I think it more comes down to the fact that if you live in a rural area, you have to have a very independent and individualistic mindset because you are so far away from things that you have to do most things yourself. This leads to a less collectivist mindset. Your main hub of society tends to be the nearest church, which is where you see the other people living nearby. Or maybe the bass pro shop or waffle house if you are near enough to one of those.
When you live in a city, you are about as deep in society as you can get, and you can quickly understand why we need to help each other because you see the results of not doing that all around you (mental illness, drug addicition, homelessness, etc.).
It’s not that one is right and the other wrong, it’s that they are life viewed from fundamentally different perspectives and needs.
I think it’s more that in rural areas webs of trust function. You may not know Bob, but your cousin is best friends with his cousin and you know the last name and so since you haven’t heard anything good or bad about him from people you trust who know him he must be an alright fella. And you know Jane just started working with you and she lives in the city but Alice who went to high school with you is saying she’s a good worker and may just be what the company needs so you’ll give her a chance.
This gets them into trouble as this creates a conformity and pushes “deviants” out of their community. “Sam from down the street is Samantha now” provides an opportunity if the town hasn’t yet committed to transphobia, but if it has she’s not longer trustworthy and is prone to harassment, and a very likely scenario is that she’s lauded as a good one and not like most of them. People of color, immigrants, and people of the wrong religion face similar challenges but without the benefit of family and an existing reputation. Ahmed and Fatima have a long uphill battle to be welcomed into a small farming town, even if they’re providing desperately needed skills.
Cities cannot function like this. In many ways they do develop geographically overlapping versions of it, but while you can model a big city queer community or environmentalist scene or whatever subset as a small town web of trust, you can’t function like that in the same way. You will have neighbors you don’t know because your block could have over a hundred families in it. Interpersonal focused charity is demolished at that point. Institutionalized services become vital as do things like multimodal transit systems.
And once you have these institutions and these resources you get the people who can’t get what they need in small towns. Sure the small town has its drug dealers and manufacturers, but only a few do higher level stuff, where the city has a drug trade and gangs. You may have a homeless person or two in a small town, but once they’ve worn out their welcome and stop getting support they’re going to head towards the city where there’s shelters and rehabs and people who didn’t watch them grow up and get sick of giving alms to them.
Small communities are modeled as relationships and responsibilities and people in those places often think rigidly like that. But urban life forces you to think in systems
Yes, but not one run by the government. It is the form of collectivism that rural people see and most conspicuously use, and hence why they don’t see the need for governments
A very generous reading. I think they couldn’t care less if government is needed, unless it helps them, in which it’s certainly desperately needed. Paying for a minority to get a benefit is their worse enemy though. It’s all about selfishness.
In which case, when it comes to big-city federal tax dollars paying for pork-barrel infrastructure (dams, highways, etc.) and health facilities, and disaster-relief in their little communities, most of those dollars come from city workers. THEY’re not the ones paying for minorities to get a benefit … it’s the minorities!
Without Blue states, Red states would be stuck with the taxes their people are willing to pay.
Yes, but not one run by the government. It is the form of collectivism that rural people see and most conspicuously use, and hence why they don’t see the need for governments
Moving from the government to the church is really just moving from one giant organization to the other in a lot of ways. But yes, it’s outside of government so I guess you could say it counts.
Yep, cities are great because there’s almost always someone you can call on to get problems dealt with almost immediately. Police, fire, utilities, landlords, homeless shelters, therapists, hospitals, exterminators etc etc
In the country you simply don’t have that. Churches are basically community centers. The govt doesn’t have a huge role so country people are okay with smaller government. Cities can’t imagine life with a smaller government because they rely on it in tons of ways to keep society functioning
Many people in cities think something like owning a gun without the intent to commit a crime is insane because they can call the cops.
Many people in the country think not having a gun around for emergencies is insane because any first responder is 15-40 minutes away, and until then you and your neighbors are it
Like you said it’s not so much right vs left but city vs rural mindsets
Let’s not think of all the infrastructure to get what they sell to the people who buy it or that gets the stuff you buy to you. And if your response is, “Well, that’s only 100 miles to the nearest store/city/hospital,” that completely ignores how the stuff got there so you could pick it up.
Unless your lifestyle is such that you only have to buy or sell things a few times per year to survive, you’re relying on that national/global infrastructure to enjoy your rugged, individualistic lifestyle.
I think it more comes down to the fact that if you live in a rural area, you have to have a very independent and individualistic mindset because you are so far away from things that you have to do most things yourself. This leads to a less collectivist mindset. Your main hub of society tends to be the nearest church, which is where you see the other people living nearby. Or maybe the bass pro shop or waffle house if you are near enough to one of those.
When you live in a city, you are about as deep in society as you can get, and you can quickly understand why we need to help each other because you see the results of not doing that all around you (mental illness, drug addicition, homelessness, etc.).
It’s not that one is right and the other wrong, it’s that they are life viewed from fundamentally different perspectives and needs.
I think it’s more that in rural areas webs of trust function. You may not know Bob, but your cousin is best friends with his cousin and you know the last name and so since you haven’t heard anything good or bad about him from people you trust who know him he must be an alright fella. And you know Jane just started working with you and she lives in the city but Alice who went to high school with you is saying she’s a good worker and may just be what the company needs so you’ll give her a chance.
This gets them into trouble as this creates a conformity and pushes “deviants” out of their community. “Sam from down the street is Samantha now” provides an opportunity if the town hasn’t yet committed to transphobia, but if it has she’s not longer trustworthy and is prone to harassment, and a very likely scenario is that she’s lauded as a good one and not like most of them. People of color, immigrants, and people of the wrong religion face similar challenges but without the benefit of family and an existing reputation. Ahmed and Fatima have a long uphill battle to be welcomed into a small farming town, even if they’re providing desperately needed skills.
Cities cannot function like this. In many ways they do develop geographically overlapping versions of it, but while you can model a big city queer community or environmentalist scene or whatever subset as a small town web of trust, you can’t function like that in the same way. You will have neighbors you don’t know because your block could have over a hundred families in it. Interpersonal focused charity is demolished at that point. Institutionalized services become vital as do things like multimodal transit systems.
And once you have these institutions and these resources you get the people who can’t get what they need in small towns. Sure the small town has its drug dealers and manufacturers, but only a few do higher level stuff, where the city has a drug trade and gangs. You may have a homeless person or two in a small town, but once they’ve worn out their welcome and stop getting support they’re going to head towards the city where there’s shelters and rehabs and people who didn’t watch them grow up and get sick of giving alms to them.
Small communities are modeled as relationships and responsibilities and people in those places often think rigidly like that. But urban life forces you to think in systems
And yet church is a collectivist society. Even says so in the Gospels and when done properly, churches take care of each other in their societies.
Yes, but not one run by the government. It is the form of collectivism that rural people see and most conspicuously use, and hence why they don’t see the need for governments
A very generous reading. I think they couldn’t care less if government is needed, unless it helps them, in which it’s certainly desperately needed. Paying for a minority to get a benefit is their worse enemy though. It’s all about selfishness.
In which case, when it comes to big-city federal tax dollars paying for pork-barrel infrastructure (dams, highways, etc.) and health facilities, and disaster-relief in their little communities, most of those dollars come from city workers. THEY’re not the ones paying for minorities to get a benefit … it’s the minorities!
Without Blue states, Red states would be stuck with the taxes their people are willing to pay.
Well it shouldn’t be surprising that someone who lives far away from everyone else doesn’t care much for other people.
in other words, anarchism
Moving from the government to the church is really just moving from one giant organization to the other in a lot of ways. But yes, it’s outside of government so I guess you could say it counts.
Yep, cities are great because there’s almost always someone you can call on to get problems dealt with almost immediately. Police, fire, utilities, landlords, homeless shelters, therapists, hospitals, exterminators etc etc
In the country you simply don’t have that. Churches are basically community centers. The govt doesn’t have a huge role so country people are okay with smaller government. Cities can’t imagine life with a smaller government because they rely on it in tons of ways to keep society functioning
Many people in cities think something like owning a gun without the intent to commit a crime is insane because they can call the cops.
Many people in the country think not having a gun around for emergencies is insane because any first responder is 15-40 minutes away, and until then you and your neighbors are it
Like you said it’s not so much right vs left but city vs rural mindsets
Let’s not think of all the infrastructure to get what they sell to the people who buy it or that gets the stuff you buy to you. And if your response is, “Well, that’s only 100 miles to the nearest store/city/hospital,” that completely ignores how the stuff got there so you could pick it up.
Unless your lifestyle is such that you only have to buy or sell things a few times per year to survive, you’re relying on that national/global infrastructure to enjoy your rugged, individualistic lifestyle.