Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer-poet, is one of my favorite writers. My current reading includes "The Way of Ingnorance", one of his collections of essays. There's a particularly good one entitled "Charlie Fisher" on a family whose livelihood is made with sustainable and forest-preserving logging using teams of workhorses.

In the title essay, Berry's wry humor is unleashed on the intellectuals who fancy themselves openminded but are truly just contrarian:

"The part of devil's advocate is surely one of the most sought after in all the precincts of the modern intellect. Anywhere you go to speak in defense of something worthwhile, you are apt to encounter a smiling savant writhing in the estrus of objectivity: 'Let me play the devil's advocate for a moment.' As if the devil's point of view will not otherwise be adequately represented."