Small-town reverse snobbery

Daniel, I do agree with what you wrote above, for the most part. The problem, as I see it, is that we've set up this strange set of colliding principles, which seem to be as follows:

-People from small towns are not particularly virtuous or exemplary, though they like to think they are.

-People from small towns are often provincial, incurious, and small-minded, even, perhaps especially, when they don't think they are.

-People with elite backgrounds (education, economics, status and so on) should be held up as examples and are eminently qualified for public office; it is wrong to sneer at elitism.

-People with non-elite backgrounds may be good enough examples of qualities like hard work or thrift (or they may not be; it's not automatic) but they are *not* leaders unless they've assimilated the experiences and values of the elite. Otherwise, they're not qualified for public office, and sneering at them is perfectly fine especially when they aspire to move beyond their proper place and mingle unabashedly with their betters.

Before the recent past, I would have said that most readers of Crunchy Cons would have rejected these notions out of hand. But it seems that more people than I would have imagined are perfectly comfortable with these principles, and prefer to believe that the governing class should be made up of members a few select groups of elite people, which seems like an oddly aristocratic, or even oligarchic, notion for a representative democracy to have taken into its collective head.

Erin, with respect, you come teasingly close to the point and then drift away. That's an assertive way to phrase it, but I hope you get my real intent.

It's our values that are screwed up. It's that we are in competition with the values of others, instead of partaking of the populist notion that a set of skills is appropriate in their context, and there is no fault or blame to the skilled person who finds herself thrust into a context where that skill set is useless.

Allow me to offer a gross example.

Thrust an expert mathematician into a board meeting where decisions are to be made about the next year's production quotas. His advice is useless.

Throw a CEO into a seminar with the goal of properly stating a new hypothesis about quantum mechanics. He'd be better off doing the coffee service for the rest.

Neither the mathematician nor the CEO have anything to feel bad about.

The dividing line in real life is not so easily marked, to be sure. But there is a battle line, one you've noted on countless occasions just as I have, and this is line defined by snobbery.

Small towners don't have the intellectual capacity to govern. Big cityites are too smart for their own or anyone else's good. There is a kernel of truth to both statements, and as premises in the political arena as well as attack points, both are worse than invalid. They are lies.

The following stipulates the stereotypes. My intent is to turn them into constructive entities.

What is true is that a small towner who gathers advisers who complement him in his weaknesses is very smart, and they will be a mixture of those from his sub-culture for common ground and intellectuals who can be counted upon to have integrity and honor in their specialties. A big cityite will seek out and listen carefully to those who had no impact on his upbringing, and have a healthy respect for their life experiences and work expertise where -- while they may not have the vocabularies to match the Harvard grad -- they are true intellectuals with integrity and honor.

Finally, on a personal note: I am an intellectual, I fit the stereotype rather precisely, both in its pejorative sense and in how I wish to recast it. A Sarah Palin can sneer at me all she likes. Her only response will be laughter in her face, and a keen sense of what she will be missing when it comes time to apply her intellect to a situation in which my expertise is what will pull her chestnuts out of the fire.

You can lead a human to knowledge, but you can't make her think. It is true of both sides.

"Okay, I'm being a bit facetious. But here's the thing: by *casting* things like lack of traveling and lack of Ivy-league creds or sophistication as "shortcomings"'

For someone with writing skills and brights this was bothersome. Who cares if she went to an Ivy League school. It matters not where she gets the knowledge, just that she has it. Lincoln was self-taught. Worked out pretty well. Lincoln had the intellectual curiosity and applied himself. There is no evidence of this with Palin. She talked with McCain initially several months ago. Not traveling? Ok, what has she done to make up for that? When I grew up we always watched the evening news and read the newspaper. After the big Sunday meal all the men sat together and talked sports, local and international politics. Eisenhower was a bum half the time and a genius the other half. Small town southern Indiana.

There may be a small percentage of people who think you need to go to an Ivy league school. Most of us just want someone who is prepared, be that by self prep, local community college, state school or Ivy league.

"-People with elite backgrounds (education, economics, status and so on) should be held up as examples and are eminently qualified for public office; it is wrong to sneer at elitism."

Strawman. You know better.

"-People from small towns are not particularly virtuous or exemplary, though they like to think they are."

Same as everyone. No more or less virtuous than most big city people.

"-People from small towns are often provincial, incurious, and small-minded, even, perhaps especially, when they don't think they are."

Same is true at same rate for big city people.

" But it seems that more people than I would have imagined are perfectly comfortable with these principles, and prefer to believe that the governing class should be made up of members a few select groups of elite people"

Another strawman. Those who govern should be prepared to do so. Isnt hard work a conservative value? If someone wants to hold an office at the national level they need to demonstrate a command of domestic and international issues. It does not matter where they learn, as long as they know their stuff.

Steve