Gooooood morning, and Happy Monday FRians! As always, today’s post is by Stephen Hall. Thanks, Stephen!!
You hear a gunshot in the distance. What is your reaction?
My last post referred to some of the negative effects of urban living due to the effects of population density upon the human psyche. There are other differences of urban versus rural living which simply derive from the experiences that people in those environment have which affect their responses to similar stimuli.
If you are living in an inner city, highly urbanized area, like New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C., or Los Angeles, then your reaction to the situation of hearing a gunshot is to immediately think that someone has been shot, someone has been killed, that a horrible crime is being committed.
If you are living in a rural area, on a farm or secluded cottage, then your reaction to the situation of hearing a gunshot it to immediately question if it is hunting season, what season is it, or think someone must be target practicing.
The thing is, you are both correct. According to a simple Bayesian analysis, from your estimation of the probabilities which are derived from you personal experience and the experiences of your friends and associates, the outcome is likely to be what you first think.
Anyone who has studied the least about gun violence in America knows that it is concentrated in the urban areas, and is overwhelmingly associated with gangs and their drug trafficking and territorial disputes. We know also that these urban areas are overwhelmingly leftist ideologically.
The real question is the one statistics cannot show, the causation of these correlations. Does the leftist ideology spur a softness on crime which increases gun violence? Do the conditions of high levels of violence cause people to turn to leftist politics for refuge? Or, does the congested nature of urban living increase both violence and leftist ideology as I hypothesized in last week’s post?
When someone is living in that urban environment, almost the exclusive experience they have with guns is in the context of violence and criminality, even if that gun is used for defense, it is still involved in the taking of human life.
When someone is living in a rural environment, almost the exclusive experience they have with guns is with people hunting whether it be for deer, squirrel, or some predator threatening their livestock, or it is someone just up on the hillside target shooting for practice or fun.
When an urbanite chooses to practice shooting, it is at an indoor range, no one in the neighborhood is hearing that shot; likewise, when a ruralite chooses to commit a criminal shooting, is will be indoors and much less likely for the neighbors to hear it.
So when the gun control advocates refer to guns being only made for killing people, that is their experience, and when gun rights advocates refer to guns being uses for hunting, protection, collecting, and target practice, that is also their experience.
People often talk about the fight for the middle in political terms, but the real fight for middle America, the fight to control the center, is really a demographic play for the battleground which is suburbia.
In terms or the gun issues, the suburbian experience is very much in the middle. They experience some gun crime, but also travel out to the country to hunt, or go to an outdoor gun range.
It is true that experience shapes our perspectives and our mental development. It is not impossible for a conservative to grow up in a big city or a liberal to be reared upon a farm. Our environment is not determinative, but it would be foolish to say that it does not have a significant impact.
The same differences in perspectives occur across a myriad of issues which divide those who call themselves conservative and liberal.
In an urban setting, people face much higher costs of living but also have higher incomes, so an issue like a $15 per hour minimum wage instead of $8.75 per hour when most of the jobs one would expect to be “minimum wage”, like working in a fast food joint, already pay at least $12 so it doesn’t seem like a great leap.
The cost of living in New York City is 216.7% of the national average, housing is even more expensive relative to the rest of America being 386.7% of the national average. An apartment in New York is more than four times as expensive as an apartment in Des Moines, Iowa which is 89.6% of the national average.
In a more rural or even suburban setting the cost of living is much less, on average less than half what it costs to live in a place like New York City, so that $8.75 per hour minimum wage job in Iowa is like earning $18 per hour in New York City in terms of spending power.
When I was younger, I was planning on attending the University of Edinburgh for a Masters in Mathematics. I traveled there and started looking for an apartment. I remember thinking that for about the same amount they wanted to share a tiny one bedroom apartment, half the rent, I could have rented an entire house with a yard by myself back home. The sticker shock of urban living was huge.
Now apply these two examples to other aspects of people’s daily lives, not just the issue of gun laws and minimum wages, but issues of public transportation, government programs, leaving your doors unlocked, asking a stranger to lend you a hand.
The experiences of society, of our expectations of human nature itself are viewed through the prism of our personal interactions over the course of many years. Culture is a subtle thing which influences us ever so slightly but over the course of many years of experience.
The greater our exposure to crime, poverty, drugs and other negative aspects of life, the more pessimistic our evaluation of our fellow man will often become. But one can also not discuss the differences between the rural and the urban without discussing the overall pace of life, from laid back to completely hectic and frazzled.
This frantic nature carries over into politics of the “progressives” demanding that society change instantly to accede to what they imagine will be better, it is why their responses are always emotional rather than reasoned. Emotion is a quick response, demanding instant change and immediate gratification of their desires.
In a more rural setting there is a greater emphasis on taking time to consider the consequences of your actions, because experience tells you that things have a natural way of working themselves out for the better. The conservative has no need to push society because their experience tells them that a rushed decision usually leads to disaster.
The political fight is a fight to be the influence people’s interpretation of their experiences, to see other people as out to gun them down or to come to their assistance. Media tries to influence people by inundating them with experiences different than their own or reinforcing the experiences they already had.
Understanding these differences is not about to alter your perspective on any of these issues, nor am I inclined to believe that understanding your opponent’s perspective is likely to change or alter the way in which you interact with them.
However, one might take the time to look at which pace and perspective is being broadcast upon the middle America, who and how are people trying to influence suburbia.
Ever wonder why people dwelling in cities are the most concerned about the nature of the suburban sprawl? Do we really believe that people living in large cities are that concerned with the loss of rural areas? Or are they really concerned that as suburbia grows, the urban influence upon the majority of society gives way to a more rural perspective?
Experience teaches, but sometimes, for some people, it teaches the wrong lessons, it teaches a biased perspective.
