And they could deck themselves in sukebind and mollock
What if all students spent a year working the land before university?
How about, not?
Do we not get the impression that he has a very halcyon vision of what working on the land might involve? I suspect that there are not enough lovely organic farms practising biodynamic agricultural methods to take up anything like the numbers of intending students there are each year and a lot of them would end up working in agribusiness enterprises (which I suppose might be a salutory awakening, or not).
Also, would not much of the work be seasonal? What would they do the rest of the time?
Might there not be objections from the local communities?
I also think of the lack of amenities in many rural parts, e.g. no or inadequate public transport: in the evenings, not in the least worn-out from hours of back-breaking toil for poverty wages, maybe they'll gather round and sing folk songs and dance traditional folk dances and practice folk crafts?
And actually, I don't think this is true: We also know that without contact with nature we will not form an attachment, we will not learn to love it.
See the rise of the notion of the healing powers of nature and the pastoral way of life in Britain as the society became increasingly urbanised, and therefore romanticised the supposedly more simple and harmonious existence of country life.
I have a feeling that people who live close to nature know exactly how dreadful nature can be. Tetanus! Anthrax! entirely natural. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2632478.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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