An early post on this blog quoted Robert Reich about how most progressives live in cities and on the coasts, and most regressives live in rural areas far removed from ports and cities. It’s a widely noted pattern. “Our problem is they [the regressives] have disproportionate political power, and are determined to hold onto it as long as they can.”
Since compiling Reich’s sentiment (and the one from Connor Wood — whatever happened to him? — in the post previous to that one), I’ve come to understand these differences as aspects of human nature — the rural, or tribal, vs the urban, or continental. As explored by numerous books in psychology and the mind that I’ve read and blogged about in the decade since. And my thesis is that, as the world’s population expands, problems that must be solved through cooperation of all nations will require that urban, or continental, perspective and cooperation, while the priorities of the rural and tribal folk — like those about to take control of the US government — will just make everything worse. They think about short-term benefits, and ignore long-term consequences, when they won’t be around to suffer. (While apparently not minding that their grandchildren will.)
Here’s just the latest take on this issue.
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 2 Dec 2024: The United Cities and Ruralities of America, subtitled “It’s a two-state solution for our own intractable conflict.”
As Abraham Lincoln put it in his famous speech quoting the biblical aphorism, America is a house divided against itself. We’re not one united country, but two very different nations penned up within the same borders.
Worse yet, those two nations are at each other’s throats. We have drastically different politics and philosophies. We’re mutually suspicious, resentful and hostile. Our political divide has grown into a chasm pitting state against state, household against household, family against family.
It’s no wonder our national mood is so angry, bitter and bleak. We can’t endure like this forever. Is there a way out? Do we need a peaceful national divorce?
And so on.
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