The Rural Voice, 1983-04, Page 49Air
HAMPSHIRES
and
SPOTS
Registered R.O.P.
breeding stock
RALPH HENDERSON ,
R.R. 1, Atwood, Ont.
(519) 356-2656
PLETCH
ELECTRIC
WINGHAM
• Residential
• Farm
• Industrial
• Commercial
• Motor Rewinding
• Complete Motor Sales
• Barn exhaust
fans and controls
• Free Estimates
357-1583
PG. 46 THE RURAL VOICE, APRIL 1983
KEITH ROULSTON
How Much
Is Enough?
The report of the Catholic bishops on
the state of the Canadian economy may
do our society a lot of good if it will
just start people thinking, once the
controversy dies down.
The Bishops have been accused of
muddle-headed economic thinking and
of Marxist propaganda but there is
something to brood upon while you're
tediously driving up and down the fields
this spring in their question of what is
our economy set up for. Is our society
set up for profit or for people?
I remember a friend once comparing
our society to a man who goes out to
chop wood so he can heat his house
and keep himself warm. The problem is
that this guy gets hooked on wood -
chopping and the first thing you know
he's got more wood than he needs and
he just keeps chopping. If you want to
carry the analogy a bit further, he could
get so carried away chopping wood that
he tears down his wooden house and
chops it up too. Instead of chopping to
keep the house warm, he's now des-
troyed it.
The question is, how much is enough
for our society? How many more con-
sumer goodies do we need. We now
live in a luxury that kings and queens of
a century ago would have envied. We
may not have liveried servants, but we
have electrical and mechanical servants
who look after our every need, in fact,
our every whim.
But still we keep on working like
mad, crying for more efficiency so we
can make a higher profit. To buy what?
Is Pay -TV really going to add that much
to our life? Is the home computer going
to put an end to all unhappiness?
Compared to the days when I was
growing up on the farm in the fifties,
farmers are immensely better off mater-
ially. Even the wealthiest farmers on
our line were a long piece behind urban
dwellers in the possessions they had in
their house. Today farmers have closed
the gap.
But a price was paid. The farm
population has been slashed. With the
decline of rural population, the rural
way of life has been eroded. Our small
towns no longer offer the services they
once did. Young people can't afford to
get in to the business. Our children
have to be bussed further and further to
school.
And are the farm families left any
happier? Not if I'm hearing right when I
talk to farmers I know. We seem to
have the feeling that if we just have a
little more of this, or a little more of
that, we'll always be happy. But we
won't always be happy no matter what
we have. It's part of our nature that
humans will be happy one day just by
looking at a new-born calf struggle to
its feet or a robin tug a stubborn worm
out of the ground but the farmer can be
depressed the next day no matter how
many luxury goods we have stuffed into
our houses. We have mood cycles and
we can't deny them. We can only try to
make the happy ones last as long as
possible.
It seems to me the most precious gift
farmers have is their independence.
Very few Canadian have that kind of
independence anymore, they've even
forgotten what it can be like. A farmer
doesn't have to worry about a boss, and
he doesn't need to worry about doing
the Mexican hat dance at three in the
morning for fear of waking the apart-
ment dweller downstairs. He doesn't
have to worry about the kids making
too much noise in the backyard for the
neighbours, or about them wandering
uptown and getting into trouble.
A farmer has freedom. Yet more and
more farmers seem to be ready to
follow the example of their city cousins
and trade that freedom for more mate-
rial goods. They are becoming the
employees of banks, machinery com-
panies, and chemical companies.
I used to see Amish families and
wondered how they could be happy
doing without so much. Today, I think I
envy them, for it is they, with few
possessions but lots of freedom, who
have something the rest of us are
missing. ❑