: not a blog

07 jan 07

What do you think about common perceptions of your country's "flyover states"? Would it be politically incorrect to judge that their reputation is largely borne out by experience?

the perception that they're full of jingoist, uneducated, bible-beating, uncultured farm-thugs? i haven't conducted extensive interviews. we bicoastal athenians don't know a lot about the flyover states, except what we hear when they're being made fun of. we also hear that they put bush in office, which i suppose is statistically true.

but of course this sort of perception is a stereotype, and one that's usually held by people who make a big deal out of not being racist. so, that's sort of funny, but it really annoys people when you point it out, so i wouldn't recommend it. of couse, "all rats are hairy" might be considered a stereotype as well, if you catch my drift.

but no -- i don't feel this way, because i am an open-minded creature of light. that said, you'll certainly find more conservatives in the middle of the country than you will on the coasts. and remember john stewart mill's (ESPN announcer) observation on conservatism:

Although it may not be true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative. -- jsm

categories like "conservative", "liberal", "republican" and "democrat" aren't helpful to anyone's endeavors not to be stupid. consider john mccain: registered republican, tries to do what he thinks is right, appears to be intelligent and thoughtful, disagrees with the republican party line a lot. i might vote for him.

the associated "republican" and "conservative" are labels that prevent anyone, republican or democrat, from making an unclouded assessment of john mccaine, or any other candidate. "he's a democrat/republican! he must be bad/good!" of course, who has the time, energy, or just the willingness to get an accurate portrait of any given candidate, something that might be impossible anyway given the liberal/corporate media? we resort to labels and categories, something that's going to be necessary to a degree, but come on -- you can handle more than two of them.

i would vote for hilary clinton or john mccaine, because i think both have integrity. wasn't that cheesy? i surprise myself sometimes. that might be my dream ticket: mccaine-clinton '08. have you seen this new "representative dodd" guy? he announced his presidential bid on the don imus show, i believe this morning. check out his markered-on eyebrows, shiny cheeks, and undefined neck-jaw area. if you have a fuzzy TV and are watching CNN from afar, his name looks like "CONGRESSMAN 0000". DODD. 0000.

simply put, my principal complaint is that division of american political landscape into conservative and liberal (not to mention republican and democrat) is not only stupid, but actually harmful. but everyone knows this, because it's obvious. that said, i'm pretty tired of seeing libertarians running around thinking they're transcendentalists because they've figured out that you don't have to believe in the rapture to support the free market.

but getting back on topic: i sort of assumed you were asking about political dimensions, and didn't talk about the flyover states being perceived as less culturally refined. the problem with culural refinement is that of course everyone and every place enjoys "culture" -- it's just that some entities have a harder time of or don't care as much to conform to an accepted standard of "cosmopolitan". i don't have a problem with there being a standard for this -- i'm not a unilateral relativist. but the fact is that these cultural standards are highly correlative with where the money is, and this is iffy.

or at least with "where the art is", which also tends to be "where the money is", so nevermind.

but yes -- borne out mostly by prejudice, overgeneralization, ehtnocentrism, and elitism, i think, even if their votes do generate some legitimate resentment.