The other night I met a girl who complained about the small mindness of small town people. She argued that people who spent their whole lives in small towns never really experienced the world and were simply ignorant. That claim does make some sense on it's face but might be subject to challenge.

People in small towns who never get outside of them are more likely to suffer from group think. If you don't see other cultures, your bound to be ethnocentric in your notion of place. Cities might offer a more mix of people but are they less ethnocentric and truly more diverse? Or is there a powerful urban culture that blinds people with the same small mindness of country folk?

Both the cities in the country suffer from the culture machine. Country folk have the country-western scene. Redneck is big as is country music and bull riding. Certainly some of that is built into the more agrarian lifestyle of many country people, whether or not they are professional farmers.

Yet at the same time a similar thing exists in our cities. There is an urban and suburban culture machine as witnessed with hip-hop and the goth culture. There is also a kind of faux-professionalism and status symbol chasing that is in many ways what the country culture seeks to repudiate.

Both cultures celebrate poverty and often look dismissively at knowledge. Indeed, there are some academic types who know at lot but are far from pragmatic at what they do. A healthy skepticism of wealth and knowledge probably is sensible and culture's critique of both makes sense.

Rural people might not be the best educated. The same is true with urban and inner-city people. We could do a lot to improve their education system and help those people move out of poverty. Yet, that doesn't mean they are ignorant. They might just have knowledge in other fields.

There is a problem with dismissing country people are racist and conservative, without trying to understand their culture. Indeed, their own values might make a lot of sense for where they are located in the world and the problems they face compared to those of suburban and urban deweller's. It's not fair or right to write off such people.