When the Hero Lives

The Ballad of John Henry is a folk song about a strong, hardworking “steel drivin’ man” who could swing a hammer better than any other man on the work crew.  John is admired as a hero, and, when his legacy is threatened by the introduction of a steam drill, he challenges the job foreman that he can drive more steel than the fancy new machine.

In classic folksy man vs. machine style, the steam drill breaks down and John Henry does indeed win the contest.  Listeners are satisfied by the outcome; we all want a reminder that people are significant.  The song is not yet over, though: Exhausted from the futile toil of proving man’s worth over something nonhuman, John Henry dies, leaving behind a widow, and taking with him a glorious ability that was admired by everyone around him.  The steam drill went on to drill another day.

I find the lyrics to be a remarkably accurate portrayal of the plight faced by those who labor.  Work accomplished by people, and with it skill, and knowledge, and heroism, and hardship, and physical prowess, can be easily replaced by something that functions only within blueprinted parameters, cannot know anything, will never be a hero, can never understand hardship, and will never build and improve itself.  If that is better than a person, then what, exactly, is a person?

Those few remaining today who work with their hands and their mind are mired in the same fight portrayed by the song.  We’re competing against a machine and we cannot win because the parameters of mechanical ability far exceed those that can be reasonably accomplished by a person in a day.  Such expanded expectations have spun off and created the economy as we know it, a beast wholly detached from physical human ability, and, thus, the physical limitations of the natural world.

Agriculture, for example, can barely function on a small scale.  Who wants to work in an extremely challenging environment when products arrive in grocery stores for a quarter of their actual value?  I imagine the youth in the fictional working town watching the strong man work to prove his worth, and then die; after witnessing such an event, not one would want to follow in his shoes.  The same goes for farmers: there are many who expend tremendous effort to produce superior products, in this way beating the industrial food machine, but the farm folds when bills can’t be paid.

Children watch their parents toil and decide they’d rather not participate, moving instead into the economy with strong intent to collect some of the profits generated, one way or another, by machines.  As a result, the culture of farming dies.  With it goes an expanded community togetherness that comes from shared certainty that everyone relies on each other, and each of those people rely on the fields and forests immediately surrounding the population. 

Agrarian communities are something I read about, but did not grow up in.  The communities with which I am familiar remind me more of rafts floating atop the geography on which they’re built; the landscape might be valued for its beauty or for its recreational opportunities, including a token mention of food, but not for what it’s worth in regard to natural provision.  There is no meaningful connection, and without the land, life would continue as we expect it to continue, filled with 401ks, insurance rigmarole, vacations, paychecks, new cars, and the nagging desire for a better job that pays more.

There is a glimpse of returning agrarianism with the upswing in local food and local farms.  We must be careful not to treat the trend as if it is a novelty, or it will be snuffed out again as a victim to convenience.  Instead, the reality must be demonstrated as a solution to instability and uncertainty.  I know people who’ve walked through the ruckus of 2020 without missing a beat, simply because they don’t want and don’t use any of the ‘better’ services that were eliminated when government turned off the tap.  Imagine that security expanded to include an entire town, and such a town duplicated across the entire country.  I speculate that widespread anxiety would not be a factor in such a nation.

It’s entirely possible that small farms will become a holdout and a haven as travel precincts and gathering bans solidify into law.  People, crowded as much by regulation as they are by other people, can find solace in open space and a microeconomy provided for and balanced by particular pieces of land.  Maybe families will choose to redirect the vacation fund – now mired by the same regulations as those experienced at home – into a farm fund, used for regular respites to pick up food and enjoy reality, as available only from working people who toil in varied and challenging environments.

If such a shift occurs, the scales will tip in favor of the small farm economy and lessen the threat of the machine.  Those remaining John Henry’s, lifted by relationships with others who’ve decided to care about their efforts, can rewrite the song and live.  The townspeople will have a hero again.  The youth will want involved.  Combined effort, designed to strengthen and improve us all, will bind people together and create something that lasts beyond an entrepreneur’s natural life.

What a good tune.  Turn it up.