Health is Membership: 25 Years Later

Just over 25 years ago in a speech in Louisville, Kentucky, farmer, poet, critic, and theorist Wendell Berry sought to restore love, healing, wholeness, and health to the lexicon of modern American health care. It is perhaps less remarkable that he did this than that the words themselves had been lost to health care systems at all and replaced with words like efficiency, value, specialization– words that have more to do with business management than with the tasks of healing and care to which health systems are dedicated. Our task in this series is to probe and understand the relevance of Berry’s thinking for health, healing, and healthcare 25 years on from this speech. As we face an America that spends increasing sums on health care with poorer outcomes, Berry’s thinking might just have something to say that can reorient us and help us all flourish.