Local and Experienced "Leadership from the Bottom"

Qualities of Nominees
1

WENDELL BERRY:
I’ve been talking for a long time about leadership from the bottom and I’m convinced perfectly that it’s happening and…that leadership consists of people who simply see something that needs to be done and they start doing it.

First things first, leadership from the bottom demands character and integrity. Actions must not only align with words but also speak louder. Leaders must be living examples of health, wholeness, and wisdom, believing in the sacredness of life.

Leadership from the bottom understands words have no currency without action. Especially now, when so much attention has been given to excess words and value placed on followers, likes, and popular opinions. Though words are plenty, action and doers are in short supply. Emerson taught “Every excess causes a defect and every defect causes an excess.” We must see that excess programs, curriculum, podcasts, teaching, and what Kierkegaard called an “upbuilding discourse” have no place to land without real people living in real relationships, and taking real action to be the change in thought, word, and deed in real life.

Leadership from the bottom privately confesses and publicly practices principles and values that honor and strengthen the relationships and connections of all members in a community, including Creation and creatures.

Leading requires presence, discipline, knowledge, wisdom, sacrifice, imagination, affection, courage, and understanding of scale. Leadership demands experience, sobriety (all action), and adherence to the necessary order and progression. Neither the word of God nor the best ideas/policies can take root and grow without Good Soil. Leaders will not offer easy or mass-scale solutions to the daily tasks and personal responsibilities desperately needed by billions of people but work diligently to rebuild the foundation and infrastructure. They will “work tirelessly” to cultivate a space steeped in ancient wisdom, acknowledging and accepting current reality, using their hands and their hearts to honor and strengthen the good that already exists, and looking to a Higher Power to inform the ways to make our own “Terra Preta.”

Leaders must help do the hard and slow work of rebuilding Good Soil. Since, good work and good energy have no direction without the right structure, a flexible container, real relationships, and a living loving local community. Leadership from the bottom stands ready, willing, and prepared to show up, work hard, be humble, remain students, be friends to all, and be good neighbors.

Real leaders will know the need for context to foster reconciliation, restore connection, and reintegrate “individuals” into a community. All efforts must be grounded in Love and guided by affection to gather the scattered pieces. Leaders must work diligently to refresh memory and rebuild trust. Wendell Berry has spoken about renewal for the last 70 years. We should listen to his wisdom.

Writing on rural recovery Berry says “But to be authentic, a true encouragement and a true beginning, this would have to be a resurrection accomplished mainly by the community itself. It would have to be done, not from the outside by the instruction of visiting experts, but from the inside by the ancient rule of neighborliness, by the love of precious things, and by the wish to be at home.”

Leading is a service opportunity dedicated to giving people what they desperately need to recover- a safe place to come and rest. Leadership from the bottom will not see themselves as leaders but as mentors who move humbly to give their experience, strength, and hope to help others remember who they are and become who they are beautifully and wonderfully designed to be.

Leaders will not be “experts” by the current definitions and standards but neighbors committed to the practice of truth and the works of love for all creaturely life. We will see this love in our “leaders” in the ways they live. Consequently, leaders must be willing to be transparent, accessible, and known. They will be good communicators because of their ability to commune with silence and listen to unheard voices.

Albert Einstein is known for saying, “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems”. The top-down “expert” approach does not work. We have seen 50 years of programming fail again and again because programs do not account for the real lives of real people or the passion, practice, and presence required of “leaders” to be the living example needed to teach.

Programs do not have a chance to recover the practices, rituals, traditions, and relationships, or resurrect the millions of communities destroyed by greed and violence. People need each other to know themselves and each other to recover what is good, right, excellent, and true. Only people living face-to-face, and side-by-side can serve people- and be a leader. These are the type of leaders most needed today.

2

I really resonate with so much of what’s being said here. Wendell Berry’s idea of “leadership from the bottom” is exactly what we need in a world overloaded with words, programs, and experts who rarely touch the ground they’re preaching to. But here’s the thing: as much as I love this vision of humble, community-based leadership, we’ve got to acknowledge that we’re up against generations of conditioning that have trained people to defer to authority and wait to be told what to do.

It’s not necessarily in our nature to look outside ourselves for direction, but schooling especially has created that habit. John Taylor Gatto talked about this in Dumbing Us Down—our whole educational system is set up to teach people to follow instructions, to seek validation from authority, and to hold back until someone else gives them permission. This conditioning runs deep, and it impacts how people think, act, and even see themselves as leaders.

To build the kind of “Good Soil” Berry talks about, I think we have to start by helping people break free from this dependency. That’s not an overnight process—it’s a slow, intentional journey of reconnecting people with their own voices, encouraging them to trust their instincts, and creating spaces where they feel safe stepping into their own roles as leaders.

So yes, let’s embrace Berry’s vision of real leadership rooted in love, presence, and community. But let’s also recognize the barriers that keep people from stepping up and work on dismantling them. This way, the “leadership from the bottom” he speaks of can truly grow, not just as an idea but as a lived reality.

3

Hi. Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree with you. My overall point was leaders do not need to be “visiting experts.” Without a doubt, we need help to confront the “cloud of megadeath” and break free from the corporate stranglehold, rebuild infrastructure (schools, businesses, and economies) in our local communites, and cultivate new ways to build culture and character.

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4

Absolutely, I’m 1000% on board with that! My passion is personally in helping dissolve those first 13 years of indoctrination. Are you familiar with John Taylor Gatto and his book Dumbing Us Down? IMO, he perfectly lays out the hidden lessons taught to all children in the current model. I also really appreciate Ivan Illich’s views in his book Deschooling Society.

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5

Thanks, I will check him out. I am not familiar with him. Neil Postman’s “Amusing ourselves to Death” and his other books, along with Wendell Berry and my own experience, have forced me to think through these systems.

6

I’ll look into them, thanks!

Here’s the first chapter of Dumbing Us Down - https://youtu.be/Hedza7U0C_I?si=U65oSZ-ydtOWKzAN

Here’s Deschooling Society - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jrjyemvzZg&t=11426s

I would LOVE to discuss if you listen!!

7

Hi DANND Wendell Berry, good message. I am getting tired of the people at the top asking for donations, but not doing anything. i have written a contract for myself to go into every Junior and Senior High School and set up a 10-15 minute home room daily exercises addressing 5+ things “What Every Child Needs To Be Taught In School” 1) Boundaries 2)Discussion of healthy thinking and feeling 3)God’s Will and Healthy Emotions (4 page copywritten paper) 4) Sex in the New Age (another of my copywritten 4 page papers) 5)Self-defense (MANDT) training teaching them de-escalation and how to protect yourself-without hurting the other person. If I could get a video filming me, other schools could do this with a fee to me to release my copyrights and use the video to set it up. I include 10 free facetime hour consultations and two daylong visits in person. I presented this to the Austin State Capital at Public Education and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee meetings with no interest on their part. Simple cheap solutions don’t seem to resonate, so i am hoping to breakthrough on the federal level. Good luck you guys. I need technology training to figure out this ap/website lol Jo Ann Cauthron