You know, Mr. Wong seems like a decent writer, but his article, considering that it comes to me as the first I'm aware of him, I'm disinclined to take him seriously. Why? Quite simply, I don't know for sure that the man seriously believes all what he wrote in that blog post. Reading his remarks, rant is more what I think it now, I felt like I was on a rollercoaster built of emotional climbs followed by rational drops. Paragraph after paragraph I felt like, "Yeah, okay. I'll buy that. Keep going," and sure as God made little green apples, there'd immediately thereafter come the "What the f*ck? Oh, hell, no!" moment. The point being that the man's observations struck me a being "on point," but the conclusions and inferences he draws from them seem little but a "hot mess."
Let me illustrate what I mean with a theme Wong raises in the middle of the post.
Wong's post attempts to present (among other things) the economic schisms dividing nation as one of rich/city-dwellers versus poor/pastoral peoples. But it's not that at all; it's about behaving in an economically rational way or not. Wong writes:
"Hard work is better than dependence on government....These are people [rural Americans] who come from a long line of folks who took pride in looking after themselves. Where I'm from, you weren't a real man unless you could repair a car, patch a roof, hunt your own meat, and defend your home from an intruder. It was a source of shame to be dependent on anyone -- especially the government. You mowed your own lawn and fixed your own pipes when they leaked, you hauled your own firewood in your own pickup truck.
Yes, absolutely. I'm indifferent about whether one does that in a city or in rural America. I fully buy into the idea of working hard, being self sufficient, taking control of one's life, doing what one needs to do when it needs doing.
Right after that, however, he proceeds to contrast country folk with city apartment dwellers whom he describes as "waiting for the landlord any time something breaks, knowing if things get too bad they can just pick up and move. When you don't own anything, it's all somebody else's problem." Well, I have news for Wong: apartment dwellers everywhere wait for the landlord to come fix things that break. Whether one lives in the city, suburbs, exurbs or countryside, moving when things get too bad is the sensible, rational thing to do.
Do folks need literally to see the "tornado of change" spinning toward them 500 yards distant before moving crosses their mind? Yet the attitudes I hear expressed by folks living in what Wong calls "Trump country" suggest that even if that "tornado" were bearing down on them, they wouldn't friggin' move. They just want to jump in a ditch and hope the "tornado" doesn't whirl directly over them, or that "cow" doesn't fall out of the darn thing and land right on them, or "2x4" doesn't slam into them. WTF? Who does that? Where is the sense in that?
I understand that one may
want to, in one's hamlet that's 30 miles from a town that's in turn 50 miles from a suburb that's still 20 miles from a city, work hard, be self-sufficient, and so on. But if one is either unwilling or unable to there do so and thrive, then the time for being there and trying to do has passed and staying and griping about the fact that times have changed is not going to makes one's situation better.
People here think I perhaps don't "get it," but they are mistaken. I was raised in the city, not a big city by any means (population ~500K), but the city nonetheless. We went to the country for a couple weeks several times a year. It was wonderful. It was quiet. It was charming. The people were nice and friendly and polite. Nobody got shot. Maybe some folks did drugs; I wouldn't have known. I grew up, but the pull of "small town America" remained, and so when I'd become able to do so, I bought a place at the shore, then I got one in the mountains. I love them both dearly, but I don't live there and I didn't move there. I didn't because there's nothing for me to do there that will allow me to earn a living. By the same token, my cousins who were raised in rural America, whom I see at family gatherings we all adore and that happen in the middle of nowhere, left rural America for the very same reason I didn't move into it. They can't make a decent living there any more than I can.
In my family, we say, "you can't get blood from a turnip." We all like turnips, but when one needs blood, a turnip is of no value. It's simply a matter of rationally considering the situation at hand and making a choice based on what it is rather than what one wishes it were. Doing that isn't a matter of being provincial or cosmopolitan. It's a matter merely of being sensible, rational and realistic.
Keep all that in mind as you read the next section. If the irrationality underpinning what Wong writes hasn't yet struck you, it should after reading what comes next.
Wong writes:
See, rural jobs used to be based around
one big local business -- a factory, a coal mine, etc. When it dies, the town dies. Where I grew up, it was an oil refinery closing that did us in. I was raised in the hollowed-out shell of what the town had once been. The roof of our high school leaked when it rained.
Cities can make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs with service jobs --small towns cannot. That model doesn't work below a certain population density.
Remember above, Wong wrote about self-sufficiency. Well, just how much of that trait is seen in one's depending on the manufacturer's business decisions for one's own sufficiency? Nothing makes "crying the blues while waiting for the landlord to repair one's leaky roof" different in ethos than "crying the blues while waiting for the manufacturer to come back." In both situations, one is not depending on oneself, one is depending on someone else, someone who owns something, be it the factory owner or the apartment building owner. That should not come as a surprise to anyone. The U.S. is a capitalist democracy and that means that owning a piece of a factor of production is the way to thrive. It's never not been that way in America.
Wong hit the nail on the head writing, "When you don't own anything, it's all somebody else's problem." Well that's precisely what I'm hearing from "Trump country": it's the city people's fault; it's the liberals' fault; it's the capitalists'/industrialists' fault. It's somebody's fault other than their own. The factory moved out, but just whose fault is it that when it did, the folks in "Trump country" who used to work there didn't move out too. Why did they stay? That's of course a rhetorical question because whatever reason they had for staying, there's still nobody else to blame for the fact that they did stay. (Yes, of course, there're exceptions, but neither I nor Wong are talking about the exceptions.)
And to what end pray, tell? That the rest of us who "read the writing on the wall" can listen to them blaming everyone but themselves for the fact they refused to leave their bucolically charming village where there's no work and they haven't bought a farm or a mine, or whatever? Well, frankly, though I have sympathy for those folks finding themselves as they are, I'm tired of hearing their constant carrying on, most especially so because those folks, like Trump, persist in blaming someone else for what's not going the way they wish. Not everything in my life has gone my way either, but I don't blame someone else for it being so.
Wong's right writing that when a large manufacturer departs a rural area that exists almost entirely because the factory was there, the locality is thrust into depression. The first question that makes any sense to ask if one dwells in the countryside, particularly one where the factory is gone is, "What model does work at lower population densities and what must 'I' do to make that model work for me?" Well, the answer is there is a model that works once the factory is gone. That model is called "own something that allows you to produce something that others, be they near or far, want to and will buy from 'you'" If one determines one cannot or will not do that in the countryside, remaining in the countryside is not such a good idea. And here' the thing: the time to have asked oneself that question and rigorously endeavored to answer it objectively is not now, some years after the factory is gone, but rather when it first became apparent the factory owner planned to vacate the town.
And therein is the problem. I hear "Trump country" talking about self-sufficiency and "being a man," and so on, yet when it comes (came) time for them to exhibit precisely that trait, they didn't do it. They had a "good job." Did they start planning for the change that was coming when the factory's production volumes began to decline? No. Did they do so when the factory management announced its egress? No. That's a very different circumstance than that of someone who never had a "good job" in the first place. Neither were the folks in "Trump country" screwed over because the factory snuck out of town on the DL.
So, no, what we're seeing isn't "country folks vs. city folks." It's seeing what opportunity exists or doesn't, what opportunity is coming is not coming, and dealing with it. Birds sense cold weather coming, so they fly south. Chess players see they have a "bad bishop" or that they can "pin" the opponent's piece, so they act accordingly. People see that it's about to rain, so they find shelter. Always is the "writing on the wall" no matter how great or small be the topic. It's a matter of bothering to pay attention to it, and when one does not, it's not anyone else's fault.
. I'm actually interested in reading honest responses.
