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This election cycle has made me more aware than I ever have been of the cultural differences that persist across the American landscape.
Whatever retarded space California has fallen into of late, the dynamism and optimism of the CA I grew up in shaped me (btw: Growing up as a Celtics, Dodgers, Niners, BYU football fan in the 1980s also gave me the mistaken impression that I was entitled to win) - this has had bad and good consequences in my life, but mostly good. Maybe more than any culture in history, the California of my bygone years wasn't encumbered by suffocating tradition and class structure and it felt (at least to me - I'm sure there are plenty who had a very different experience and am not oblivious to the fact that I was more privileged than I new when I was growing up) like opportunity was genuinely unlimited, and there were 1,000 paths to prosperity.
The specific CA sub culture that I grew up around still retained parts of the frontier-ish gold-prospecting grittiness that made it a hub of the California Gold Rush. And I feel like I absorbed a lot of that. (And it pains me to say that I think it's now more characteristic of Nevada, Arizona and - aggghhh - Utah than it is of my increasingly atrophied home state).
So back to my title: This year's election cycle has made me more aware of the vast differences in cultures and sub cultures that still persist in the US. The polling data showing in that other thread is amazing. Nearly a quarter of people in MS and AL (combined) want interracial marriage to be illegal.
It made me think back to reading Tocqueville in college (haven't touched it since) and his description of crossing from Ohio to Kentucky. He goes down the river and describes what he sees on each side. Ohio - Bustling and prosperous ('sup YOhio and brockster!) and Kentucky - sleepy and poor. Obviously those identities have shifted and evolved over time but one thing remains - distinct local laws that shape the business environments and cultural settings eventually help determine the types of people who come and go. California is currently bleeding independent entrepreneurial types - to the benefit of Utah, NV, Texas, NoVa and FL.
OK - so I don't really have a central claim. But maybe someone else does. This is just on my mind.
Maybe it's just this: I have a hell of lot more in common w/ my friends in Sydney than I do w/ anyone I know from the Deep South.
Whatever retarded space California has fallen into of late, the dynamism and optimism of the CA I grew up in shaped me (btw: Growing up as a Celtics, Dodgers, Niners, BYU football fan in the 1980s also gave me the mistaken impression that I was entitled to win) - this has had bad and good consequences in my life, but mostly good. Maybe more than any culture in history, the California of my bygone years wasn't encumbered by suffocating tradition and class structure and it felt (at least to me - I'm sure there are plenty who had a very different experience and am not oblivious to the fact that I was more privileged than I new when I was growing up) like opportunity was genuinely unlimited, and there were 1,000 paths to prosperity.
The specific CA sub culture that I grew up around still retained parts of the frontier-ish gold-prospecting grittiness that made it a hub of the California Gold Rush. And I feel like I absorbed a lot of that. (And it pains me to say that I think it's now more characteristic of Nevada, Arizona and - aggghhh - Utah than it is of my increasingly atrophied home state).
So back to my title: This year's election cycle has made me more aware of the vast differences in cultures and sub cultures that still persist in the US. The polling data showing in that other thread is amazing. Nearly a quarter of people in MS and AL (combined) want interracial marriage to be illegal.
It made me think back to reading Tocqueville in college (haven't touched it since) and his description of crossing from Ohio to Kentucky. He goes down the river and describes what he sees on each side. Ohio - Bustling and prosperous ('sup YOhio and brockster!) and Kentucky - sleepy and poor. Obviously those identities have shifted and evolved over time but one thing remains - distinct local laws that shape the business environments and cultural settings eventually help determine the types of people who come and go. California is currently bleeding independent entrepreneurial types - to the benefit of Utah, NV, Texas, NoVa and FL.
OK - so I don't really have a central claim. But maybe someone else does. This is just on my mind.
Maybe it's just this: I have a hell of lot more in common w/ my friends in Sydney than I do w/ anyone I know from the Deep South.