Posted on 11/24/2001 7:55:06 PM PST by tpaine
Dec. Issue: One Country, Slightly Divisible
Sage Stossel - Nov 15, 2001
In "One Nation, Slightly Divisible" (December Atlantic), David Brooks, (the author of Bobos in Paradise,) looks at the differences between small-town Middle America (which he dubs "Red America" after the Presidential Election-night maps which showed those areas as red), and upscale urban America (which he dubs "Blue America"), and considers how significant those differences are to America's sense of having a unified national identity. Brooks's informal research involved spending time in rural Franklin County, Pennsylvania, talking to people and observing everyday life there, and comparing it with life in his own home county of Montgomery, Maryland.
Montgomery County, he explains, "is one of the steaming-hot centers of the great espresso machine that is Blue America. It is just over the border from northwestern Washington, D.C., and it is full of upper-middle-class towns inhabited by lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, and establishment journalists like me--towns like Chevy Chase, Potomac, and Bethesda (where I live)."
Franklin County, on the other hand "is Red America. It's a rural county, about twenty-five miles west of Gettysburg.... The joke that Pennsylvanians tell about their state is that it has Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Franklin County is in the Alabama part."
The differences Brooks observes are legion.
Everything from food to clothing, to recreation, education-levels, and life aspirations are dramatically different in Red as opposed to Blue America. In Red America people eat meatloaf, dine at Crackerbarrel, shop at Walmart, attend Church and participate in Church-related activities regularly, live near family, obtain minimal educations, hold conservative views on issues like homosexuality and abortion, and enjoy a close-knit community life. In Blue America people eat "sun-dried-tomato concoctions," wear designer clothes, get graduate degrees, enjoy ideas, compete with one another for prestige, money and recognition, and tend to be openminded about social issues such as homosexuality and abortion, and open to other cultures.
In light of these many differences Brooks asks, "Are Americans any longer a common people? Do we have one national conversation and one national culture? Are we loyal to the same institutions and the same values?" Some observers, Brooks explains, have expressed concern that such differences are problematic. Many social critics and political analysts, for example, have suggested that the Red America vs. Blue America cultural divide represents an antagonistic chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Brooks argues, however, that this seems not to be the case because the inhabitants of Red America don't see themselves as have-nots:
Rather, the people I met commonly told me that although those in affluent places like Manhattan and Bethesda might make more money and have more-exciting jobs, they are the unlucky ones, because they don't get to live in Franklin County. They don't get to enjoy the beautiful green hillsides, the friendly people, the wonderful church groups and volunteer organizations. They may be nice people and all, but they are certainly not as happy as we are.
Other observers have argued that Red America and Blue America represent opposing moral systems that are bound to clash with one another as they compete to determine how America will be run. But here, too, Brooks disagrees:
Certainly Red and Blue America disagree strongly on some issues, such as homosexuality and abortion. But for the most part the disagreements are not large. Tolerance of other points of view on most issues seems to be the norm both for Red and for Blue America.
Indeed, Brooks suggests, the overarching similarities between Red America and Blue America probably override their many less-significant differences. The differences, he writes, are mainly ones of "sensibility, not class or culture." Inhabitants both of Red America and of Blue America appreciate the fact that this country allows them to make their own choices about what they will believe and how they will live, and that other Americans are free to do so as well: "Although there are some real differences between Red and Blue America," he writes, "there is no fundamental conflict. There may be cracks, but there is no chasm. Rather, there is a common love for this nation--one nation in the end."
What are your thoughts on the differences between "Red America" and "Blue America"? Which culture do you identify with more? Do most of your family and friends identify with the same sector of America as you do? Do you agree with Brooks that the differences are mainly surface ones that don't divide the country in any significant way? What are your gut feelings about Red America vs. Blue America? -- Do you find Red America depressingly provincial? Refreshingly community-oriented and non-competitive? Do you find Blue America exhileratingly progressive and challenging? Competitive and impersonal?... Post your thoughts here.
"Certainly Red and Blue America disagree strongly on some issues, such as homosexuality and abortion. But for the most part the disagreements are not large. Tolerance of other points of view on most issues seems to be the norm both for Red and for Blue America."
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Good article, but I can't quite agree on the 'tolerance' angle above. -- Very little is ever seen on FR.
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The hell there isn't. When I want intelligent conversation and real people I'll go to red America. If I wanted Woody Allen, I'll go to Blue America.
Thanks for the article.
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Yep. - There's plenty here that preach intolerance, fer sure. Gotta love it.
I find Blue America depressingly provincial. There is little tolerance in the blue zone for truly religious or conservative people. It is too important to go along to get along. Blue zoners live for the approval of their neighbors and coworkers. God forbid anyone should have a contrary point of view.
I find Blue America depressingly provincial. There is little tolerance in the blue zone for truly religious or conservative people. It is too important to go along to get along. Blue zoners live for the approval of their neighbors and coworkers. God forbid anyone should have a contrary point of view.
Of course, I think he left out the slums in the Blue Zone too....
In the magazine, he claims:
" You won't find much crusader zeal in Franklin County.
For one thing, people in small towns don't want to offend people whom they'll be encountering on the streets for the next fifty years. Potentialy controversial subjects are often played down. ---- snip ------ It would be simply uncivil to thrust raw disagreement in peoples faces."
I've seen this meself, as I grew up in a small town.
So maybe FR's uncivility is just due to its anonomous nature?
Gloria Steinem, Woody Allen, Geralso Rivera, and many others wouldn't survive in red America. Blue America has an extensive parasitic fop subculture that supports them in ease and stupidity. That's where they congregate and vote. Capacity to produce outrage is a major industry in such places that has been taken up by the social structure. A fool can survive in the red area by virtue of attention and entertainment value. On a farm, it will get you broke and hungry within a short time.
As far as civility, I call them as I see them. I grew up in a German Pennsylvania dutch community in which euphemis was looked upon as a dangerous and insulting form of lie.
I live in a Blue County - in the Midwest. The polls stayed open an extra hour so the unregistered voters here could get to the polls and vote for Gore.
I eat meatloaf, dine at Crackerbarrel, shop at Walmart, attend Church and participate in Church-related activities regularly, live near family, but I
have a Master's degree from an Eastern University. I was born here and returned to be near my family and work in the family business. I
hold conservative views on issues like homosexuality and abortion, and enjoy a close-knit community life. I'm intolerant of people who don't share my values, and believe that if you want to come here, YOU should accept US. I
am a stockbroker now that my father lost the business, wear department store suits to work and Land's End khakis on weekends. I
compete vigorously for money and prestige, but tithe, and lend my expertise and name recognition to the local High School (yes, a state school, but not bad as they go).
My antecedents came to what is now Silver Spring, MD (near where the writer lives) in the 17th Century and later fought along side General Washington (see Screen name). I carry a copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in my jacket or slacks pocket because I like the ideas in them.
Where do I fit in this divided country?
We're all Americans, and that's the beauty of it.
Are we one country? Another way of asking the question is "Are we more divided now than we were in the past? Are we less one country than we were in 1860 or 1896 or 1932 or 1968? If we survived those crises as a country (and some might say we didn't survive 1860 as one country), what divides us now that can't be overcome? Today, we expect to be all one thing or all another. The prarie farmer and Wall Street Banker of 1896 or 1932 probably hated each other, but recognized that they were part of one and the same nation in which both of them had a place. The Northern mechanic or merchant and Southern planter or farmer of 1860 more likely than not saw themselves as members of two different nations.
It does seem like today's divisions run higher than the usual city vs. country rivalry, but I don't think we're at anything near the degree of hostility felt in 1860. Especially since 9/11. Patriotism has a new, almost unprecedented popularity in the Blue zone, and, rightly or wrongly, "fundamentalism" has become a dirty word in much of the Red Zone.
In times of peace and prosperity, people take internal political divisions for great, unbridgeable chasms. When there are external enemies and real problems, people put these divisions aside and come together more. It's an encouraging sign that gun control seems to have fallen off the national agenda. The day will come when the crisis is resolved and we turn our energies against each other once again, but I don't long for that day.
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Hmmmmm, My german relatives in Wabasha County MN. valued euphemism as social grease, and a witty man that could make his point without insulting others was highly respected.
Different strokes I guess.
That make any sense?
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