Since the early 1970’s, Maynard Kaufman has been a known to many of us as a fiend, farmer, activist, mentor, author, orator, organizer, innovator, and a thoughtful, humble, enigmatic individual. To truly appreciate his contributions, however, it is also important to know a little bit about how he came to be all of these things.
Born in 1929 on a farm in South Dakota, Maynard left his agricultural roots as a young man to pursue a different kind of life. Although he would return to farming many years later, he “…certainly had to leave the farm first…and move to the city and get an education” (Personal Interview, 4/17/06). He studied English and Philosophy at Bethel College in Kansas, before going on to earn his M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion and Literature from the University of Chicago Divinity School. In 1963 he became a Faculty Member in the Religion Department at Western Michigan University where he was quite successful as an academic, publishing a number of scholarly articles, attending conferences, and receiving special recognition for his hands-on teaching methods and involvement with students outside of the classroom. He would later reflect that “…learning is a process that involves both mind and body, that hands-on activity [is] not an alternative to learning but a vital component of the learning process” (Kaufman 2004).
At the same time that he was proving himself a capable scholar and educator, Maynard moved to a small farm in the country with his wife Sally and their 6 children in 1967. It was here that he began to rediscover his agricultural roots, and rebuild his connection to the land. Maynard’s brother, a minister, once wrote that “Maynard went to the university and became an academic, but he couldn’t get the farm out of his system” (Personal interview, 4/17/06). Over a period of several years, he and Sally worked to hone their farming skills with diligence and passion. Influenced by the cultural changes of the 1960’s, Maynard began experimenting with organic farming, and as his ideas gradually shifted, so too did his academic interests. In 1971 he was active in develop an Environmental Studies Program at WMU, and in 1971 spent a sabbatical leave with his wife Sally ‘studying’ communes throughout the US and Canada. This project eventually culminated in the publication of a particularly successful essay entitled The New Homesteading Movement: From Utopia to Eutopia (Kaufman 1972), which was reprinted in a number of sources.
The essay formed the scholarly rationale for the development of a ‘School of Homesteading’, which he proposed to WMU in January of 1972 (Kaufman 1972b). During his sabbatical, Maynard had recognized the need for the development of practical farming skills within the new back-to-land movement, and “had been in contact with a growing number of young people who [were] as enthusiastic about living on the land as they [were] disillusioned with the kind of acculturation promoted by the traditional academic system of education” (Kaufman 1972b). He was also motivated by the personal desire for a more ‘authentic’ and ‘integrated’ way of life, and a way to cut his war-tax contribution (Kaufman 2004). In 1972 he and Sally bought a 100 acre farm in Bangor, he was granted a half-time leave of absence, and in 1973 and the program/experiment/experience began. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s the School of Homesteading was featured in numerous news articles with national circulation and continued to attract students, mostly from suburban backgrounds. It would continue for over two decades. According to Maynard, “Students were encouraged to discover themselves and this is what it helped them to do in many ways” (Personal Interview, 5/3/05).
A Barn at Maynard Kaufman's 'School of Homesteading'As a result of the publicity generated by the school, Maynard was approached by Joe Filonowicz, “a good hearted industrialist from the Detroit area” (Kaufman 2005), about the possibility of establishing a land trust so that the program’s graduates could have access to farmland . In 1976, Maynard and several others established Michigan Land Trustees, a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation “dedicated to preserving the health and vitality of the people-land interface” (http://www.michiganlandtrust.org/). Filonowicz purchased land adjacent to the school, and Maynard spearheaded an effort to develop a ‘homesteading curriculum’ at WMU (Kaufman 1976). The University provided an instructor for the program, and continued to offer homesteading courses for several years (Kaufman 2004). The land trust farm was eventually sold to two former instructors, and a significant portion of the proceeds from this sale ($10,000) were donated to the Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance (MOFFA; http://www.moffa.org)
and used to hire our first Executive Director on a part-time basis.
Maynard retired from WMU in 1986. The following year he established the Southwest Michigan Greens, and continued to work on Green Party issues at the local, state, and nation level until 1992. These efforts serve to underscore not only the breadth of his activity in promoting progressive causes, but also his belief in the inherent interrelation between political, environmental, social, cultural, and economic factors which continue to be dominated by a short-sighted and inevitably destructive paradigm based on human exceptionalism, the control of nature, worship of power, and technological optimism - trends he has described as ‘demonic’ (Kaufman 2003; Kaufman 2005b).
Historically, he argues, “…the raising of the food required the sacred, and food itself was sacred because it assured the regeneration of life... [through]…the regenerative power of nature… [As] personal involvement was replaced by scientific technique…the worship of power did not simply end. Rather, as people lost a sense for the sacred power in nature they gained a new respect for the power to control nature. The scientist in his white lab coat replaced the priest or shaman as our sacred hero… Most people in the modern world worship the power to control nature, and this is a diabolical power. Remember how Faust [in Goethe’s famous work], our modern culture hero, sought power from the Devil to control and manipulate nature. Remember how Jesus, after fasting in the wilderness, was tempted by the devil who offered him power in return for adoration. Worldly power is demonic” (Kaufman 2003).
Whether from an academic, spiritual, pragmatic, or any other informed moral perspective, it is hard to refute Maynard’s contention that “During the past quarter century or so , this demonic power has become fully manifest as it has made a quantum leap in economic concentration. This is the power of multinational corporations, who hire scientists and polititians to do their will” (Kaufman 2003).
References
Kaufman, Maynard. 1972. "The New Homesteading Movement: From Utopia to Eutopia." Pp. 63-82 in The Family, Communes, and Utopian Societies, edited by S. Te Selle. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooksd.
—. 1972b. "Proposal for a School of Homesteading." Pp. 16: Western Michigan University.
—. 1976. "Proposal for A Homesteading Curriculum At Western Michigan University." Pp. 5: WMU.
—. 2003. "Food Systems: Sacred, Profane, and Demonic." in A Talk Sponsored by 'Fair Food Matters'. Kalamazoo, MI.
—. 2004. "How I Discovered My Teaching Vocation." (Unpublished):7 pp.
—. 2005. "My Role in the Organic Movement." (Unpublished).
—. 2005b. "Keynote Address: Organic Farning and the Organic Way of Life." in Michigan Organic Agriculture Conference. East Lansing, Michigan.
This article was originally published under the title "Walking the Talk with Both Feet on the Earth: A Biography of Maynard Kaufman, Organic Pioneer - Part I" in Michigan Organic Connections. 12(4): pp.7-8, 2006.
