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Culture, travel, and a educated population are related to professional status rather than urban/rural divide.
There are plenty of professionals in rural areas.
I was an "urban bigot" having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Even dated an opera singer while going to graduate school!! Now that is really "high" culture.
But when I moved to the sticks, I discovered I was doing more cultural activities and traveling much more than my friends that I left behind in the city.
I simply had MORE MONEY to spend than they did. Not that I made more, but my living expenses were real low compared to my friends. So we traveled more, I did got to some larger cities on business trips so took advantage of those opportunities.
BUT since we had to travel three hours to a decent size city for shopping once a month. We made a three day weekend of staying in a nice hotel, going out to concerts and shows in the evening and visiting museum's during the day. Yeah, then shopping before heading home.
I moved to a small town with international businesses. There I felt like the poor hick from San Francisco.
These folks flew to Russia, China, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and a host of other countries on a regular basis.
Want to know the best places to eat in Mendota, Gisborne, or Vladivostok?? These folks had it down.
Small town, but with a symphony, various theater companies, and lots of cultural activities all year round. Yes, it was NOT the San Francisco opera company, but for most folks they wouldn't notice the difference, even if they lived in San Francisco.
I once ran into a forester in Montana, that married a New York city gal that was in love with New York city.
I asked him how that worked out.
He promised that they would spend a month in New York city every year. In those days, Montana was a real cheap place to live and so they spent their vacations in New York city. His wife quickly realized she was doing more cultural activities than her friends that still lived in New York. She could afford the broadway plays, and other cultural activities while her friends were barely able to afford housing.
Urban/rural split is a mythical divide with urban residents having little experience outside their bubble.
There is a greater economic and cultural diversity in rural areas. They tend to be very different from each other. Yes, some places are not culturally highbrow.
Urban areas, are all very similar. Plunk folks down in the middle of any large urban area, without telling them where there are and most would be hard pressed to identify the city. They are all basically the same.
Your viewpoint is an important one to share. I think it is a very good reminder that there are two sides to this coin.
But no, your anecdotal experience doesn't trump clear statistics. I don't dispute any part of your story or experience, but it says much more about your particular set of friends than it does about the clear numbers.
Culture and a broad worldview is socioeconomic, not so much geographic. I’ve never lived in a city but I’ve had a number of 52 page passports because I kept filling the regular 26 page ones. We’re 200 miles from Manhattan but we’re there fairly often doing cultural things. We have some Tanglewood reservations in July to hear the Boston Symphony. That’s 150 miles away.
A lot of self-proclaimed cultured people are pretty insular really and try to isolate themselves from the less desirable places and people in their vicinity. Your children may have swam in the Indian Ocean and hiked in the Andes but you'd never let them near certain parts of your own city. You will happily eat peasant food from a street food stall in Thailand but be repulsed by the idea of eating a hot dog from a vendor in your own city.
For those types of people being cultured is more about the exclusivity and the status that comes with having made experiences that are beyond reach for most people in their environment rather than the actual pursuit of all humanity has to offer.
And then there are some of us who ain't cut out for all this "culture" stuff. We're happy as a pig in slop NOT to have to engage in that stuff.
And then there are some of us who ain't cut out for all this "culture" stuff. We're happy as a pig in slop NOT to have to engage in that stuff.
My dad was very well educated, sophisticated, and extremely well traveled. He came from a family that "had money." Even so, he didn't care for "cultural stuff" like art or symphonies or whatever. His very favorite thing to do was go for a long walk in the country with his dogs, and then come in and have a big tall cold glass of milk with cornbread crumbled up in it. He bought a home out in the country, that was built in the 1880s but was basically a big, old farmhouse. He renovated it over time and loved it.
He could have lived literally anywhere and he chose Arkansas. I never could get my head around living there though so I settled in NE Texas and he and my mom eventually moved there.
I remember for a big birthday, I wanted to go eat sushi. He thought that was exotic and terrible. This from a man who lived and loved living in Japan for awhile! I found out later, as he got older, that what he really, really loved was old fashioned simple food.
My mom was from a family that didn't "have money." She grew up pretty poor actually, though she was very beautiful and very artistic. She actually had broader tastes and interests than my dad, I think. But it was like she finally got a chance to do all this stuff (plays, symphonies, eating non American foods, living in and traveling to foreign countries, etc) and she loved it, unlike my dad who could do all that and then some from an early age.
Long way to say don't discredit personality in the mix. It's not simply a matter of exposure or knowledge or money or (fill in the blank) - personality and personal likes and dislikes play a huge role in how "cultured" a person is.
No one is claiming that being cultured means pursuing all that humanity has to offer. I don't accept the equivalence between rejecting things because they're unfamiliar and foreign and class snobbery. At least the world traveler in your example likely had a hot dog at some point of his or her life.
I think it's more that the upper-class who are well-traveled tend to have much more of a "sheltered" or very curated life experience--that's the difference.
It's like the types of folks who go to an exotic country two continents away and never leave their lavish Western-styled resort the whole time they're away.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose. But it's a perfect example of someone who's likely "well-traveled" but not very cultured.
Urban/rural split is a mythical divide with urban residents having little experience outside their bubble.
There is a greater economic and cultural diversity in rural areas. They tend to be very different from each other. Yes, some places are not culturally highbrow.
Urban areas, are all very similar. Plunk folks down in the middle of any large urban area, without telling them where there are and most would be hard pressed to identify the city. They are all basically the same.
That has not been my experience. I've only lived in a small town in Texas and while there's some inherent diversity due to the demographic of the town there is a provincialism that is quite prevalent. There are people who refer to the nearby 100,000 person town as 'sh* holes' and some think if you drive through Houston at night you'll be shot. The only traveling I hear about are to the border.
There are rural communities like some that exist in New England or Hudson Valley that are full of cultured travelers, but most of them do go into big cities or travel internationally. So some diversity in 'rural' areas does exist.
I don't agree that most large urban areas look the same. There are people who can tell some of the cities apart from google streetview, if we're talking about the core. It is actually not hard for example to tell the boroughs of NYC by the buildings. Different neighborhoods in many cities also have character although that might be diminishing today.
Suburban town centers do look identical.
For sure, all the folks from the big city actually believe that they are more cultured and sophisticated and should be the ones to tell everyone else what they can and can't do because they believe they are smarter than any of the local residents.
All us country folks see is obnoxious, self-centered people who are too dumb to take care of themselves and have no common sense.
FYI, people who live out in the country can have college degrees and they travel and they have TV and internet. There are stores where anything you can buy in the city can be bought out in the country. Opera and ballet are available online, as is every possible famous piece of artwork to be seen. No one is living in a mud hut out here, dressed in animal skins waiting for the great city bwana to lead us out of the darkness. Big city superiority complex is obnoxious.
Urban/rural split is a mythical divide with urban residents having little experience outside their bubble.
There is a greater economic and cultural diversity in rural areas. They tend to be very different from each other. Yes, some places are not culturally highbrow.
Urban areas, are all very similar. Plunk folks down in the middle of any large urban area, without telling them where there are and most would be hard pressed to identify the city. They are all basically the same.
Plunk folks in the middle of a farm field or a ranch and they wouldn't have a clue of the town, let alone what state or possibly what country they were in.
Any person plunked in a city that is hard pressed to know what city they are in is someone who is deficient in education, travel experience, or both.
Diversity may exist in rural areas, but it is very spread out compared to city areas. More diversity can be found in a city block than over many country miles.
Most of us live in a sheltered environment with friends and family who are similar to us - regardless of where we live. That's just the simple truth. Sure, some people can say "But...But...some of my best friends are (fill in the blank with someone from a different culture)" but honestly, HONESTLY - are you hanging out with that person on a regular basis? Don't answer - just ask yourself, and be honest with yourself.
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