General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Rural living. [View all]plimsoll
(1,671 posts)That was actually my assumption, but my son and I read it and thought this is going to annoy people. I can see we were right.
Heres my take, and a couple people in the Urban Living thread stated as much, but Id like to make explicit.
Urban communities dictate more acceptance of diversity than is required in rural settings. Rural communities seem to think this is saying theyre racist/bigots/intolerant. Honesty should dictate that urban people acknowledge the diversity in rural communities degree of tolerance. So there is a flashpoint.
Conversely rural communities can achieve a pretty high degree of behavioral homogeneity. Sometimes the social pressures used to achieve that homogeneity is pretty extreme. Many urban people believe this is universal; many rural people want to pretend it doesnt exist. Theyre both wrong, but when the only rural people you hear from are the ones who claim all is wonderful in rural America sometimes applying the same threatening behavior they deny exists what would a rational person believe.
I agree we need to get start talking about these things and finding common ground, but this is not a one sided problem. Its not all the fault of Urban elites, but I wonder how many of your neighbors would even entertain that notion.
We should be careful with our language. My son and I have a relative who moved to a rural community and adopted the stereotyped narrow minded bigotry urban groups seem to believe is the norm. Hes very happy tossing out that were Urban Elites, Coastal Elites as derogatory epithets, we deliberately turned the tables and started using Banjo Elites when referring his community. Oddly he didnt seem to enjoy it.