Steve Chapman lays waste to the myth that, somehow, country folk from rural areas are morally superior to those of us city folk with edumacations.
“We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity,” [Sarah Palin] declared, quoting the late journalist Westbrook Pegler. “They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America.” Not like those idle, insincere, lying city folks who dare to suggest that America can sometimes be wrong.
But no one seemed to take offense. The myth of rural virtue and urban vice is an old one in this country, and it persists no matter what the changes in the landscape. And whatever questions Palin may face in her debate with Biden, her paeans to small-town virtue aren’t likely to be among them.
Most Americans, it seems, can tolerate hearing of the superiority of the small town, as long as they don’t have to live in one. You wouldn’t know it from listening to country music stations, or to the governor of Alaska, but four out of every five Americans choose not to reside in rural areas.
Because they are elitists! City dwellers obviously haven’t discovered that the best meth is served up in the sticks!
leo
Sentimentalism aside, I want to know who’s paying the bills!
Dave
Jon Stewart went on a rant on this very subject last night when
talking to Peggy Noonan. I believe his line was “Cities are just
like towns, but stacked on top of one another.”
Sarcastro
If I may quote Owen Harper in re cannibalism; “Only in the
countryside!”
leo
P.S. OT but most of those HTML formatting buttons after “B-QUOTE”
you probably don’t need.
greynoldsct00
Yeah, rural=moral… like a house I used to drive by in a suburb of
Atlanta that hung teh confederate flag off their front porch…
slavery so just SO moral… give me a break
Comrade Dreggas
No shit sherlock. I grew up in a small town, the people there are
just as fucked up as the rest of us they just try and hide it by
going to church every sunday and putting on airs.
What’s worse everyone knew everyone else’s business and the
gossip and rumor mills were always running full tilt. Anyone who
claims small towns are better than big cities hasn’t lived in a
small town, if they did then they have an inferiority complex
fighting against their superiority complex.
I’ll take the anonymity I get living in the city over being known
by everyone in a small town any day.
Dave
Rural morality: Starkweather, Ed Gein and the BTK Killer.
Lee
I was at a neighborhood part awhile back and was chatting up a
neighbor, we both grew up in small towns and commented that there
is no way in hell would would raise our kids in a small town. All
there is to do in a small town is drink and fuck.
PeakVT
God how I hate country music, and the fake ruralism is
reason numero uno.
Glenn
Drink and fuck ? This is so bad? What do people in big towns do
then? Snort coke and fuck? The whole argument stinks. The one thing
a big town offers over a small one is u can do all of the above
anonymously for the most part. In a small town if u fart everyone
smells it so too speak.
greynoldsct00
@Lee: and not necessarily fucking
the person you’re supposed to…
PeakVT
Sheesh, what does a guy have to do to get a properly formatted
blockquote around here?
greynoldsct00
…and then there’s small town politics…I live in a relatively
small Connecticut town and let me tell you, it’s a CONTACT SPORT.
It’s just insane to watch some townie get elected First Selectman
and try to manage and multi-million dollar budget. No morals there
either, all cronyism (sp?)
SGEW
I’ve spent a lot of time driving through this great nation of ours,
and let me tell you: I am never so concerned about my physical
well-being as when I’m traveling in a rural area at night. And I
used to live in Harlem (141st and Malcolm X, y’all). The people out
in the sticks have GUNS, fer cryin’ out loud.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
lilly Von Schtupp
In the small town I grew up in, rural New England, as teenagers all
we did was drink and drive. Every year our town would lose someone
to a drunk driving accident. So sad. There really is nothing to do
for many teens out in the sticks.
LiberalTarian
I had a graduating class of 30, and at least 8 of those were from
“out of town.” Small towns have some upsides, but unlike cities,
you know where the rapist lives, who the pedophile is, who cheats
on his wife and probably who cheats on their taxes. There aren’t
any real secrets in a small town, and there are plenty of bullies.
You also know who the real Christians are and who are hypocrites,
who you can call when you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and
who you can lend a ladder to and get it back. Small towns have
small economies, and you make genuine sacrifices to live there,
i.e. drive old cars, re-use and recycle, and often do without
because you don’t have the money to spend on luxuries. None of
these things make small towns bad; but just by virtue of being
small doesn’t make it good. What does really get under my skin are
people who have never lived in one knocking small towns–STFU. Big
town ignorance is no more attractive than small town ignorance.
jrg
None of this would be a problem if the city folk didn’t run around
burning Christmas trees, burning flags, and forcing the simple
townsfolk to gay marry one another. Besides, there are lots of
citys in Iran, so people that live in citys hate America.
SGEW
[The following should be in blockquote]
[Thus endeth imaginary blockquote] Oh, unlike the
people in Harlem?
b. hussein canuckistani (comrade)
In my big-city neighbourhood: A library, A Boys and Girls club with
a pool, gym, computer lab, chess club, etc. A rep movie theatre.
Parks with all the usual attractions plus a minor league baseball
team and boules courts. Many restaurants, cafes and dessert shops
New and used bookstores (including a good comic store). A
Tae-kwon-do school. A ballroom dancing school. and so on. Within
a15 minute bike ride, the list grows exponentially. Put me on the
list of people who would rather raise their kids in a city. If my
kids end up getting drunk and fucking, it won’t be because there is
nothing else around for them to do.
YellowJournalism
I grew up in a relatively small town, but my aunt and uncle live in
an even smaller one. It’s the type of town where the busiest hang
out is the worn-out Dairy Queen. My relatives live in the rural
area of town. They used to live near the nicest neighbors, the type
of people, as another poster said, who you could loan a ladder to
and know you’d get it back. When my aunt’s dog got lost, the
neighbors helped her look for him on their property. It was just a
shame, though, that it turned out the neighbors had murdered two
women and buried them in their backyard. Police said they were a
few steps away from being serial killers.
Dennis - SGMM
“They are the ones who…run our factories…” She must have been
talking about small towns in China. Ever since the Republicans,
aided by Bill Clinton, offshored just about our entire
manufacturing sector (Because we’d have all the cool, high-tech
jobs – right?) most our mills and factories are just so many pigeon
coops.
jake
Here’s how a person pushes the idea that people a morally superior
by virtue of living in rural areas/small towns with a straight
face: 1. They’ve never been within 100 miles of either. 2. They
have but they’re a pathological liar. Since this woman was the
mayor of a small town, I’m going to assume she was familiar with
crime rates in Wasilla and therefore, she’s a filthy liar. Hey, I
get an error message when I post, but then the message shows up.
Thanks for giving us a reminder of dear old WPE. Also, Return
doesn’t create a paragraph. Love the edit function!
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
I live in north Alabama, in a town that is at the heart of the
military/industrial complex. We have an interesting dichotomy:
the defense contractors are staffed by engineers, while NASA
tends to be staffed by scientists.
Engineers = McCain = jobs based on killing people iz OK
Scientists = Obama
But yeah: the rural = moral meme is bullshit. The most moral
place I ever lived was New Orleans, a big city full of brown
people and teh ghey.
Bloggy stuff: does anyone know why I can login at wordpress.com
w/no problem, but logging into Balloon Juice (a WordPress login)
results in Fail?
I can haz paragraphs!
Tim C.
Not to say that in their proper place drinking and screwing aren’t
awesome, but I really think 14 is a bit young for that. (I’m
looking at you La Grande, Oregon)
wingnuts to iraq
nothing like meth addicts and pregnant teens. That’s the real
america.
SGEW
LiberalTarian: [Imagine this is in blockquotes]
[imagine the blockquotes end here, followed by a line break] . . . You’re absolutely right, and I suppose I should try to limit my parochial bigotry (New Yorkers are the most parochial people around, if you ask me). But try and find a national political figure who would ever dare to impugn the name of small town America in the same way that New York or San Francisco have been demonized by the right. [imagine line break here] . . . Additionally, I should add that I have seen communities in the Big Scary City come out in solidarity to help each other out in the same way that small towns can. Of course, the communities I’ve lived in are mostly poor and/or immigrant communities, so it might very well be an economic factor, rather than urban v rural (how much community spirit is there in, say, Greenwich Ct, which is, arguably, a “small town”?).
Juan del Llano
All good arguments… however, at the age of 63, I have new
criteria: peace, quiet, nature, and clean air. At the moment my
wife and I live at the end of a dirt road on the south end of Taos,
where we almost never hear a car and no one locks their doors. Just
now there were three western bluebirds in the birdbath outside my
window. I never hear any aircraft overhead, but we have ravens,
magpies, coyotes, and occasionally a bear. This is frigging heaven
to me. I understand perfectly the cultural benefits of living in a
city. So does my wife, a classical pianist, who never met a curb or
sidewalk she didn’t like. On the other hand, there’s a 90-mile view
at the top of the driveway. Most days (and nights) I don’t want to
go anywhere, except maybe farther into the wilderness. It’s nice to
come home to DSL, however. :-)
Frank Sobotka
“Small-town values” was another one of those brief messages that
McCain and his message people clung to virulently for a week,
before giving up and moving on to something else. It’s such an open
avenue for ‘acceptable’ race baiting, I’m surprised they haven’t
deployed it more regularly. Sarah Palin’s “small town values” v.
Barack Obama’s “Chicago morals,” white rural woman versus scary
urban dwelling black man. There’s a narrative that would stick, and
probably a less sleazy one than anything else conjured to date by
McCain
Kamishna ya Watu Xenos
This is just class-based and sectarian moral vanity, which sells
well to the rubes in Wassilla, Philadelphia, rural/hippy New
England, the Bay Area, or Orange County. Both parties indulge in
it, and it is stupid and counterproductive. … No different from
the standard MSNBC encomiums about salt-of-the-earth Big Russ or
Chris Matthews’ real american ethnic Catholics or the the
Union-card bearing “real middle class” and the christianist “real
Christians” and how the non-Zionist Jews are not “real Jews” and so
on and so on. … The only people who deserve to talk like this are
the African Americans and the Native Americans. But even there it
ends up being counterproductive.
Lee
While there is nothing wrong with drinking and fucking, for the
kids you are raising there needs to be a few more outlets for them
to entertain themselves.
SGEW
[imaginary blockquote begins]I can haz paragraphs![imaginary
blockquote ends] Hows? Hows can we haz paragraphs?!
Martin
Exactly. That’s what ‘small town values’ really means
– knowing where everyone stands and knowing where you fit in. It’s
not that they are any more moral than anyone else, but there is a
lot less surprise amorality compared to a city. When the guy the
block over beats his wife to death, you aren’t really surprised
because everyone knows he beat his wife and you aren’t fearful for
your own well being because you know that he only beats his wife.
But small town values also means that everyone wrote her life off
long before she died. There’s a reason why TDS couldn’t get anyone
at the RNC to explain what small town values are – because there
aren’t any. Ultimately, it means fewer unknowns in your worldly
reach and that’s about it. A maximum security prison has the same
unique values, as it happens. I’ve lived everywhere from NYC to
small Amish/Mennonite farming communities and everyplace in between
and the people are fundamentally all pretty much the same. You get
good and bad clusters, but that’s true of L.A. as well as LA.
libarbarian
I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m sick of small-town bullshit.
I’ve been to small towns that were nice and I’ve been to those
which we havens of drug abuse and trailer-park welfare queens. They
have no claim to moral superiority. Also -I need to get this off my
chest – I wish Texas would shut the fuck up about how “American”
they are. I’m from the East – how many regiments from Texas took
part in the Revolution? Oh, thats right, none – because it was part
of Mexico then and, as far as I’m concerned, still fucking is. Fuck
Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.
RememberNovember
Yeah, not like those elitest snobs in the Brooklyn Navy Yards who
helped build battleships, or those effete American Indians who
built some of America’s greatest architectural giants, or them
slackers who plastered some cement to connect the 5 Boros together
in the form of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Triboro and Queensboro
bridges….. Or those dandies who flung fish caught in far off
waters ( maybe even Alaska) on Fulton Street… what a donut ( or
mebbe a bagel, since Im a NY’er)
Kamishna ya Watu Xenos
How? I tried to follow all the techie threads, but
this latest version of the site confounds me.
Va Highlander
I live in a rural town smaller than Wasilla, Alaska. We have one of
the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the state. I’ve seen
ten-year-old kids on bicycles acting as go betweens for drug deals,
watched the hand-off take place right in front of me within sight
of the police station.<br><br> I don’t really mind
living here, not really. The people are relatively friendly. The
people running the government are a corrupt, greedy bunch of
know-nothing assholes and being a small town, there’s fuck all you
can do about it. There are upwards of 30 churches in this county,
most of them fundamentalist snake handlers, but it’s just not what
I’d call and idyllic setting or even particularly moral or
upstanding, not once you scratch the surface.<br><br>
I’ve lived in much more densely populated areas. They just weren’t
quite so clean and the social scene was more intense – and honest.
Shaggy
Montysano, That makes sense to me. As a former (gulp) scientist,
who had to get out of science about 3 years ago because of a lack
of funding, I think it is fair to say that I know many scientists
in certain fields who feel that Democrats provide more funding than
Republicans for scientific research (including that bear study
McCain ridiculed). Furthermore, if we have more wars in the near
future, or protract our current wars, those lovely engineers in
north Alabama get to keep their jobs.
SGEW
[fuck it, I’m not even going to try and blockquote] Juan del Llano
said: “I have new criteria: peace, quiet, nature, and clean
air. At the moment my wife and I live at the end of a dirt road on
the south end of Taos.” . . . Ok, you’ve got me there. Peace,
quiet, nature, and clean air are definitely not a regular aspect of
Big City living (tho’ my new neighborhood has an absolutely
gob-smackingly beautiful and amazing park – Old growth trees! A
Bald eagle! A coyote (since died, poor thing). Also: decapitated
chicken heads left over from Santaria rituals! And the West Side
Highway! So it’s a compromise). It’s always been my plan to retire
to the SW, eventually: maybe the Las Vegas area (New Mexico, not
Nevada, natch), or somewhere around Flagstaff. But it’s either that
or NYC, in my book. No middle ground for me.
jake
JdL’s post raises the question of how one acquires small town
values. Does one have to be born and raised in a small town? Do
people who move there from large cities clutter up the moral
environment or do they gradually acquire the ideal characteristics?
What about people who move from small to large towns? Are they
doomed to become depraved, baby eating, gay aborting fiends? And
finally, who do I have to blow to get a paragraph in this place?
bago
Sometimes I find it hard to sleep without the sounds of server
fans.
bago
OOh, ninja edits! sexy. Like that.
Ned Raggett
@Comrade Dreggas: No shit
sherlock. It’s funny you should say that, Dreggas — when I
first saw this post, I thought of one of my favorite bits from,
indeed, Sherlock Holmes. To quote: —- By eleven o’clock the next
day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes
had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after
we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to
admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky,
flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west
to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an
exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy.
All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around
Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings
peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage. “Are they
not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man
fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. But Holmes shook his head
gravely. “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the
curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at
everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at
these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I
look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling
of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be
committed there.” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate
crime with these dear old homesteads?” “They always fill me with a
certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my
experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not
present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and
beautiful countryside.” “You horrify me!” “But the reason is very
obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the
law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of
a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget
sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole
machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can
set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the
dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields,
filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of
the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden
wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and
none the wiser.” — A classic bit of Conan Doyle melodrama, to be
sure, and one from over a century ago in a different country. And
yet… (For those interested, the story is “The Adventure of the
Copper Beeches,” which you can find pretty much anywhere on the
net, the stories of Holmes being long out of copyright.)
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Kamishna ya Watu Xenos: Re:
paragraphs. Type your text, then highlight it and push the “P”
button.
Josh Huaco
Don’t get me started. This state has an
angry-fucking-midget complex the size of,
well……………..FRANCE!
Komrade Kharles
My favorite part: that four out of every five Americans are
elitists! Kinda like “the non-conformist clique” or “all
Republicans are mavericks.”
Martin
Well, looks like the template is still pretty fucked for quoting
and paragraphs.
Deb T
I’m grew up in a small town and even though I live in a moderate
sized city now, I visit my relatives in the country quite often.
Let me assure you. There is no truth to rural superior morality –
there’s just fewer people. Rural local governing bodies are often
as corrupt as anything you’ll find in the city, state or federal
governments- again, there just not as much money at stake, even
though local corruption can have a more immediate, direct effect on
the people. In the county where my cousin lives, the local water
board was siphoning money and cutting illegal deals under the
carpet for years. They spent homeland securtiy money on gambling,
new trucks and whatever the hell else they desired. They didn’t
care about their neighbors. When there was a shortfall in funds,
they raised the water bills. You could get one for $40 one month
and $300 the next. Folks finally had enough. It took almost two
years, but they finally got busted. The farm down the road was
raided for growing marijuana and while the cops where there, they
found the beginnings of a meth lab. There are meth labs all over
the county. There are murders, usually spouse on spouse, and plenty
of assaults, especially domestic battery. And there’s a lot of
adultery. Rural folk are not exempt from divorce statistics. People
are people and rural folk are no different than city folk, there’s
just fewer of them. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
KXB
While the argument of small towns versus big cities is as old as
the Republic itself, there is one thing that is left out. Most
Americans no longer live in small towns or big cities, but in
suburbs. In that case, you can argue that metropolitan area values
are up for debate. And increasingly, suburbs do offer many of the
attractions that used to once be found solely in big cities. In the
Chicago area, Indian and other Asian immigrants increasingly move
from their home countries straight to the suburbs, bypassing a stay
in Chicago. And given that many of these immigrants are
old-fashioned, they sure seem to find a hospitable environment in
those suburbs. My biggest problem for the small town values
argument is that if they wee such great places to live, why do they
keep dwindling? Cities can re-invent themselves. Charlotte remade
itself from being merely an important business center in NC to one
of the nation’s banking capitals – but what has happened to the
small towns of North Carolina? Why are they not attracting
hard-working Americans?
Josh Huaco
“Fuck Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.” No offense taken, bro. I
understand. Texas would be as great a place as Texans think it is
if they only possessed the self-awareness and humility necessary to
understand that it totally underachieves and needs to be better.
pb
<blockquote>This is how you do it</blockquote>
It’s messing up the entities, just like the old site used to…
use &lt; and &gt; instead of < and
> until it’s fixed. Ugh.
cyntax
How many big city first-respnders died on 9/11? You know, that
event that the Repubs so dearly love to trot out during election
years (or any other time they want something from the electorate).
SGEW
“I wish Texas would shut the fuck up about how “American” they
are.”
As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. They were their own
country at one time: and, therefore, the least “American” of any
of the states.
. . .
Of course, I’m a Yankee at heart and I kind of think that there
are only 13 “American” States, so you shouldn’t listen to me. ;)
BombIranForChrist
“Because they are elitists! City dwellers obviously haven’t
discovered that the best meth is served up in the sticks! ” Oh
yeah. This is very high quality snark. Who needs the sweet, sweet
call of crystal meth when you have this stuff. I don’t.
Melinda
I can’t remember the source or the exact text of one of my favorite
comments about this stuff, which is along the lines that listening
to the likes of Peggy Noonan and David Brooks talk about rural
people is like listening to some assistant professor at a
not-very-distinguished junior college extol the dignity of the
indigenous people of Peru. I live on a small farm in the boondocks.
I’ve tried living in cities and nearly went nuts. I don’t expect
other people to like living the way I do – each to their own. I
find that Democrats tend to be as witlessly derisive about small
town and rural living as Republicans tend to be witlessly
adulatory, and both can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. I’d
like to see both Republicans and Democrats try to be a little more
policy-focused and a lot less values-focused when talking about
this stuff.
SGEW
“How many big city first-respnders died on 9/11? You know, that
event that the Repubs so dearly love to trot out during election
years (or any other time they want something from the electorate).”
Don’t even get this previously downtown New Yorker started.
Walker
For everyone bitching about small towns (the drink and fuck crowd),
the internet has changed a lot of that. My wife comes from big
cities, but we live in a farmhouse in rural central New York. She
remarks that because of the internet she never really feels
isolated (she is also ten years my junior, and spent her teens with
full internet access).
Furthermore, a lot of kids these days are forming more social
groups online than they are in the real world.
libarbarian
“Fuck Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.” No offense taken, bro.
I understand. Texas would be as great a place as Texans think it is
if they only possessed the self-awareness and humility necessary to
understand that it totally underachieves and needs to be
better. Thanks for understanding. I got nothing against it
really, but Ive met too many Texans who think the world revolves
around Texas to not have a small chip on my shoulder :).
GSD
We’re proud of our highest rape in the nation statistics here in
small town Alaska. We’re number one. -Sarah the Mooseburger Maker
Josh Huaco
“As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. They were their
own country at one time: and, therefore, the least “American” of
any of the states.” I hear that shit all the time down here as
a point of pride, ‘Yuh know, Texas is the only state that used to
be its own kuntree.’ If you really want to piss off a Texan, remind
them that they tried being their own country twice and EPIC FAIL’d
it both times. Thanks for understanding. I got nothing against
it really, but Ive met too many Texans who think the world revolves
around Texas to not have a small chip on my shoulder :). No
worries. :) Most Texans are actually all right, if a little behind
the curve socially. It’s the mouthy shitheads who you’re talking
about that give it a bad name.
cyntax
As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. Most Texans
I’ve met would be totally on-board with this. I get the impression
that they see themselves as the standard we should all aspire to
but can’t since we aren’t from Texas. =)
Comrade Dread
California was its own Republic too. But the wingnuts already think
we’re the least American. The small town moral superiority thing is
mostly based on community. The town is small enough that everyone
knows everyone else. This completely ignores the fact that people
find and build communities in urban areas through schools,
churches, neighborhood activities, etc.
cyntax
Don’t even get this previously downtown New Yorker started.
Wow, and I thought I found Guilani annoying… I can only imagine
the blood pressure meds you must need when he’s on-screen. Is it
just my lame ass or is the {br} tag not working now in comments?
Shaggy
@Melinda: To the best of my
recollection, the Republicans (at least in this election cycle)
sort of have a monopoly on this kind of geography-speak. Or have
you noticed otherwise? Not that it matters; they both do it, and
it’s all just more needless pandering to a particular voting bloc.
Dennis - SGMM
The myth of rural virtue is just the latest manifestation of the
18th century’s sentimentalizing of primitivism in The Noble Savage.
Like those 18th savants, the people who are most emphatic about the
virtues of primitivism are those who never lived it.
Marshall
California was a republic, as was Hawaii.
libarbarian
No worries. :) Most Texans are actually all right, if a little
behind the curve socially. It’s the mouthy shitheads who you’re
talking about that give it a bad name. Actually,
some were my good friends, but when they got drunk the “Texas is
the best” talk would begin :).
D. Mason
I’ve lived in small towns, small cities and suburbs of small
cities, never in a large city like Chicago or New York. I can only
agree with the sentiment that you have vice, immorality, kindness
and charity based on the people around you and not on the
population density of the place you live. I think a lot of people,
especially politicians use the term “small town values” to describe
something more accurately called “community values”, which is
something America is sorely lacking in. Assholes like Sarah Palin
make the assumption that because people live in a small town they
naturally have community values and that’s bullshit. Palin has a
myopic view of the world based on her life in Alaska and she puts
country living(not that there’s anything wrong with country living)
way up on a pedestal. Maybe it’s grounded in her experiences and
Wasilla really does have a nice community going, but I’ll never
know. What I do know is that you can’t judge someone lifestyle
without having experienced it and she is mighty thin on life
experience to be passing as much judgment as she does. (edit)P.S.
thanks for the edit function, I can has paragraphs pls? kthxbai.
libarbarian
Like those 18th savants, the people who are most emphatic about
the virtues of primitivism are those who never lived it. Hit
the nail on the head.
GeneJockey
The reason “Small Town” appeals work with a lot of people is
because they still think of America as a country of small towns,
and see the metro areas where most Americans actually live as
not-REALLY-American. I remember watching “Armageddon”, one of the
two “Comet threatens the Earth” movies from a few years back. After
the comet was successfully defeated (after a fragment destroyed
them snooty Frenchies in Paris), one of the scenes they showed was
a group of kids dressed in archetypal small town costumes – like
overalls with no shirt – pushing a cobbled-together space
shuttle-lookin’ thing down the unpaved main street of Mythical
Small Town, USA. It really summed it all up for me – that’s how we
want to see ourselves. It also explains, I think, why so many still
cling to caveat emptor, anti-unionism, and opposition to government
regulations. They want to see business and the economy as if it
were still one-on-one transactions, and that cheating or shoddy
goods will inevitably lead to loss of customers, or that nobody
would work for an employer who didn’t take their safety seriously.
Shinobi
My boyfriend is from a small town. A few months ago the bank teller
in his former small town told my boyfriend’s Mom that I am
bisexual. A random bank teller, whom I have never met.
Small town values: Closemindedness, Gossip and Guns
I only visit for the guns.
SGEW
“I can only imagine the blood pressure meds you must need when he’s
on-screen”
Oh, you have no idea whatsoever.
Let me put it this way: I used to work with a homeless
organization during Giuliani’s mayoralty. We used the term “death
squad” quite literally.
vaux-rien
@SGEW: <i>Let me put it this
way: I used to work with a homeless organization during Giuliani’s
mayoralty. We used the term “death squad” quite
literally.</i> <p> My old roommate had a theory about
the Ranch One chain of chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the
same time that all the homeless disappeared.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
California was a republic, as was Hawaii.
What was Alaska?
Marshall
It is my belief, Watson, founded on my experience, that the
lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful
record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside….
But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion
can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no
lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child or the thud of a
drunkard’s blow, does not begat sympathy and indignation among
the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is so
close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but
a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely
houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with
poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds
of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year
in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.
Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.
Marshall
Alaska was a Russian colony and then an America territory. It was
never an independent country in the Western sense.
A la lanterne les aristos!
People are people all over, but I think cities are the best thing
to happen to civilization. Heck, I think they are
civilization. Cities mean having to think bigger, to deal with
folks and situations outside of your comfort zone. I essentially
lived in a small town when I was little, everyone knew who the gay
guy was and which families were poor. In a city the disenfranchised
can find each other and form communities of their own. And with
communities comes power and a voice. Civil rights movements don’t
generally spring up in small towns. So yeah, there are nice things
about small communities, and I can picture maybe living in a small
town someday. But if I do it’ll probably be near a big city.
SGEW
“My old roommate had a theory about the Ranch One chain of
chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the same time that all the
homeless disappeared.”
. . .
Oh shit. That’s fucked up, yo.
But there’s no need for theories about the homeless. Giuliani’s
goons just killed them on the streets and on Rikers, and then
dumped ’em in Freshkills, where they still rest with the remains of
some of the WTC victims.
. . .
I need to go lie down for a minute. God I hate that monstrous
motherfucker.
jake
I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
paragraph breaks.
I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
paragraph breaks.
I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
paragraph breaks.
I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
paragraph breaks.
Marshall
Oh, and Hawaii was originally a monarchy, and if you go there and
talk to the Hawaii Sovereignty people you will get an earful about
its illegal overthrow.
A la lanterne les aristos!
Hmmm
I guess line breaks in the preview are lies.
They need to be added manually?
Bootlegger
I was raised in the suburbs of Dallas–Plano, TX. We made the cover of "Rolling Stone" twice, first for the 15 suicides my senior year in high school (’84), then in the 90’s for a heroin epidemic that took another 20 (the kids claimed they didn’t know it was heroin, it was sold to them as "chivas" and they snorted it).
I spent a lot of time in cesspool urban areas: Dallas, Denver, Tucson, Chicago, where you can barely breathe through the pollution, a locked car is a target, and traffic makes driving a car an absolute nightmare.
I currently live in "rural" Kentucky, a town of 15,000 with a small liberal arts college. It is very progressive, quiet and a great place to raise kids. I rarely lock the doors to my home in the Appalaichan foothills. We have an awesome public library and the college and two nearby universities bring in all kinds of cultural events. You couldn’t pay me enough money to move back to the suburbs or do anything other than visit an urban center.
That said, the idea that small-town values are superior is as fatuous as the idea that urban-dwellers are smarter. People can suck anywhere. Stupid people can live anywhere. Crime happens everywhere. Redneck racists live all over the US (check out the Southern Poverty Law Center’s map, the Bay Area has a large concentration). Lifestyles are a matter of personal choice and not one of character and people who build straw men of either cities or towns do so just to blow a wad when they knock it down.
Marshall
I see that Ned Raggett got the Sherlock Holmes quote in before me. Pardons for the duplication.
Bootlegger
If I may quote Owen Harper in re cannibalism; “Only in the
countryside!”
Dhamer was from Milwaukee.
Comrade Dread
cite>
No, no. Get your verbiage up to date.
We helped ‘liberate’ them from an oppressive autocrat who had the gall to want to exert more influence over the sugar plantations owned by US companies. Whether they wanted to be liberated or not.
Doctor Jay
The kind of person that bugged me most in the small town I grew up in was the kind that would tell you how it was the greatest place to live on earth even though they had never lived anywhere else.
That sort of person, I’ve found, can live anywhere.
MR Bill
Ned Raggett @43, and Marshall, y’all beat me to it. Sherlock was on to something.
I live in a small town with a high pregnancy rate, high child and spousal abuse rate, high incest rate… Not too much overt crime (ok, a trailer meth lab will explode occasionally, and there are some ‘trailers of ill repute’ so to speak), the cops will bust a certain roadside rest stop periodically, and arrest a number of men having sex with men, and a couple will be ministers…
The politics are awful, one city has reelected a mayor who was busted for cockfighting (after telling me that the local "Arts in the Park" show "brings in a bad crowd…"), and the newspaper routinely covers up criminality in the business classes.
I like living here for the scenery, and ’cause it’s home, there are good folks and and bad folks… I’ll not sentimentalize it. It is "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy", but it’s my more wretched hive…
MR Bill
I hope this moderation thingy is just automatic and not ’cause of anything I said…
RemeberNovember
@vaux-rien
"My old roommate had a theory about
the Ranch One chain of chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the
same time that all the homeless disappeared."
kind of funny cuz they’re not really around anymore- the one on Seventh and 28th is out of business. Coincidence?
Mike
I think it was Dave Marsh who pointed out that even people from big cities love John Mellancamp’s "Small Town". The only difference is that their small town is the neighborhood in Brooklyn where they grew up.
gex
gex
The blockquotes should contain "As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede." But I tried following the XHTML instructions above the post, so I was clearly asking for it.
Soylent Green
Remember this?
Of course the rubes never figured out that Haggard was making fun of them.
SGEW
But I live in NYC: we’re officially the "Greatest City On Earth."
It says so right on the signs on the lightposts. That is why Mr. Bloomberg will be Mayor for Life.
. . .
Are you saying that Mr. Bloomberg is lying to me? ;)
gex
"The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. "
Kinda like that news story about a clan in NC who, when one of their own was hurt, went and killed the wrong guy. But they thought he did it, and that was good enough. Talk about applying pressure!
Fledermaus
The thing that annoys me is the bizarre need for validation that the small town folk have (and southerners). It’s not enough that they lead superior lives (or believe they do) but everyone must agree with them that they’re superior or else they’re an elitist snob. Just like NASCAR and hunting. It’s not enough to see the appeal or have no problem with those things, you must say that they are the best.things.evar! and you’re interests are stupid and dumb and elitiest.
It’s kinda sad living with the constant need for validation, it’s almost as if they really don’t believe what they are saying. Also news flash rural people, us urban elitists don’t spend all our time snickering behing our hands at you, we actually have better things to do. To tell the truth we really don’t think about you much at all. Perhaps one day you’ll extend us the same courtisey
Fledermaus
I guess it could be chalked up to the fact that you have to give a crap about people’s opinions of you in small towns because of the clickishness and the fact that there aren’t many other people there. While in the city you get used to the fact that some people are going to think you’re an asshole or whatever. But it’s easy to not give a shit because unless you work with them it’s just not going to affect you that much.
MR Bill
I, as a rural guy, am tired of the protestations of rural virtue, or superiority. As a southerner, heck, hillbilly, I think the Confederacy and the mindset that lead to it was insane. I can see why some folks felt demonized during the Civil Rights era, and they should feel that way, because of the apartheid that was the Jim Crow south. I like cities, or at least see the need for them. I’ve traveled (Florence I my favorite city, followed by Arretzo, then Asheville NC, then San Francisco), like the Northeast (y’all have the same backcountry deer huntin’, beer drinkin’, truck drivin’ culture, they just talk funny). There are plenty of sane and non ignorant people here. There are just too many folks who captured by silly versions of religion and politics. But the weird little town I live in has had the most astonishing inmigration of gay people who want to try some thing different and they have enriched this burgs life, dispite a lot of prejudice. Heck, I finally felt comfortable about coming to terms with being gay at 45.
I moved back home when my late wife and I, confronted with the choice of her taking a teaching job here or me keeping a teaching job in ATL, were awoken when someone blew a pimp’s Lincoln behind our apartment at 3 a.m. It was a decent choice, and our kids have done well, and we have made sure to let them see the bigger world. They may still want to live here if there is a livelihood. But they text, are mad for anime, have friends in other countries. Their peers, as a group, aren’t as perjudiced as their parents, and seem less worried about sexuality and crazy religion.
There are real people, and good people everywhere, as well as fakes and bad people. For my part, a lot of folks could save themselves some trouble in asserting, say, Northern superiority (in all things;y’all got us beat in snow removal), or Southern superiority (in gettin’ government largess, say). The politics of morality is immoral, and I apologize for my region’s heavy hand there. I have been annoyed by some urbanites (guys I went to school with, who were shocked we had always had flush toilets and tv on the farm, the dude who inevitably said "oh, the only real cheesecake is from" a certain deli I would probably never visit), but I tried to be polite. There is an identity politics in regionalism that once spun out of control, and it should be avoided.
Either we hang together (no matter how difficult or annoying) or we all hang separately. And forgive these sort of random mootings here.
nicethugbert
Oh stop it, rural virtue some sheep’s bleater!
MR Bill
And I meant to say, cites cannot exist with out a rural infrastructure. Issac Asimov’s planet-city of Trantor (and it’s conceptual child, Coruscant in Star Wars) were fantasies. The Farmer and the Merchant need each other.
And Rural America is probably somewhat resentful at it’s need for Urban America, which politicians of a certain type exploit….
Ras
I’m personally sick of the condenscending "salt of the earth" bullshit Palin has re-ignited about rural and small town people.
I grew up on a family farm in Central Missouri, population 4. I didn’t care about the cities, it was the townies like Palin who were the elitists in my life. (Sorry bud, if you live in a town, you ain’t "rural".)
In fact we used to laugh that every small-town jack-off with a pickup truck thinks they’re some kind of farmer. One comparison of the shiny, unscratched bed of their immaculate pickup with the pigshit-encrusted, dented beaters we drove made the point.
Racism, ignorance, and dishonesty are just as common among us "salts" as they are in any other demographic group. I knew farmers that grew weed to help make ends meet. Not that I would ever do anything like that…ahem.
The problem now is that a major political party made up of dishonest, greedy assholes from the very metroplises they decry think that they can pander to the egotistical townies among us to whore a few more votes.
Don’t fall for it.
SGEW
@MR Bill: Great post. (Sincerely!)
But I have one quibble:
I am that dude. And I’m right. There’s only one real cheesecake. I swears it. ;)
No, seriously. Junior’s cheesecake is unbelievably good, and I’ve had a lot of cheesecake in a lot of places. (oh noes! Not the cheesecake flame war!)
MR Bill
No, seriously. Junior’s cheesecake is unbelievably good, and I’ve had a lot of cheesecake in a lot of places. (oh noes! Not the cheesecake flame war!)
Sir, such an assertion makes me want action.
I propose you Fed-ex me one of said cheesecake, and I’ll get back to you on the quality….
jj
Last seen on a billboard while driving through a small town in rural Maryland
"If She’s 17, It’s Rape"
Erm, what was that you were saying governor Palin?
SGEW
A friend of mine actually did this*, and the results were disastrous. Disastrous! There were ramifications and incriminations. No cheesecake was enjoyed in the process.
Disclosure: Junior’s cheesecake is much, much too rich and sweet, too creamy, and has a "weird" mouth-feel for some people (primarily midwesteners**; they hate it!). But for those of us (NE folk, but not those weirdos in PA) who are used to it, Junior’s is da bomb. . . . Oh jeez. Now I gotta go and get some double chocolate on my way to the debate party tonight.
*Ok ok, I admit it. It was a friend of a friend, but my friend swears it’s true!
**What, you like your cheesecake chewy? What the hell is wrong with you?! :)
MR Bill
DANG. I guess I’ll have to take yer word for it…
hw
There’s something to be said for small-town living (sense of community, livable scale), but this is way over-played by the right. In small towns and rural areas you’ll also find:
-vindictive gossip
-small-mindedness
-intolerance
-truly epic drunkenness
-surprisingly high amounts of substance abuse
-wanton drinking and driving / drinking and snowmobiling etc.
-misogyny
-homophobia
-some of the fattest and least healthy people you’ll meet anywhere (lots of smokers, too)
-widespread boredom and malaise
-horrifying cases of sexual and physical abuse
-lax law enforcement
The list goes on and on. These are all observations from personal experiences growing up in several different rural areas. I’m sure that suburban and urban areas are similarly blighted, but my experience in cities has been slightly better.