4 ms·
> I was afraid of what people would think, because Americans have been deeply conditioned to see their manicured lawns as status symbols. I don't think insulti
by jimmytucson 10y ago
> I was afraid of what people would think, because Americans have been deeply conditioned to see their manicured lawns as status symbols.
I don't think insulting people who mow their lawns helps get her point across. I mow my lawn for obvious reasons: I like the way it looks, I like my neighbors, I don't like rats or hornet nests, etc. She'd be better served by trying to persuade me to reexamine the values that lead to not wanting big honking rats in my yard but she lost that chance when she implied I'm a zapped cow.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoIt isn't that all cultural? Why have a lawn at all? Why not just go native or whatever else? I was looking around Melbourne, a town with a lot of detached houses, and didn't find many lawns (and no, they also had no rats because they didn't have grass). Maybe it really is an aspect of American culture? Not an insulting point, just a realistic one.
- Amezarak 10y agoEast of the Mississippi, "going native" quickly results in a thick, impassable jungle that will eventually tear down your house. Most people outside of serious lawn perfectionists do nothing other than simply mow their lawn once every week or two. I assume the fashion for perfectly green lawns in California deserts came from an imitation of the environment back east.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoThere aren't many green lawns in California desert though, too expensive to maintain! Lawns definitely aren't a "social requirement". I guess Kudzu in Mississippi could be a problem,
- macawfish 10y agoIs that really an insult? Or is the truth just kind of embarrassing? People have a deep, psychological fixation on monocultures, IMO, one that is not well developed or backed up by anything other than the power politics of our day.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoI'd like to see some evidence that an unmowed lawn leads directly to nuisance levels of hornets and "big honking rats". It sounds like your real concern is that you want your neighbors to conform, and you're looking for justification after the fact.
- Tempest1981 10y agoI saw it as giving some reasons that people like maintained yards. Not sure that warrants a downvote. Maybe he exaggerated a bit about the rat size. Are you arguing that obeying laws is conforming, and conforming is bad? Or that the law is so obviously flawed that nobody should conform to it?
- M_Grey 10y agoHe didn't argue anything, he asked for evidence to support a claim, which is totally reasonable, unlike your reply.
- M_Grey 10y agoJust because someone takes offense at a statement, doesn't make that statement an insult. I'm sure that Richard Nixon despised being called a liar, doesn't mean that he wasn't a liar or that it was an insult. Sometimes an observation hurts, and that should impel you to examine yourself, not lash out.