Polarization--A Speculation on Rural Rootedness

Ezra Klein has a new book out on our polarized nation.  Bob Somerby sees polarization as the biggest issue we have. There's different views on causes, but it seems true that some of the polarization is rural versus urban.

I've a speculation to offer: Is it true that rural residents are less mobile than suburban and urban ones?  My mental image is of counties which were settled in the 19th century, like Perry County, IL where my great grandparents settled.  Since the initial settling, sons and daughters have moved away, leaving a relatively static population of the oldest son (who got the farm) and his wife.  His children would repeat the cycle.  All that should mean that current rural dwellers have a long family history with the area which would contrast to the mobility seen in urban and suburban areas.

I don't know whether that image is true. It might not be. 

Then and Now--III

Determinants of Identity

In the 1950's in rural upstate New York:

• the most important identities were ethnic--Italian, Polish, etc. and religious: Catholic, Jew, Protestant.  There were the slang terms for each.  Catholicism was important, as my mother in particular had an inherited (Lutheran) suspicion of the church.  They gambled (bingo nights), they wanted their own schools, they were under control of the Pope, etc.  Mom may have been in the minority with these views, but they were strong, at least in the abstract if not when dealing face to face. One of my best friends was of East European extraction, his parents were immigrants, his father dying young, and Catholic.  Mom had no problems with that.
• I knew two Jews growing up (perhaps three, a son of a local family surnamed "Benjamin" was a playmate for a few early summers).  One was our family doctor, who I believe had emigrated from Germany before WWII; the other was the dealer who bought our hens and pullets, presumably for chicken soup in New York City.
• as for African-Americans, which we were careful to call "Negroes", not colored and not "n****r, because we were more enlightened than others, I'm sure I saw a handful on the streets of Binghamton (pop 80,000) but we had no interaction.  No blacks in the school, though I've a memory, possibly false or a dream, of someone enrolling for a few days when I was in high school. Don't know if that happened.  
• homosexuality was a subject not discussed, even more of a taboo than cancer was. It's possible some of my class (of about 40) were gay, but I never knew it then and haven't confirmed it now.  
• I think the bottomline is how high the wall of separation between me, a WASP, and these others was.  That lack of knowledge could create 

Now things are different--issues of religion and ethnicity seems antiquated. While I'm not good at making/keeping friendships, I've encountered enough people during my life to feel I know them, and could take my cue from Terence:  "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me."^[

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Then and Now--II

Some additional thoughts on the differences in America between the 1950's and now as I experienced them:

Culture

• in the 1950's we still had the remains of an older cultural world, a world of "high art" and distinct social divisions.  There were serious novels and books on the best seller list: works by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Nabokov, and Pasternak.  The Book of the Month Club was riding high.  Leonard Bernstein was on TV.  A boy in rural New York got a definite sense of a defined hierarchy, ruled over by the NYTimes, the New Yorker, and the Saturday Review of Literature as gatekeepers and New York City as the center of the universe.
• in the 1950's "mass culture" was a rising concern--the TV "vast wasteland"  was a concern before Newton Minow so labeled it in 1961.  Comic books were becoming popular among the boomer youth, but were viewed as a threat to the culture and a cause of juvenile delinquency by Dr. Wertham, resulting in establishing the Comics Code Authority, to self-regulate the content. (This might have been modeled on the Motion Picture Production Code  and the effort by the Catholic Church to censor movies. People saw the popularity of books like Peyton Place was seen as a threat to standards.
• in the 1950's you had classical music, jazz which was starting to get some serious attention, and popular music--Sinatra, Crosby, et.al.  Rock was just appearing, but it was a threat to the morals of the youth. Folk and country were niches.

Culture Today

• today I don't see the structure we had in my youth, in books, in music or generally. The best seller list more rarely seems to contain "serious novels",  There are several more niches, niches which have more attention to them from serious critics. 
• it seems to me that's a generalization: today there's lots more variety, more niches in all aspects of culture and much less of a pecking order in evidence.

Then and Now--I

As I age, my memories of my youth seem to get stronger.  Here's some of my memories of American society circa 1950's:

Big Companies

• the big companies then  (components of Dow Jones) mostly made things: the big 3 automakers, GE, US Steel, Bethlehem Steel, National Steel, oil companies.  Woolworths and Sears Roebuck were big retailers, though there were supermarket chains around.  Franchises weren't big, no McDonalds or other fast food chains then. AT&T was big, a big monopoly known as "Ma Bell". Vice in the form of tobacco and distilling found a place.
• now the big companies are Microsoft, /Apple,  Amazon, Google, and Facebook, They don't really make things comparable to steel or cars.  The oil and chemical companies are still around but Detroit has lost its status. Health care and drugs are big these days and no tobacco or alcohol in the Dow.. 

Labor

• labor unions were big--the big companies were opposed by big unions--the UAW, the Steelworkers, the Communications Workers.  Other important unions were the Longshoremen and the United Mineworkers.  In this situation there were a lot of strikes and several notable leaders: Walter Reuther, Harry Bridges, and John L. Lewis, not to forget George Meany, head of the AFofL
• now unions aren't big--the biggest represent teachers and public service workers.

Finance

• in the 1950's banks were limited to one state, so you had lots of one city banks (First National of Greene) and some state chains (Marine Midland).  Finance wasn't big.
• now Visa and American Express are in the Dow Jones, along with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

Memories of MLKing

This article documents an April 1961 speech by Martin Luther King at Cornell University's Bailey Hall. From there I found this:

•  On April 14, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Cornell University's Bailey Hall, calling for continued action to obtain Black Americans' full participation in society, North and South, and asking for funds to aid the effort.  2,500+ people attended, and the Ithaca community raised $6,000 for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts in the South. Here is a quote from his speech as reported by the Ithaca Journal:
  
  "Some people say 'Slow up, adopt a policy of moderation', but we cannot afford to slow up. There are too many people in this nation today without the rights this government has guaranteed them. ... It is not enough to decry a Negro being lynched in the South. You must rise up when a Negro is not permitted to live in a neighborhood, join a club, or a fraternity or sorority."

• News media reported thoughtfully upon MLK's speech and the community's response
  Link to Ithaca Journal article, Sat. April 15
  Link to Cornell Sun article, Mon. April 17
  Link to Cornell Chronicle retrospective article, with additional archival research

The articles note an overflow crowd in Bailey, and that money was raised for the SCLC.

I was one of those attending.  My most vivid memory of it was that King was preceded by another speaker.  I don't know who it was, perhaps Rev. Lowrey who's described as appealing for contributions after the speech.  The Sun, at least, got his name wrong, I think.--the Rev. Joseph Lowery was one of the founders of the SCLC.  For many years I suspected King of being rather ruthless.  Why?  Because the initial speaker was very disappointing, so there was a big contrast when King came on with his very polished speaking. King by himself would have been outstanding, following the initial speaker gave the audience an emotional "arc" (at least for me, but I suspect my emotions were respective of a good number of the audience).. 

That contrast has been my strongest memory, overshadowing King's message. (IIRC he was preaching to an audience who was anxious to be converted.) But today I finally researched it, with the results above, and I conclude I've been unfair to King.  If it was Lowery who spoke, then he and King were among the founders of the SCLC and if this was a fundraising trip then it made sense for Lowery to speak just as an organizational prerogative..  The contrast  between the two may well have been accidental, not intentional.

Why I'm Skeptical of Some Ag Activists-II

To carry on from my previous post:

In and after the 1920's people could choose between locally grown produce and that grown further away. Over time people chose the salad vegetables grown in California (mostly) over their local produce.  Why?  Presumably because the CA produce was available through more of the year and perhaps because it was cheaper and more consistent in quality. 

In the 1920's "organic" wasn't a category, wasn't a characteristic that would have played into anyone's buying decision. I don't know when people actually ended up with salad vegetables that weren't organic.  I suspect chemical fertilizers came more slowly to local farmers than to the larger concentrated farmers in California.

Down With Binary Choices: Confederate Flag and State Capacity

Ran across a couple things which trigger me:

• a survey asking whether the Confederate flag was racist or heritage (symbol).  Why isn't it a racist heritage symbol?
• this post states one side of a dispute with Tyler Cowen: whether building "state capacity" (meaning having bureaucracies that provide public goods) leads to greater development or vice versa.  Why isn't this modeled as an iterative feed back process, where for example educating the population a bit more increases productivity which provides the money to increase state capacity?  

I've noted before, I've a personal aversion to conflict and binary choices; these are just another instance.

Why I'm Skeptical of Some Ag Activists--I

One reason I'm skeptical of some positions taken by ag activists against "factory farming".

What we currently have in the country is the result of millions of decisions in the past.  Within the memory of people still living most farms were small family operations, "small" at least by current standards.  And they were organic, mostly. (I'm thinking of the 1920's.) So a very stark contrast to today's agriculture.

I think many activists would say 1920's agriculture was overall more desirable than 2020's agriculture. Accepting that position just for the sake of argument then raises the question: how do you put the toothpaste back in the tube? 

Organic Fraud

Grain being sold as organic wasn't. Big fraud case in Missouri

Once Again the Loudmouth Gets All the Attention

In an age-old pattern (think of the prodigal son in the Bible) the loudest mouth gets the attention.

In this case, he gets an article in the NYTimes announcing his retirement (plus I've seen tweets on the same subject).

Who is he?  Diego, a turtle.  Not just any turtle. but one of three males in an endangered species who were assigned the duty/given the opportunity to mate often with females in order to drive the numbers of the species above two digits. 

He did, he performed admirably, siring about 40 percent of the 2,000 turtles in the species.  He's described as having a big personality, charismatic.

It just so happens one of the two other males was firing blanks, leaving the third, the silent stalwart type, the one not seeking headlines, to sire the other 60 percent.