Rural America.

Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
I have a lot to say about this topic. Not long ago I let some pretty awesome urban decay and decamped to a red state. I have been agog at the differences but I am trying to merely focus on one aspect that I just cannot understand.

So now I am in daily contact with a whole lot of America's "heartland" dwellers and I gotta say: It does not compute.

The people I am living among want to do nothing, learn nothing, go nowhere. Why? Are they suffering from a lack of curiosity? Are they satisfied? Are they stupid? I just don't know.

The other day I was speaking to a 27 year old guy who, by all rights, is doing pretty well. He has been nowhere. Ever. And it seems that he is cool with that. I was urging him to take some time off and go someplace - any place. And all I got from him was a blank, uncomfortable stare.

My wife is from here, so I asked her. She said that anybody inclined to do so - imbued with the intellectual curiosity to wonder about the rest of the world - already bailed and made their way someplace more interesting. She says the ones that are still here will die here, never knowing the slightest thing about the rest of the world but what will fit on the front of a mesh-back gimme-hat.

Has rural America always been this sociologically retarded?
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
On top of that... our urban friends are a diverse gamut. Lots of homosexuals; people of different races; people from all strata of the socio-economic continuum. And yet, generally being the approximate age for such things, they have young kids and are totally getting into the family mode of living. They are raising kids. They love their kids and take great pains to ensure that those kids have the education that they need. They don't talk about family values, they just live them. And they are almost all married. But here I am continually faced with unmarried young people who have an inordinate number of children. Like a 34 year old with seven fucking kids by three different women - never married of course. But he voted from Trump because of his "traditional values". I nearly peed myself.

I am not exaggerating. The 27 year old I spoke of in the last post has a nine year old daughter and his baby-mama has two other younger children. Yah, family values. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

I don't get it at all.

The more I learn about America's heartland, the less there is to know.
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Oh, I left something out. They are fucking miserable. Wage slaves. Typical hobbies: drinking.

Bud Light, you betcha. Maybe some Coors light.

My neighbor comes home with a twelve pack of Coors Light every single day. When I am out reading I can hear him open every one of them while he stares out into space without ever seeing a star.
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
MichiganMedGrower said:
I am not from where my user name implies. Mrs. MMG is. And we live out in the woods in her home town in a farmland area and all I can say about this is......


yup
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Expound please. I really want to know. Does the stultified social life just fail to jump-start one's soul? I mean, we have a library. Globes are not that hard to find. The sky is the same world over. Why don't they think?

What is at the core of this acceptance and unfounded pride of that which you can see at an arm's length?

Yeah, I know, those in the inner city are seldom better off - but they don't seem so satisfied about it.
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
I think people are satisfied with rural life because it takes less effort. It's harder to be able to socially engage with different types of people if you've been raised to think and believe those that are different are somehow bad people. You can dismiss them and everything they believe as simply coming from somewhere different. Thinking about and considering other perspectives is tough and takes work and challenges your preconceived ideas about the world and the people that populate it. Meanwhile, everyone around you is discouraging it.
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
I think people are satisfied with rural life because it takes less effort. It's harder to be able to socially engage with different types of people if you've been raised to think and believe those that are different are somehow bad people. You can dismiss them and everything they believe as simply coming from somewhere different. Thinking about and considering other perspectives is tough and takes work and challenges your preconceived ideas about the world and the people that populate it. Meanwhile, everyone around you is discouraging it.
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I do sense a strong social support network, there is usually an American flag invoked.
 
Stroker

Stroker

Well-Known Member
People are happy with their cell phones,PCs and video games. I grow up in a town that had less than a 1000 people kids were everywhere when I was young.Now a days you dont see any kids. They are staying in there "safe zones" weak.
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Stroker said:
People are happy with their cell phones,PCs and video games. I grow up in a town that had less than a 1000 people kids were everywhere when I was young.Now a days you dont see any kids. They are staying in there "safe zones" weak.
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There is probably something to that. There seems to be a heightened awareness of the dangers of others to kids, and parents seem to have reacted to this by walling their kids away. My mother used to talk about how it "wasn't this way when she was a girl" and yet she would also tell the story about the child murdering predator in the 1930s that scared her and her peers so badly.

But I don't know if this is a feature of rural life per se. I have seen parents in New York subjected to legal action for letting their eight year old take the bus by themselves.

Also, it is "their safe zones" - not "there".
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
Stroker said:
People are happy with their cell phones,PCs and video games. I grow up in a town that had less than a 1000 people kids were everywhere when I was young.Now a days you dont see any kids. They are staying in there "safe zones" weak.
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Isn't the Republican message of "fear everything!" partly responsible for this?

Fear drugs, fear gays, fear Muslims, fear sex, fear kidnapping, fear abortions, fear peadophiles, fear vaccines, fear education, fear science! etc.

I don't mean to lay blame directly on the Republican party, but fuck me if they haven't perpetuated these issues the past couple decades in order to energize their base against them.
 
Stroker

Stroker

Well-Known Member
Stroker said:
People are happy with their cell phones,PCs and video games. I grow up in a town that had less than a 1000 people kids were everywhere when I was young.Now a days you dont see any kids. They are staying in there "safe zones" weak.
Click to expand...
THEIR

Unclebaldrick said:
There is probably something to that. There seems to be a heightened awareness of the dangers of others to kids, and parents seem to have reacted to this by walling their kids away. My mother used to talk about how it "wasn't this way when she was a girl" and yet she would also tell the story about the child murdering predator in the 1930s that scared her and her peers so badly.

But I don't know if this is a feature of rural life per se. I have seen parents in New York subjected to legal action for letting their eight year old take the bus by themselves.

Also, it is "their safe zones" - not "there".
Click to expand...
lol
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
I would like to read the judge's reasoning, do you have a link?
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Not sure if the legal action went anywhere but here is a link from a New Yorker who let their nine year old ride the subway alone and about half of the people felt she should be turned in for child neglect. I only searched a few minutes but there was a case which I am not finding with casual searching.

http://www.nysun.com/opinion/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway-alone/73976/

A while ago I saw a car with a hand written sign imploring people not to break her car window as the car was running, her AC was on and her dog was in no danger. Times change. I promise you no such note was ever written in the 1950s or 1960s. Not making a moral judgement... just sayin'
 
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