Provincialisms

On one hand, living in a bigger city exposes you to lots of types of people. You get used to seeing a wide range of diverse races, cultures and ways of life around you all the time, and it takes a lot to freak you out.

But on the other hand, living in a smaller town you learn to have real relationships with people you would normally ignore or avoid if you had more choices. You just can’t be that selective about who you associate with. You have to figure out how to (more or less) get along with who is there, and so you learn to deal with diverse personalities. Differences of opinion (albeit in a narrower range) don’t freak you out.

Each produces its own kind of liberalism — and its own kind of provincialism.
Ideally, you grow up in a small town and move to a big city and then you are perfect and wonderful in every possible way.

2 thoughts on “Provincialisms

  1. I think a diverse small town would be a utopia: you can form deep relationships with people who are quite different from you.

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