Episode 4: Small Town Values

100208.0506

I was born in New York City, raised on Long Island, and did my undergraduate work in the rural town of Potsdam in upstate New York. I believe I have a unique understanding of how big city, suburban, and small town cultures work, because I have lived in them all.

The big city, or as I like to call them, “the big black dots on a map” serves as the epicenter of business, culture, trading, production, and commerce of a community. The population is very dense compared to its surrounding towns. Because our big cities have been around for so long, it is easy to mistake the city to be a “gathering place,”  a place to experience fast paced life and culture. However, the city is where the original community was founded. Before the Big Apple was a big apple, it was a seed. That seed was a small town.

The small town began as a community of settlers who needed to satisfy the basic needs of survival – food, water, and shelter. Thinking that interdependence was necessary for survival, they banded together, and lived as one people, according to moral law. Settlers had different skill sets which helped to develop the community. Some were skilled blacksmiths, others were carpenters, while others were farmers. And in the spirit of interdependence, they would barter resources to ensure the survival of the entire community. Small towns became isolated communities, living by moral law, and looked to the rules of God as their constitution, the villagers, the constituents of the highest of powers. Working together as a people, instilling the importance of individual responsibility and devout belief in God formed the foundation of small town values.

This foundation still holds true today. Go to any small town, and you’ll soon notice everyone knows everyone. The town sheriff is also the umpire of the little league baseball team. The head coach of the high school football team is the town ambassador and every boy’s second father. The jobs are more complex than blacksmithing and carpentry. Now today’s small town enterprises include steel working, commercial fishing, and perhaps running a small motel. And though currency has replaced the barter system, neighbors are willing to lend a helping hand, be it the farmer who can spare extra food to a family in hardship, or the local car mechanic who can help a financially troubled family with a free oil change and tune up, because the car is the only way to get to work.  

In time, someone will develop more progressive ideologies. He may rise up, gain influence from his community, and become a leader. The small town begins to trade with neighboring towns and distant towns. The neighboring communities will engage in dialogue with each other and learn more about the world around them. Immigrants may settle in the small town and inject their culture into it. The community begins to grow in population. Interdependence and moral law no longer suffice as the law of the land. In order to effectively govern the people of a larger community, written laws are created and enforced. With so many people performing specialized tasks such as blacksmithing and carpentry, the people begin to compete to make better wares. The need to share resources greatly diminishes as the supply of goods sharply increases to the point of surplus. Surplus of goods and services leaves time for people to pursue other endeavors such as art, music, dance, writing, and philosophy. The citizens become independent. And out of this independence, influx of culture, artisans, and commerce comes the big city.   

In politics, you are likely to find small town communities to have conservative ideologies while big cities have more liberal ideologies. The reason is simple; small town communities are built upon cultural traditionalism, while big cities are based on cultural progressivism. Traditionalism is a big problem in today’s global market. High speed internet, fiber optics, and transportation technology have destroyed the walls that kept us isolated from the world. We are becoming a global community. Decisions a country makes have worldwide implications. In essence, the world is now a big city.

Small town ideology is incompatible with the global community. The primary reason for the complete and utter failure of the Bush administration is due to the unsuccessful fusion of small town values into the global world. Everyone around us are challenging the establishment, and pushing the limits of human ingenuity and innovation. Meanwhile, America, the country which from WWII to 2000 were at the leading edge of ingenuity and innovation unwisely elected a leader who lacked a vision of the future and instead promoted an ideology which encouraged Americans to “cling to their guns and religion.” In order to continue relationships with the rest of the world, we had to assimilate global communities into our moral law that has been long abandoned by westernized countries, and wholly rejected by the Middle East. As a result, we damaged our relationship with the global community and alienated them for not following the “American Way.”

The GOP ticket is particularly disconcerting at this current juncture. Not only the world is a moment’s notice on turning their backs on us, but we re also in danger of losing our status as a world leader in innovation and economic super power status. John McCain's and Sarah Palin's traditional values do not only fail to extend to the global community, but also to their own people. How can the next president not know how to use a computer when the future of technology and communication solely rely on it? How could he truly understand the significance of legislation regarding national and global communication? His vice presidential pick, though young and exciting, also has a voice that does not extend beyond the small town community. Even worse, she is woefully unversed in the ways and policies of the progressive movement, and is therefore unable to even defend her own small town ideology in a coherent manner.

Our entry into the 21st century global community was a shaky one. If we are to succeed as a nation and reclaim our dominance in innovation and ingenuity, the progressive ideology is the only way to accomplish this. We do not want to reach a appoint where we have to play catch up with the world. If this ever happens, our time as a super power is over.