Split City Vs Country Politics

[Toni]

I have seen for years urbanite distain towards rural and small town dwellers

you keep saying that, and everyone seems to be fine with just letting you get away with it, but i call bullshit.
'city people' don't have disdain for rural people, because 'city people' don't have any thoughts about rural people *period*.

the only city people with any sort of active disdain for rural people are former rural people who now live in a big city.
if you grew up in an urban area and never spent time in a truly bumfuck region and have no experience with it, you literally don't think about those people.

this whole "nyeh city people are so disdainful of country folk" meme is just a combination of classic conservative projection (blaming others for the thing you're doing) and buying into a narrative you saw on TV that doesn't exist in real life.

Think about it: the two coasts disregard the rest of the country

and therein lies the truth - there's no disdain, there's simply disregard, mostly born of ignorance (the innocent kind) and when it isn't a complete lack of acknowledgement entirely it's disdain of rural folk for being absolute horrendous pieces of shit and not because they live in a small town.

'small town' culture is an equally disgusting and degenerate mass of bullshit as what you see from the ultra rich - completely delusional idiots with no concept of life outside of their own little bubble, mired in rigid hypocrisy and fantasy in a pathetic attempt to force their narrow view of reality on everyone else.

there's nothing inherently wrong with living in a small town, but the entire concept of a small town is predicated on something that no longer exists.
small self-contained and self-sustaining rural communities in the U.S. started out as leeches suckling at the engorged varicose veins of plantations and/or gold mines. they sprouted up around some kind of economic backbone that artificially supported them, and were only able to exist on that scale due to the outside resources brought in by that backbone.
when the slaves and the gold went away these towns all withered up and barely survived until the manufacturing boom hit, and that only happened because they were all so poor and desperate that it was profitable to use them as factory slave labor.
when that went away because there are even cheaper brown people in other countries, the towns immediately died again.

the big fat lie that every small town in the U.S. in the present day is founded on is that it's a self-contained system... that the town doesn't need the 'outside world' and can get by solely on its own local ecosystem.
and that's probably true for a small town that contents itself with subsistence living-off-the-land and local trade, but here's the big fat secret rural types don't want you to know that makes the whole thing fall apart: none of them want that.
small town people want infrastructure, water treatment, electricity, daily mail service, high speed internet, HBO, and a walmart.
they want an urban life, they just don't want to have to be around other people or to generate any kind of viable economic activity to make bringing it all to them worth anyone's investment to bother with.

and so they sit in their dusty bumfuck nowhere collection of shacks and bemoan 'big city' people, because those evil 'big city' people have bent over fucking backwards to bring the modern world to them and they resent it because fucked up inbred protestant idiocy makes them think being given something means they are 'lesser than.'

Trumpism appeals to the disaffected wherever they live,

this is such BS, this is like saying that cannibalism appeals to anyone with cancer, because they have cancer and want a cure for it, and cannibalism is.... something something?

the absolute fact is that rural idiots vote republican, and republicans do absolutely NOTHING in any way shape or form to materially improve their living conditions.
democrats verifiably DO improve their living conditions, but by doing so initiate some kind of fucktarded hillbilly vengeance pact against the very people who are trying to help them, because that "hard work" ethic you're so fond of makes these communities incapable of accepting the economic and infrastructure assistance they require in order to live in the modern world without going completely ape shit over the fact that someone handed them something.

rural people actively vote to destroy their own lives, and they do it year after year and they are screamingly proud of it.
they aren't struggling with economic hardship and just wanting to live a safe and stable american dream life... they fucked themselves into desperation, and now they're trying to cut the throat of anyone who tries to help them.

Yeah zero disdain. Coming through loud and clear.

 

[Toni]

Yeah zero disdain. Coming through loud and clear.

so the end product here is that you lack the ability to tell the difference between valid criticism and disdain.
yeah, you are definitely coming through loud and clear.

You are telling me that I cannot take criticism.

Please re-read your response to me and imagine someone wrote that to you, using the same word choices. Instead of valid criticism, which by my definition, is based upon experience, and data you offered hyperbole and emotional insults. You managed to lump in together a full 3/4 geographically of mainland US and instead of details you inserted your personal opinions a la Faux News. That’s not criticism, that’s not critique. That’s a lot of hot air with less substance.

 

[Rhea]

I would say that the light disdain some urbanites have for the countryside pales in comparison to the all-consuming rage rural Republicans harbor for the people of the city, especially non-white or non-Christian people in the city.

I concur with this. As one who lives in said small town, and has for nearly all her life.

But if I were to go back home, and if I were to drop by Cathy's Coffeeshop down the street from where I grew up, and introduce myself to the guys at the bar as a bisexual San Franciscan? I'm pretty sure I'd be in actual danger,

Yes, you would be. I had a friend that I would not take to the local pub. I don’t know if he was not straight, but he wore a black polkadot silk blouse. He was not safe. A country bumpkin in an urban pub? Would not have a flicker of a problem.

*I* was not safe in my own town hall due to having a “D” next to my name on the ballot.

The same kind of violent threat to the well being of one's fellow-citizens does not exist in the other direction.

It does not. You can wear a cowboy hat in NYC, but you can’t wear a silk polkadot blouse (as a man) in EBF.

Anyways, city people being "mean" to the people of the soil is not why all these people marched on the capital. Their xenophobia, religious zealotry, and class frustrations stem from much deeper roots than some rude tweets about flyover country. I know liberals excel at self-doubt, but you can't just accept Republican criticisms of "elite" society, when they are only half-genuine, and mask the bloodsoaked designs the alt-right truly has for this country.

Their anget is not based on anything the “elites” do. It’s based on a straw man steroetype of what the “elites” represent.

They may have come from towns that had farms around them, but I doubt that many of them have spent any more time on a farm than I did growing up

Disagree with this. There are lots of active farm folks around.

It did we not all learn as school kids that calling people dumb rarely helps them learn.

And yet somehow the conservatives calling us dumb is not part of their self-indiced problem? The double standard is stark in my world. Very stark. “Don’t you dare say one tiny mean thing about me, you lying, greedy corrupt bitch!”

That’s my world. Almost verbatim.

If everyone in every city had a magical change of heart tomorrow and never said anything rude or condescending about poor Southern whites ever again... they would not abandon their project.

This is truth in my area.

Yeah zero disdain. Coming through loud and clear.

Honestly, liberal disdain has nothing on rural conservative disdain. I find liberals to be extremely reserved and polite by comparison.


There are all types of rural conservatives, certainly. There are the ones I quote above who are vocal, and energetic and active. At the town hall meeting, they show up EVERY MONTH. The rest of the conservatives, the other 99%, stay home and let them speak for them, and vote in lockstep with them. And half of those fly Trump flags in their yards.


Overall, I don’t buy this idea of the rural conservative being a sympathetic figure who is put-upon by the excess disdain of the urban elite. I have never met anyone who calls these places “flyover country,” other than the supposed victims of it. They are absolutely EXPERT at constructing Straw Men and false narratives. They are expert at it.

Don’t think I don’t love my town. I do love living here. I love the country life. But I can’t help but juxtapose these stories aboout the sympathetic hick with the people who sent letters around town calling me Hitler and saying it wouldn’t be wrong if I were shot in the town hall.

 

[Politesse]

Disagree with this. There are lots of active farm folks around.

What I have a hard time imagining is a legit farmer flying into DC to join a mob. Every farmer I've ever known is busy as hell.

 

[Rhea]

Disagree with this. There are lots of active farm folks around.

What I have a hard time imagining is a legit farmer flying into DC to join a mob. Every farmer I've ever known is busy as hell.

Ahh. I misunderstood the context.
I agree tha the people in the Jan 6 insurrection are extremely unlikely to be actual farmers.

 

[Toni]

Out of town and with a terrible internet connection but I want to correct a misunderstanding of what I meant in an earlier post.

In no way do I blame progressives/liberals/urbanites/northerners for the faults of southerners or midwesterners, residents of the upper Midwest, the Great Plains or the rest of flyover country. FFS in this thread I’ve been informed that I am a leftist.

I will say this for any who can hear it: Pointing out the faults of people who live in a different parrot of the country or in the other side of the rural/urban divide does not diminish your own faults ( but boy do we all have plenty of faults!) nor does it distract from your own faults.

It also does nothing to help heal the tremendous divides in our country right now. You don’t win hearts or minds by ridicule, contempt or disdain.

 

[Politesse]

It also does nothing to help heal the tremendous divides in our country right now. You don’t win hearts or minds by ridicule, contempt or disdain

At this point, I do not see healing that divide as a plausible future, or even a desirable one if the price is further cession of our core democratic institutions and the civil rights they guarantee. Let there be no mollification without representation.

 

[Angry Floof]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

 

[Elixir]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

Again I feel compelled to point out that "rural America" is not a monolith. I live in a County of about 20,000 where the County seat is a city of about 6000. There is an Old Guard of ranchers, almost all Republicans, and some who fit the stereotype (if there is a stereotype of wealthy rural rancher/farmer trumpsuckers) but they have become less rigid in their affiliations than they were just a couple of decades ago. Like many rural areas, it has become a tourist/recreational destination and the resident demographic has now gone solidly Democratic with a large progressive component. The Good Old Boy network still comes out in their Trump flag adorned pickup trucks and make a spectacle of themselves, but this district will never elect a Lauren Boebert like they did over in the western slope farm country.

On the flipside, almost every city has a Democratic majority. In fact the 5 Most Conservative Major Cities in the United States doesn't include any truly "major" cities. OK City and Colorado Springs are probably the biggest.

I think the Republicans have done a really great job of keeping their minority rule alive and well in the States they control, but as the popular vote totals in national elections indicate, their challenge continues to increase in difficulty. Don't worry though - it's nothing that can't be overcome with sufficient cheating and lying.

 

[scombrid]

My brother in law is a dentist who voted for him twice,

My dentist is a lesbian that voted for him twice. She also voted for DeSantis and Scott and Posey. She thinks liberals are out to take her stuff and her guns. We are good friends with her and her brother. Her brother is a liberal catholic and she is not. Our get together's can get interesting.

Here's another example. About a mile or so from my home is a quaint street that is a mix of nice small homes and mansion like homes. One of the larger, expensive homes has a big Herschel Walker sign in his front yard. When I pass that home, I'm always wondering how the fuck someone who is so successful, at least when it comes to material things, vote for a total idiot?

That idiot is going to let them keep and amass more material stuff and the socialists are going to take it all away and give it to illegal aliens and welfare queens or some such reason is likely. I do landscaping work as a side job and have done work in VERY rich neighborhoods over near Orlando. One guy I did a job lived on the Conway Chain Of Lakes. He actually owned a national pipe fabricating company and had super fancy real estate all over the area. He even bought his mistress a house in Windermere (which is funny with all the god-speak on his Linked-In). Anyway, he had a Trump sign in his yard when I did the job in January 2016.

Best part too from the party that attracted so many blue collar workers; He has also founded a development company that seeks to convert small lakefront houses and mobile home communities into "clean parcels" for small to medium size lakefront communities. He is actively trying to push the riff raf off the Conway Chain.

I think his entire motivation for voting Republican is that he wants to make sure that "those people" stay in their place and the government doesn't take his stuff and give it to them.

I think a lot of the upper middle people that live in the planned communities identify themselves as rich or deserving and are convinced that their status in the gated community is threatened by "socialists" and pull for the R. I think the really rich actively like to vote for morons like MTQ, Gaetz, Walker because those tools draw fire while ALEC and such write the legislation and pull the strings.

 

[Angry Floof]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

Again I feel compelled to point out that "rural America" is not a monolith.

No, it isn't, but living among only people who are like you in every important way reinforces empathy for people like you. Having fewer direct experiences with people not like you doesn't reinforce empathy for them.

So I'm not making rural America a monolith. Just pointing out that rural America is where the conditions I described above are common and widespread.

Direct experiences with others breeds empathy for them, while only seeing and hearing Other voices through media, well, I would say it's a weaker influence at best. At worst, having only or mainly exposure to Others through media reinforces fear and prejudice depending on what media you consume.

I live in a County of about 20,000 where the County seat is a city of about 6000. There is an Old Guard of ranchers, almost all Republicans, and some who fit the stereotype (if there is a stereotype of wealthy rural rancher/farmer trumpsuckers) but they have become less rigid in their affiliations than they were just a couple of decades ago. Like many rural areas, it has become a tourist/recreational destination and the resident demographic has now gone solidly Democratic with a large progressive component. The Good Old Boy network still comes out in their Trump flag adorned pickup trucks and make a spectacle of themselves, but this district will never elect a Lauren Boebert like they did over in the western slope farm country.

Never say never. If they start consuming right wing fear and hate mongering, and especially if an authoritative voice or voices move into the community, you bet your ass they could be swayed to elect a Boebert.

On the flipside, almost every city has a Democratic majority. In fact the 5 Most Conservative Major Cities in the United States doesn't include any truly "major" cities. OK City and Colorado Springs are probably the biggest.

That makes sense given the types of direct experience city dwellers have with people who are not like them.

I think the Republicans have done a really great job of keeping their minority rule alive and well in the States they control, but as the popular vote totals in national elections indicate, their challenge continues to increase in difficulty. Don't worry though - it's nothing that can't be overcome with sufficient cheating and lying.

Yep. That deeply ingrained superiority/authority complex and social dominance urge seem to be much stronger than whatever ideas of honesty and fairness might ever have lurked in that animal brain ideological swamp.

 

[Elixir]

Never say never. If they start consuming right wing fear and hate mongering, and especially if an authoritative voice or voices move into the community, you bet your ass they could be swayed to elect a Boebert.

Very true, and good point. I should have qualified - it’s going to take a local demographic sea-change to make that happen just as it took one to move this place from a rural backwater to a playground for the idle rich.

 

[Toni]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

This is less and less true. Depending on what part of rural US one is talking about, more and more of agriculture is being carried out by immigrants and persons of color. This spring, I visited the town I grew up in (nearly 100% white) and found a significant amount of diversity. The local high school had a student population with 40% minority students, a significant portion of whom were first generation ( mostly S. Asia) Americans. Some faculty and administrators are black which in the works I grew up in is seismic level of change. And the school is flourishing. That part: how well the school was doing and expanding stunned me the most. Like much of the Midwest, the farmland is disappearing and being gobbled up by fulfillment centers. 30 years ago, it was strip malls and McMansions and tacky subdivisions ( not that my neighborhood wasn’t tacky).

Rural America is changing rapidly. It’s not as rural as it once was and it’s certainly not as white or Christian as a lot of people seem to think. As far as that goes, Christianity is not synonymous with conservatism, homophobia or racism.

Some of the changes in rural America are definitely for the better but not all of those changes are. We need to think long and hard about the implications of disappearing farm land, for one thing.

 

[Elixir]

One of the most startling changes I’ve seen here is the level of diversity at our pool. It’s very accessible to locals, but up until a few years ago I had never seen anyone there who wasn’t Caucasian. Now, there are black, Asian and Hispanic lifeguards as well as attending families of those and mixed ethnicity. Some are on the HS swim team (which punches well above their weight for a small town) and it gives me a good feeling. Some are tourists (whose numbers are held in check by exorbitant pricing) but most are locals, which I know because of their repeated appearances.

 

[Jarhyn]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

This is less and less true. Depending on what part of rural US one is talking about, more and more of agriculture is being carried out by immigrants and persons of color. This spring, I visited the town I grew up in (nearly 100% white) and found a significant amount of diversity. The local high school had a student population with 40% minority students, a significant portion of whom were first generation ( mostly S. Asia) Americans. Some faculty and administrators are black which in the works I grew up in is seismic level of change. And the school is flourishing. That part: how well the school was doing and expanding stunned me the most. Like much of the Midwest, the farmland is disappearing and being gobbled up by fulfillment centers. 30 years ago, it was strip malls and McMansions and tacky subdivisions ( not that my neighborhood wasn’t tacky).

Rural America is changing rapidly. It’s not as rural as it once was and it’s certainly not as white or Christian as a lot of people seem to think. As far as that goes, Christianity is not synonymous with conservatism, homophobia or racism.

Some of the changes in rural America are definitely for the better but not all of those changes are. We need to think long and hard about the implications of disappearing farm land, for one thing.

I almost worry that the churches will realize that fomenting racial division is holding back their ability to foment division on "neurodivergence".

Already we are seeing small towns precipitating their entire community to a single church or denominational direction, with results like calling for holy war against the "perverts".

Everyone can join hands and hate together, at that point, as long as they hate "them".

 

[prideandfall]

Some of the changes in rural America are definitely for the better but not all of those changes are. We need to think long and hard about the implications of disappearing farm land, for one thing.

So firstly, yes - with the current state of food production, the ecological issue of a reduction in farmable land is a huge problem, i don't want to brush by that point or fail to give it due acknowledgement to its impact on human civilization as it currently exists, but i'm not sure that it's necessarily synonymous with 'rural' in this particular case, seeing as how the context of the discussion is more focused on 'rural' as a cultural notion.
By that, i mean i think that when we (broadly speaking in the zeitgeist, not directly any given person) refer to rural communities it's generally talking about smaller cities/towns that are outside the direct influence and infrastructure of urban city areas - IE, rural towns are any small town removed from concentrations of people, not explicitly farming communities.

The overall point about the changes in small town culture made me think of what i consider an interesting question: who does more demonstrable harm to the other faction in the 'city folk' vs 'country folk' divide?

We all seem to take it as read that the two groups are rivals and actively or at least passively work against each other, which would suggest that there is a measurable way you can gauge who is scoring more 'points' against the other.
Obviously the goals are not easily defined and 'team' membership isn't universal, but just musing on the subject in an abstract way i wonder if we really need to worry about the atrophy of rural life in america because IMO they are the side holding back the forward progress of human civilization and them going away isn't a bad thing.
(of course they're not the only side holding back human progress - it's interesting and ironic to me that it seems the extremes are both sides of the economic spectrum are the two groups working the hardest to atrophy human civilization, though for very different reasons)

Anyways, to turn away from thinking-out-loud and propose my question more directly:
if we assume for the sake of the question that urban and rural communities have different and somehow opposing governmental goals, who is more harmed by the other side getting its way?

It seems to me that most of the loudest shouting coming from the rural communities is about wanting to impose their cultural views on everyone else, that their end goal is social hegemony and control over the day-to-day lives of other people.
The second loudest griping is economic or having to do with their overall quality of life, but in that regard they actively destroy their own existence every election for the sake of their primary goal, to the point where i feel it almost nullifies their right to complain since all their problems are self imposed.

Religious thinking and authoritarian attitudes about government are not exclusive to the rural, but right now it's certainly at least the birth place of it and the spawning grounds from which is continuous to flow, though the internet may change that enough within a generation where that just becomes ubiquitous everywhere.
So i think there is demonstrable harm that rural america does to society - they are where most of the crazies come from that drive all the shit that comes from religious theocratic policy driving american government.
When a 10 year old is raped and can't get an abortion, that's coming from a rural mindset, not an urban one.

But what exactly is the urban mindset doing to the rural community in terms of legislation?
I'm asking because i assume i have bias due to not being able to think of any, so for the moment I'm giving the issue the benefit of the doubt that i'm just not seeing it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Some of the changes in rural America are definitely for the better but not all of those changes are. We need to think long and hard about the implications of disappearing farm land, for one thing.

So firstly, yes - with the current state of food production, the ecological issue of a reduction in farmable land is a huge problem, i don't want to brush by that point or fail to give it due acknowledgement to its impact on human civilization as it currently exists, but i'm not sure that it's necessarily synonymous with 'rural' in this particular case, seeing as how the context of the discussion is more focused on 'rural' as a cultural notion.
By that, i mean i think that when we (broadly speaking in the zeitgeist, not directly any given person) refer to rural communities it's generally talking about smaller cities/towns that are outside the direct influence and infrastructure of urban city areas - IE, rural towns are any small town removed from concentrations of people, not explicitly farming communities.

The overall point about the changes in small town culture made me think of what i consider an interesting question: who does more demonstrable harm to the other faction in the 'city folk' vs 'country folk' divide?

We all seem to take it as read that the two groups are rivals and actively or at least passively work against each other, which would suggest that there is a measurable way you can gauge who is scoring more 'points' against the other.
Obviously the goals are not easily defined and 'team' membership isn't universal, but just musing on the subject in an abstract way i wonder if we really need to worry about the atrophy of rural life in america because IMO they are the side holding back the forward progress of human civilization and them going away isn't a bad thing.
(of course they're not the only side holding back human progress - it's interesting and ironic to me that it seems the extremes are both sides of the economic spectrum are the two groups working the hardest to atrophy human civilization, though for very different reasons)

Anyways, to turn away from thinking-out-loud and propose my question more directly:
if we assume for the sake of the question that urban and rural communities have different and somehow opposing governmental goals, who is more harmed by the other side getting its way?

It seems to me that most of the loudest shouting coming from the rural communities is about wanting to impose their cultural views on everyone else, that their end goal is social hegemony and control over the day-to-day lives of other people.
The second loudest griping is economic or having to do with their overall quality of life, but in that regard they actively destroy their own existence every election for the sake of their primary goal, to the point where i feel it almost nullifies their right to complain since all their problems are self imposed.

Religious thinking and authoritarian attitudes about government are not exclusive to the rural, but right now it's certainly at least the birth place of it and the spawning grounds from which is continuous to flow, though the internet may change that enough within a generation where that just becomes ubiquitous everywhere.
So i think there is demonstrable harm that rural america does to society - they are where most of the crazies come from that drive all the shit that comes from religious theocratic policy driving american government.
When a 10 year old is raped and can't get an abortion, that's coming from a rural mindset, not an urban one.

But what exactly is the urban mindset doing to the rural community in terms of legislation?
I'm asking because i assume i have bias due to not being able to think of any, so for the moment I'm giving the issue the benefit of the doubt that i'm just not seeing it.

In some ways, rural communities fear more existential threats due to cities than the city folk recognize.

Think for a moment of each small community as a person, and a city a group of people.

So, you are a small town. You see city folks kill 5 small towns with the invention of a new factory type.

You see city folks kill another 3 or 4 small towns with the decision that they don't need to be pumping out manufacturing goods.

They kill your next door neighbor with a "regulation" that slowly suffocates him, or scares the sponsor of the factory, another city thing, away.

You see city folks kill another few towns by consolidating investment in factory agriculture.

This happens over and over again.

How would you not perceive that you are in fact at war with the entities that keep killing your friends with their decisions? It must have something to do with their values. They value "diversity" and "letting people be perverts" these folks who are so different and keep killing your friends with their "progress".

Never mind that your friends were living unsustainable dirty lives that were noxious even if temporarily necessary, destroying everything around them.

This thought process happens across a hundred thousand churches in a conversation that would make the Ents of LotR seem lively.

So, seen from this vantage point, there very much is a war.

It would be helpful if instead of killing towns, us cities would give new birth to such entities.

But we don't.

We just kill them.

 

[Angry Floof]

There's always going to be a conflict between city and country in the US until we all (all, not just liberals) learn some things about our own human nature. It's not a matter of city people being mean toward country people.

People who live out in the boonies in the US are mostly white Christians. White people, living their lives day in day out living amongst other white Christian people.

People who live in cities in the US are exposed to a much higher degree of diversity in culture, skin color, all walks of life, so to speak. People are still prejudiced in cities; it's just harder to be so. You have to see brown faces and live in proximity to other cultures and religions. It's a survival urge and a human need to get along with the people around you. It's safer that way and you have a higher chance of your needs being met.

And with the capacity for self awareness and conscience, on top of that you're much more likely to get appreciation for differences. It's super easy to not appreciate differences when you don't see any around you except through messaging rather than experience.

Add to that the inherently prejudicial nature of Christianity and its authoritarianism and superiority complex. Our abusive father figure, imaginary or proxy, will punish all those people who don't conform to our way of thinking or recognize our social primacy.

Homogeny + Christianity = it's a miracle that anyone coming out of rural America is not a raging bigot.

This is less and less true. Depending on what part of rural US one is talking about, more and more of agriculture is being carried out by immigrants and persons of color. This spring, I visited the town I grew up in (nearly 100% white) and found a significant amount of diversity. The local high school had a student population with 40% minority students, a significant portion of whom were first generation ( mostly S. Asia) Americans. Some faculty and administrators are black which in the works I grew up in is seismic level of change. And the school is flourishing. That part: how well the school was doing and expanding stunned me the most. Like much of the Midwest, the farmland is disappearing and being gobbled up by fulfillment centers. 30 years ago, it was strip malls and McMansions and tacky subdivisions ( not that my neighborhood wasn’t tacky).

Rural America is changing rapidly. It’s not as rural as it once was and it’s certainly not as white or Christian as a lot of people seem to think. As far as that goes, Christianity is not synonymous with conservatism, homophobia or racism.

Some of the changes in rural America are definitely for the better but not all of those changes are. We need to think long and hard about the implications of disappearing farm land, for one thing.

I think you would appreciate the work of filmmaker Nanfu Wang, whose documentaries embody the most essential element in changing minds - empathy. Her Netflix series "Mind Over Murder" focuses on exactly that, empathy changing minds when people are immersed in the Other's stories and experiences, and also looks at times when even extensive immersion doesn't change hardened minds.

I really recommend listening to or reading any interviews you can find with Nanfu Wang. These questions have become the heart and soul of her being and her work. Now I sound like a review, but seriously, she's an amazing voice on this topic.

 

[prideandfall]

In some ways, rural communities fear more existential threats due to cities than the city folk recognize.

While I don't disagree with you in theory, this is the kind of reply I was expecting and dreading - one that conflates "the city" with "basic consequences of a capitalist-based economy"

I don't think that's due to 'cities' in any meaningful way, unless in this case you're making the argument that the whole of both physical and metaphysical reality can and should be categorized into 'city' and 'rural' and literally everything that exists goes into one or the other label.

Think for a moment of each small community as a person, and a city a group of people.

So, you are a small town. You see city folks kill 5 small towns with the invention of a new factory type.

You see city folks kill another 3 or 4 small towns with the decision that they don't need to be pumping out manufacturing goods.

They kill your next door neighbor with a "regulation" that slowly suffocates him, or scares the sponsor of the factory, another city thing, away.

You see city folks kill another few towns by consolidating investment in factory agriculture.

This happens over and over again.

To reiterate my point above is any of this coming from the population of a city working in coordination to attack small towns?
I mean, if it is, please explain how - if I'm ignorant here I want to be corrected, I'm not presenting a counter-thought to attack your points I'm just outlining how I think there's a flaw in the logic here.

How would you not perceive that you are in fact at war with the entities that keep killing your friends with their decisions? It must have something to do with their values. They value "diversity" and "letting people be perverts" these folks who are so different and keep killing your friends with their "progress".

But that... I mean OK let me be clear here I'm not saying that isn't the way rural people think, but if that's what they think then not only what they think but the way they think is incredibly stupid.
None of that is coming from the people living in the urban sprawl around a developed downtown area, that's all coming from unregulated capitalism prioritizing profit over people.

That.... is literally what Democrats at least marginally attempt to control or curb, and yet these people keep voting Republican who actively quicken the process of destroying these towns.

Are 'small town' people are so incomprehensibly stupid that they simply cannot observe reality and make accurate correlations?
I figured it was cultural inertia which made them destroy their own lives for the sake of spite, are you telling me it's just pants-on-head retardation?

Never mind that your friends were living unsustainable dirty lives that were noxious even if temporarily necessary, destroying everything around them.

This thought process happens across a hundred thousand churches in a conversation that would make the Ents of LotR seem lively.

So, seen from this vantage point, there very much is a war.

It would be helpful if instead of killing towns, us cities would give new birth to such entities.

But we don't.

We just kill them.

Why should we give birth to new ones? The 'small town' structure is an obsolete model in the context of the modern world.

The small rural town works fine 50+ years ago when there was a measure of self-contained self-sustainability within the model, but now every small town wants modern infrastructure, don't they?
(or rather, every small town when we talk about 'small towns' in the broad context of them being a demographic. Not every town that is small wants this)
They want electricity, they want cable, they want internet, they want a Walmart, they want delivery service for their Amazon shipments... it used to be that small towns was where life operated in a simpler way that resisted technological and social progress.
Now, they want all the advantages of living in a city but want it without providing any of the financial incentive (or even equilibrium) to provide it to them.

Which then feeds back into the cycle I mentioned in my first post: that rugged fantasy of "hard work" and delusion of generations of Protestant mind-fuckery makes it so that they demand a handout in order to get the infrastructure they want, and then resent those that give it to them.
This resentment then leads to hating "city folk" as a demonized target for all their woes, since apparently hating all the things that actually made their lives miserable is too hard?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It would be helpful if instead of killing towns, us cities would give new birth to such entities.

But we don't.

We just kill them.

It would be helpful if instead of killing buggies us cities would build new buggy factories. Damn those newfangled automobiles!

The reality is that cities are more efficient than towns except for those who need to be close to the land. (Agriculture, mining and outdoor recreation.)