The old neighborliness has about gone from it now. The old harvest crews and their talk and laughter at kitchen tables loaded with food have been replaced by machines, and by migrant laborers who eat at the store. The old thrift that once kept us alive has been replaced by extravagance and waste. People are living as if they are in a movie. They are all looking in one direction, toward “a better place,” and what they see there is no thicker than a screen.
From Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry (179).