Reviews for Citizenship Papers

The average rating for Citizenship Papers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-10 00:00:00 Matthew Rigney I have never read anything by Berry before. This was my intro. It was very easy to pick out his general stance on a variety of topics (movement toward localized economy, pacifism, less government regulation in regard to agriculture, etc) within the first 30 pages of the book. As a collection of essays, it's difficult to move into any kind of solutions to the noticeable problems that he's stated, but everything after the first 50 pages is redundant. In the first essay of the book, he brings up the serious issue of ambiguous concerns and goals located in The National Security Strategy without any identifiable objectives. ("We will...expand the sources and types of global energy...", "Our overall objective is to reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions relative to the size of our economy"). This is a concern because it is not really saying anything. How we will we accomplish any of these things? Since Berry has also noticed how vague these ideas are and spends a considerable amount of time complaining about it, one would think that he would come up with listed solutions to many of his noted problems. Throughout the book he expands on his thoughts and what he would like to see as accomplished goals. I found many of the statements to fall into a similar trap that he has noted in the National Security Strategy. ("We should protect every intact ecosystem and watershed that we have left, and begin restoration of those that have been damaged." How?!) I can agree on many of his viewpoints. I have a very large interest in sustainable agriculture and do agree that while we should not be an isolationist nation, we need to move toward more localized goods if we want sustainability in our food supply and economic security. I also agree with his stance on trading our freedoms in the name of supposed national security, the paradox of war to achieve peace, and the threat of biotechnology in agriculture, human health, and the farming economy. He makes a few very good points in all of these areas, but I do agree with what another reviewer has stated in that he comes across as a college student articulating his idea of utopia without any support. It's just broad generalizations and vague goals. I was also not aware of his very conservative stance in regards to women's choice previous to reading this and was extremely offended. In one passage, he draws a comparison between women who choose abortion and the act of murdering innocent civilians through war and the institution of capital punishment. "Abortion-as-birth-control is justified as a "right," which can establish itself only by denying all the rights of another person, which is the most primitive intent of warfare...Acts of violence committed in "justice" or in affirmation of "rights" or in defense of "peace" do not end violence. They prepare and justify its continuation." "If a government perceives that some causes are so important as to justify the killing of children, how can it hope to prevent the contagion of its logic from spreading to its citizens-or to its citizens' children? If you so devalue human life that the accidentally conceived unborn may be permissibly killed, how do you keep that permission from being assumed by someone who has made the same judgement against the born?" After apparent anger over these statements, he includes a postscript... "As for the "right to control one's own body," I am all for that. But implicit in that right is the responsibility to control one's body in such a way as to avoid dealing irresponsibly or violently or murderously with other bodies. Women and men generally have understood that when they have conceived a child they have relinquished a significant measure of their independence, and that henceforth they must control their bodies in the interest of the child." All of these statements are extremely offensive. It places women on the same pedestal as warmongers who devalue human life, rather than women who are making extremely difficult choices for the best interest of the child and the woman. I found the postscript even more offensive than the original essay. Once again, a male is assuming that the woman is irresponsible for being pregnant. Let's consider a condom breaking or even a rape happening. Or being unable to afford the morning after pill. Is the woman still considered irresponsible? Women and men have not always had to relinquish their independence in the name of a pregnancy. First, men have never had to relinquish their independence. History has shown that if men don't want a child, they can just abandon the pregnant woman and place the blame on her. Women throughout history have gone through unsafe abortions or abandoned their children because they have been unable to cope. It's much more rational to assume that life happens and sex is a natural condition of being human and have a safe option so that women can make an intelligent decision. But, Berry assumes that a fetus is equivalent to an actual child. I am not here to argue his belief on the fetus as person debate, but I had a lot of difficulty even continuing to read because I knew of his viewpoint on women and could not fathom anyone arguing that choosing an abortion in the best interest of a child was equivalent to violent murder through the act of warfare by government.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-28 00:00:00 Lucien Breault I have been meaning to read this book for a few years. I picked it up on someone else's coffee table and thought "oh this is for me". But I didn't get around to it until last week and now I'm grateful I came back to it when I did. A good introduction to Berry's Agrarian ideals, but also surprisingly, bizarrely, sadly resonant essays written in response to America's overreach after 9/11 that feel like they could have been written this week. This will probably be one of those books I randomly send to people because, really, you should just read it.