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>That's a cool observation that I'll keep in mind. However, in my experience, it's not been the primary reason. Rather, it has seemed to me that rural folks liv
by htek 5y ago
>That's a cool observation that I'll keep in mind. However, in my experience, it's not been the primary reason. Rather, it has seemed to me that rural folks live closer to nature than urban folks, and have often had firsthand experience that mother nature tends to be nasty and brutish (or just check out r/natureismetal). That's an experience which tends to create what they would consider (IMHO) a much more pragmatic idea of what it takes to survive in the world.
My experience, having come from Appalachian stock and escaping to New York City, is that urbanites are more open to new experiences and ideas, they see different people and slices of their culture all the time. They are more likely to go to college, further increasing their experience of new ideas.
Rural folk are insulated from the world outside the area they live in. They're mired in conservatism and the past. They suffer from brain drain because most people, once they've been exposed to fresh ideas and people via college, tend to become more "worldly" and don't necessarily want to return to their one stop sign town with its extremely limited social life, culture, and job prospects. They often never master their fear of the other, because they see everyone who is not them AS the other.
- stevetodd 5y agoI see it more as idealism vs pragmatism. We need both. I think older people tend to be conservative because they've become jaded by idealists and/or politics in general. To many, conservatism is that government and politics screw everything up, so we need less of it.
- iostream23 5y ago“ To many, conservatism is that government and politics screw everything up, so we need less of it.” Which is a point of view funded by the large corporations actually funding the political screwups and bribing the politicians, particularly the ones who pretend to be conservative. (I.e. Manchin or McConnell) Rural voters received their messaging primarily through TV and radio, and then go down to the local bar and regurgitate it to each other with lots of “good ole, good ole, ye olde goode ole” and self congratulation. I’ve noticed this pattern in rural areas around the world. I see the rural urban divide as more fundamental than the national divisions. Closer to nature? Yeah, but in a frontline of battle antagonistic sort of way, conquer the big scary nature, even the person referencing the above had a human vs nature framing. I’ve been burned out of my house in bushfires, wrestled with solar panels in hurricanes and I’ll still call the most dangerous thing on earth a group of self assured humans doing their job.