Rural/urban divide?

[Rg339]

Does a cultural divide exist between urban and rural areas? What causes it? Is it continuing to widen? Are the differences(if any) significant enough to have practical effects(positive or negative)?

 

[Hygro]

Definitely one of the most obvious cultural divides.

 

[Rg339]

Also one of the most significant and least analyzed, IMO.

In the states, you can, to some degree, predict someone’s political stance, musical preferences, clothing style, religiosity, and vocabulary, all based on whether they identity as one or the other.

Yet I seldom hear anyone speak of why new cultural trends seem to emerge from urban areas, only to meet opposition from rural areas. It’s the big divide of the time, but strangely absent from the media radar

 

[GenMarshall]

As Hygro mention, the Urban/Rural is one major divide within the American political culture. Another that has taken up that I've noticed, especially with the current culture war is, liberty vs. authoritarian.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Does a cultural divide exist between urban and rural areas? What causes it? Is it continuing to widen? Are the differences(if any) significant enough to have practical effects(positive or negative)?

Yes

Humans are different.

No, communication is vastly improved compared to previous generations.

Political leanings swirl around.

 

[Rg339]

No, communication is vastly improved compared to previous generations.

This has only widened the gap. You don’t have to ever communicate with anyone who doesn’t share your views. If you want news, and you are convinced that the “liberal” media skews the truth, you don’t ever have to read it. There’s no Dan Rather providing news to all Americans anymore.

Media now accelerates and affirms the cultural contrast. No matter how ridiculous a belief, there is probably an Internet rabbit hole that will offer you affirmation should you want it.

I suppose it could be fairly said that the hegemony over media wealthy urbanites enjoy is coming under increasing challenge from the net

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Perhaps if you compare a few generations... But compare the life of a human 500 years ago and its a different picture.

A thousand years would most people even ever leave their local area, and meet anyone outside their immediate family and village?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I don't think its always as simple as just rural versus urban.
Due to housing costs in much of the UK rural workers live in nearby towns whilst the villages are full of 2nd homes for urbanites.

 

[stinkubus]

There is a divide in both "culture" and political economy. The material drives the agenda the donors want; the cultural divides are exploited to drive a popular base for each party. The politicians are picking their voters instead of the other way around.

 

[Rg339]

Perhaps if you compare a few generations... But compare the life of a human 500 years ago and its a different picture.

A thousand years would most people even ever leave their local area, and meet anyone outside their immediate family and village?

Present pattern is more relevant. If media presently drives separate echo chambers, you can expect it to continue to do so: it’s not like sources of information are going to shrink. Past a certain point, communications can and often do begin to accelerate growth of differences, rather than shrink them.

There is a divide in both "culture" and political economy. The material drives the agenda the donors want; the cultural divides are exploited to drive a popular base for each party. The politicians are picking their voters instead of the other way around.

Yeah I dunno. I see urban areas as faster adapters of trends capitalists demand. Work norms are meant to smooth over various differences between people, using a formal system of interactions that are cooperative(if shallow). Urban areas pretty rapidly adopt this, partly out of necessity

Anecdotally, what I see around me in rural America, is a visceral emotional reaction against that system of encroaching norms. People in rural areas often feel like these norms marginalize beliefs they cherish: religion, heritage, so on.

Media and politicians definitely exploit the effect, but I’m not so sure that they create it.

 

[Kaushad]

This has only widened the gap. You don’t have to ever communicate with anyone who doesn’t share your views. If you want news, and you are convinced that the “liberal” media skews the truth, you don’t ever have to read it. There’s no Dan Rather providing news to all Americans anymore.

Media now accelerates and affirms the cultural contrast. No matter how ridiculous a belief, there is probably an Internet rabbit hole that will offer you affirmation should you want it.

While we do have more choice over media consumption, I disagree that we can curate those with whom we communicate. There are too many people around us who we don't choose for that, like family and colleagues. I joined Twitter and made an echo chamber around the time I had a landlord who insisted on me being his friend (it was ultimately that or eviction) and I found his views so oppressive and willfully indifferent that I craved the comfort of finding people did care about matters that were personally important to me.

Present pattern is more relevant. If media presently drives separate echo chambers, you can expect it to continue to do so: it’s not like sources of information are going to shrink. Past a certain point, communications can and often do begin to accelerate growth of differences, rather than shrink them.


Yeah I dunno. I see urban areas as faster adapters of trends capitalists demand. Work norms are meant to smooth over various differences between people, using a formal system of interactions that are cooperative(if shallow). Urban areas pretty rapidly adopt this, partly out of necessity

Anecdotally, what I see around me in rural America, is a visceral emotional reaction against that system of encroaching norms. People in rural areas often feel like these norms marginalize beliefs they cherish: religion, heritage, so on.

Media and politicians definitely exploit the effect, but I’m not so sure that they create it.

The irony is that if anything, rural conservatives are enabling capitalist transformation of society by shrinking the state to the point that only capitalists can get anything done and we get no say about it. How exactly are we supposed to defend the mom and pop hegemony? It's almost as exasperating as New World Order fearers, but then who do I actually know who believes in that? Of course, some us want to escape from certain old norms anyway.

 

[Cutlass]

It's the primary political, cultural, economic, divide in the United States.

 

[João III]

Another common geographical divide is north-south. See: Portugal, United States, Italy, Korea, United Kingdom, Belgium, Vietnam, Germany, France, etc.

 

[Rg339]

While we do have more choice over media consumption, I disagree that we can curate those with whom we communicate. There are too many people around us who we don't choose for that, like family and colleagues. I joined Twitter and made an echo chamber around the time I had a landlord who insisted on me being his friend (it was ultimately that or eviction) and I found his views so oppressive and willfully indifferent that I craved the comfort of finding people did care about matters that were personally important to me.



The irony is that if anything, rural conservatives are enabling capitalist transformation of society by shrinking the state to the point that only capitalists can get anything done and we get no say about it. How exactly are we supposed to defend the mom and pop hegemony? It's almost as exasperating as New World Order fearers, but then who do I actually know who believes in that? Of course, some us want to escape from certain old norms anyway.

Agree that US conservative policy empowered the corporations they now see as against them. They quickly and conveniently dropped their long-standing opposition to the use of state power the moment their cultural hegemony began to wane. Although, this is not the first time that US cultural conservatives have done so, historically. Other instances in the Reconstruction period also show similar reactions.

I would say that the social dynamics that maintain info silos are more than resilient enough to resist casual exposure to opposing viewpoints, though.

Say a person hypothetically descends into the NWO net rabbit hole. They form friendships with NWO belief as a common basis. These friendships become valuable to them. They form a social group of reference around them. At this point, no matter how ridiculous the beliefs are, they cannot turn against the ideology without forfeiting the friendships(should they even disagree, since this is their group of reference, most times they absorb views and genuinely believe)

I’m not in their group of reference, the group of people with opinions they actually care about. No matter what is said, they’re gonna ignore it: they’ve effectively created an in/out group dynamic, and the net is what enables them to do that. They can be exposed to contrasting viewpoints but it simply won’t matter.

 

[Farm Boy]

That is also why people are sometimes recommended, "Go get some sun."

 

[Hygro]

That is also why people are sometimes recommended, "Go get some sun."

The physical people - internet-only people divide? That one is similarly huge.

 

[E.man]

From Oz.
I've lived in both.
Yes there is, because of different environments. Not naturally occurring physical envoronment but human constructed. Services are a massive difference here, especially health care. Anything that benefits from popn density won't happen in the country.

Tiny town I lived near for 20 yrs ended up with no fuel or food (besides a tourist pie shop).

 

[Snowygerry]

(...)
A thousand years would most people even ever leave their local area, and meet anyone outside their immediate family and village ?

Of course - this divide is not new it is the classic divide between citizens making money by trade and craft ( burghers) and land owners (knights) who exploit the land.

It dates back to Medevial or Roman times depending on where you are - the US is just a bit "behind the curve" - so to say

Another common geographical divide is north-south. See: Portugal, United States, Italy, Korea, United Kingdom, Belgium, Vietnam, Germany, France, etc.

That is a somewhat different matter - more political in nature - the old Latin/German border runs through Belgium in fact - in Portugal it probably originates in Moorish times no ?

 

[Narz]

Agree that US conservative policy empowered the corporations they now see as against them. They quickly and conveniently dropped their long-standing opposition to the use of state power the moment their cultural hegemony began to wane. Although, this is not the first time that US cultural conservatives have done so, historically. Other instances in the Reconstruction period also show similar reactions.

I would say that the social dynamics that maintain info silos are more than resilient enough to resist casual exposure to opposing viewpoints, though.

Say a person hypothetically descends into the NWO net rabbit hole. They form friendships with NWO belief as a common basis. These friendships become valuable to them. They form a social group of reference around them. At this point, no matter how ridiculous the beliefs are, they cannot turn against the ideology without forfeiting the friendships(should they even disagree, since this is their group of reference, most times they absorb views and genuinely believe)

I’m not in their group of reference, the group of people with opinions they actually care about. No matter what is said, they’re gonna ignore it: they’ve effectively created an in/out group dynamic, and the net is what enables them to do that. They can be exposed to contrasting viewpoints but it simply won’t matter.

Yeah its basically religious (shared belief, connecting to a community, us vs them).

Combined w the fact that most of them are old they're not gonna change. Admitting you've been duped for 80 years? Not gonna happen.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that "rural/urban" is a political rather than cultural divide. Steve Bannon liked to say that "politics is downstream of culture", and while this was presented as something radical and a bit scary, it's actually the common sense of the twenty-first century, he just said it out loud. (This is because we have collectively abandoned the idea that politics, the state, is an avenue for effecting change; if change is possible, we must imagine that it takes place somewhere outside of politics.) We therefore tend to look at the prevailing political divides and seek to infer some underlying cultural divide, that if a country is neatly divided into red and blue political teams, this would speak to some underlying cultural structure. Instead, I would contend, both teams are political formations, coalitions of economically and culturally heterogenous constituencies, who suppress their sense of difference in order to make a coalition viable.