If painting and sculptures are made for the purpose of being viewed in the carefully studied surroundings of art galleries, they have certainly lost their intimate connection with life. What is a picture for, if not to put on one's own wall?...The proposition is as absurd as this: Should we eat our meals regularly from crude, thick dishes like those used in Greek restaurants, but go on solemn occasions to a restaurant museum where somebody's munificence would permit us to enjoy a meal on china of the most delicate design? The truly artistic life is surely that in which the aesthetic experience is not curtained off but is mixed up with all sorts of instruments and occupations pertaining to the round of daily life. Donald Davidson, "A Mirror for Artists," I'll Take My Stand

The similarities have been noted between Jeffersonian agrarianism and Chesterbelloc distributism. Indeed, some Chestertonian champions of the "small is beautiful" school would seem to find a natural home in the Green Party, had that group not been hijacked by the anarcho-woolyheads of the anti-globalist Left. Rod Dreher's much-remarked-upon recent piece on Birkenstocked Burkeans has brought new attention to the common ground uniting counterculturalists on left and right.

For more on the agrarian tradition, read excerpts from I'll Take My Stand at the site of the Agrarian Foundation, and sample some of Chesterton's writings on distributism. And here, read Green praise for Burke's "little platoons" of society.