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I think the type of person who thinks there's no culture in small towns just never goes to places like that. Montana is great and has its own culture. When I tr

I think the type of person who thinks there's no culture in small towns just never goes to places like that. Montana is great and has its own culture. When I travel I try to hit up small towns and out of the way places. Some of the best times of my life were spent traveling around rural New South Wales, specifically the Bega Valley. If there's people, there's culture.

drewcoo 3y ago
Missoula isn't really a small town. It's a university town with a med center. It's pretty urban for a sparsely-populated western state! That said, it's in the west, so one of the biggest attractions to living there is getting out of town and into some nature. In Australian terms, maybe it's a little like Adelaide.
CuriouslyC 3y ago
When people say small towns have no culture, what they mean is "small towns have (mostly) a monoculture which is (usually) a slight variation of the regional culture." These towns might be chain store wastelands, or they might have some unique local character (e.g. Fredericksburg, Tx) but either way if you want to watch a Balinese shadow puppet show, eat Sudanese cuisine, catch a concert that isn't the local popular style, dance at a club playing German minimal techno or just interact with ethnicities that aren't european/hispanic you're probably out of luck.
- ctrlp 3y ago
  Missoula in the 70s/80s was still a traditional Western American small town. What you're referring to is the opposite of culture. The importation of cultural representations from "afar" is a sort of Disneyfication and dilution of local culture. What you're talking about could more accurately be described as cosmopolitanism, basically Epcot Center for the plebes.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    Not at all. Jews in NYC have a distinct culture, as do Ethiopians in DC, as do Vietnamese in Houston, as do Chinese in San Francisco. It's not "Epcot for plebes" as you so pejoratively state, it's diaspora adapting to local conditions and selectively integrating to create something actually new, unique and interesting. You can drive across whole swathes of country where small towns are hard to tell apart both visually and culturally. I can say with zero irony that the most interesting distinction between a lot of small towns in Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma is which style of barbecue they feature, and if you're not into cowboy shit or outdoor activities your options are limited (if there are any at all).
    - ctrlp 3y ago
      The comment was about small town culture. Your examples of big city cosmopolitanism don't contradict my argument. But to answer your points on your own terms, the survival of some subculture in NYC is dependent on separation. What Jewish culture are you referring to if not the intentionally separate Orthodox? Or what Ethiopian DC subculture if not the first generation whose children and grandchildren will abandon those interesting restaurants as they integrate into the cosmopolitan diaspora and melt into a global sameness. The sameness that every big city is trending towards.
      - tptacek 3y ago
        Isn't this a little like saying "what is Irish culture without the potato farming and horse thievery"? Is the assertion here really that there is not genuine Jewish culture outside of orthodox Judaism? Because that's obviously not true, right?
        ctrlp 3y ago
        Seems like a non sequitur. The point was about self-separation, not orthodoxy (except so far as orthodoxy demands separation).
  - wk_end 3y ago
    It's only "Epcot Center for the plebes" if it's sanitized the way Epcot Center is, if it's actually for the plebes. As a specific (ironic) example: the Chinese restaurants in your average Western American small town are the "Epcot Center for the plebes" version of Chinese culture; (some) Chinese restaurants in New York City aren't. It's nonsense to say that an agglomeration of cultures somehow produces "the opposite of culture". At worst you could end up with lots of culture, but no particular unique culture. But that never happens: culture begets culture, it turns out. New York and LA are both the most cosmopolitan cities in the US, and the most culturally significant ones.
    - ctrlp 3y ago
      Having spent years in both NYC and LA I wonder what you're talking about. These places have character, sure, but culture requires memory. These cities have too much turnover to acquire memories.
      - CuriouslyC 3y ago
        I don't see how you can in good faith argue that NYC and LA don't have their own distinct culture. That culture might be superficial in some ways (more true for LA than NY), but it's reinforced by selective migration of people who resonate with the cultural identities of those cities.
        ctrlp 3y ago
        Because the aspects of NYC and LA that are being promoted on this thread as evidence of culture are the aspects I would define a their non-culture. As you say, there is a selective reinforcement of the character of the place via affinity in-migration (mostly just youth-culture btw), but to have a culture proper there must be an ethic or morality specific to that place. If you can't say "we don't do that sort of thing around here" and mean it only for that place, then there really is no culture there, imho. Growing up in NYC, my experience of neighborhoods were that they indeed had their unique cultures and it was largely a function of their unique demographics. But that sort of thing isn't what's being argued for on this thread. The happy presence of an Ethiopian restaurant here or an "authentic" Chinese restaurant there represents the values of an entirely different ethic -- one that is interchangeable whether you are in NYC or LA (or any other 1st world megalopolis). The ethic or morality of that definition of culture is entirely unspecific to place. It _is_ specific to a rootless urban managerial class (which is why that class is entirely supplantable across any of these supercities). The kind of insular cultural ethic that actually defines a "place" is anathema to these values and would be stamped out in "ethnic neighborhoods" if not for a kind of benign and patient condescension. (With the caveat that we still like to have a bit of "flavor" in the form of token representations of "other cultures".)
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Small towns make it very difficult to be an upper-middle class xenophile. Instead of constructing a personality through your consumption of exotic things, you're left to your own devices.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    I'd prefer to phrase it as "constructing a personality by sampling from a wide variety of things so you can see what you enjoy and be less ignorant" but if you need to take jabs at a caricature of a lib to feel good about preferring small towns, go for it I guess.
    - ctrlp 3y ago
      Another way to think about it is as having a personality constructed for you by logging miles on the hedonic treadmill. It's possible to be ignorant by knowing too much of the wrong thing. In this case, people are trading actual integrated culture for a kind of consumer product. Hence Epcot Center. It's not about the cleanliness (who could object to things not being filthy?) It's about an ersatz existence pursuing the next thing to enjoy.
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drewcoo 3y ago

Missoula isn't really a small town. It's a university town with a med center. It's pretty urban for a sparsely-populated western state! That said, it's in the west, so one of the biggest attractions to living there is getting out of town and into some nature. In Australian terms, maybe it's a little like Adelaide.

CuriouslyC 3y ago

When people say small towns have no culture, what they mean is "small towns have (mostly) a monoculture which is (usually) a slight variation of the regional culture." These towns might be chain store wastelands, or they might have some unique local character (e.g. Fredericksburg, Tx) but either way if you want to watch a Balinese shadow puppet show, eat Sudanese cuisine, catch a concert that isn't the local popular style, dance at a club playing German minimal techno or just interact with ethnicities that aren't european/hispanic you're probably out of luck.

ctrlp 3y ago
Missoula in the 70s/80s was still a traditional Western American small town. What you're referring to is the opposite of culture. The importation of cultural representations from "afar" is a sort of Disneyfication and dilution of local culture. What you're talking about could more accurately be described as cosmopolitanism, basically Epcot Center for the plebes.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Not at all. Jews in NYC have a distinct culture, as do Ethiopians in DC, as do Vietnamese in Houston, as do Chinese in San Francisco. It's not "Epcot for plebes" as you so pejoratively state, it's diaspora adapting to local conditions and selectively integrating to create something actually new, unique and interesting. You can drive across whole swathes of country where small towns are hard to tell apart both visually and culturally. I can say with zero irony that the most interesting distinction between a lot of small towns in Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma is which style of barbecue they feature, and if you're not into cowboy shit or outdoor activities your options are limited (if there are any at all).
  - ctrlp 3y ago
    The comment was about small town culture. Your examples of big city cosmopolitanism don't contradict my argument. But to answer your points on your own terms, the survival of some subculture in NYC is dependent on separation. What Jewish culture are you referring to if not the intentionally separate Orthodox? Or what Ethiopian DC subculture if not the first generation whose children and grandchildren will abandon those interesting restaurants as they integrate into the cosmopolitan diaspora and melt into a global sameness. The sameness that every big city is trending towards.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Isn't this a little like saying "what is Irish culture without the potato farming and horse thievery"? Is the assertion here really that there is not genuine Jewish culture outside of orthodox Judaism? Because that's obviously not true, right?
      - ctrlp 3y ago
        Seems like a non sequitur. The point was about self-separation, not orthodoxy (except so far as orthodoxy demands separation).
- wk_end 3y ago
  It's only "Epcot Center for the plebes" if it's sanitized the way Epcot Center is, if it's actually for the plebes. As a specific (ironic) example: the Chinese restaurants in your average Western American small town are the "Epcot Center for the plebes" version of Chinese culture; (some) Chinese restaurants in New York City aren't. It's nonsense to say that an agglomeration of cultures somehow produces "the opposite of culture". At worst you could end up with lots of culture, but no particular unique culture. But that never happens: culture begets culture, it turns out. New York and LA are both the most cosmopolitan cities in the US, and the most culturally significant ones.
  - ctrlp 3y ago
    Having spent years in both NYC and LA I wonder what you're talking about. These places have character, sure, but culture requires memory. These cities have too much turnover to acquire memories.
    - CuriouslyC 3y ago
      I don't see how you can in good faith argue that NYC and LA don't have their own distinct culture. That culture might be superficial in some ways (more true for LA than NY), but it's reinforced by selective migration of people who resonate with the cultural identities of those cities.
      - ctrlp 3y ago
        Because the aspects of NYC and LA that are being promoted on this thread as evidence of culture are the aspects I would define a their non-culture. As you say, there is a selective reinforcement of the character of the place via affinity in-migration (mostly just youth-culture btw), but to have a culture proper there must be an ethic or morality specific to that place. If you can't say "we don't do that sort of thing around here" and mean it only for that place, then there really is no culture there, imho. Growing up in NYC, my experience of neighborhoods were that they indeed had their unique cultures and it was largely a function of their unique demographics. But that sort of thing isn't what's being argued for on this thread. The happy presence of an Ethiopian restaurant here or an "authentic" Chinese restaurant there represents the values of an entirely different ethic -- one that is interchangeable whether you are in NYC or LA (or any other 1st world megalopolis). The ethic or morality of that definition of culture is entirely unspecific to place. It _is_ specific to a rootless urban managerial class (which is why that class is entirely supplantable across any of these supercities). The kind of insular cultural ethic that actually defines a "place" is anathema to these values and would be stamped out in "ethnic neighborhoods" if not for a kind of benign and patient condescension. (With the caveat that we still like to have a bit of "flavor" in the form of token representations of "other cultures".)
pessimizer 3y ago
Small towns make it very difficult to be an upper-middle class xenophile. Instead of constructing a personality through your consumption of exotic things, you're left to your own devices.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  I'd prefer to phrase it as "constructing a personality by sampling from a wide variety of things so you can see what you enjoy and be less ignorant" but if you need to take jabs at a caricature of a lib to feel good about preferring small towns, go for it I guess.
  - ctrlp 3y ago
    Another way to think about it is as having a personality constructed for you by logging miles on the hedonic treadmill. It's possible to be ignorant by knowing too much of the wrong thing. In this case, people are trading actual integrated culture for a kind of consumer product. Hence Epcot Center. It's not about the cleanliness (who could object to things not being filthy?) It's about an ersatz existence pursuing the next thing to enjoy.
- deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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