” Culture (Fall 2008), p. 8.

6: The Contradictions of the Cubicle

1 James Poulos, “Some Enchanted Bureaucracy,” Society (May/June 2008), p. 295.

2 Linda Eve Diamond and Harriet Diamond, Teambuilding That Gets Results: Essential Plans and Activities for Creating Effective Teams (Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2007), p. 108.

3 Jonathan Imber offered this perfect phrase in another context.

4 Schumpeter adds in a footnote, “At present this development is viewed by most people from the standpoint of the ideal of making educational facilities of any type available to all who can be induced to use them. This ideal is so strongly held that any doubts about it are almost universally considered to be nothing short of indecent . . .” (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy [1942; New York: Harper-Perennial, 1975], p. 152).

5 In the usage that was once most common, the word “information” denoted a report about the state of the world. It could also mean instructions for altering the world, as in a recipe for beef stew. But in the 1940s, Claude Shannon of Bell Laboratories used it in a new way. His perspective was that of a mathematician who was trying to clarify