HEATHENS, PAGANS & VILLAINS
I refer to Eliot Coleman’s article ‘The Importance of Soil’, in Resurgence & Ecologist Issue 283.
Perhaps one reason why we have become soil destroyers can be traced to the use of our language. Consider these words: Pagan, Heathen, Villain. Not nice names to call anyone. But look at their origins. Pagan is derived from a Latin word meaning ‘the homelands’: the fields of the father and the family. A Pagan worked those fields and cared for the land as his family duty. A Pagan was the one who remained at home caring for the land.
Then we have a snobbery developing between ...
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