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The Nation's Pulse
Village People
Time to rethink the wisdom of withholding judgment.
I came to the big city relatively late in life. Cities seems to me places suited entirely for the young. Their so-called charms — quirkiness, edginess, anonymity, diversity — are in the main young people’s delights. Older folks don’t want edginess. We want quiet, order, discipline. We want clean streets.
We want small towns.
My “enlightened” city friends, many of whom hail from Midwestern hamlets and villages, have few good things to say about small towns or their residents, whom they regard as homophobic, narrow-minded yokels, defined primarily by their very backwardness. President Obama, a smug Chicago resident, echoed this elitist sentiment perfectly when he accused small-towner Midwesterners of bitterly clinging “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.”
I am obviously not familiar with all small towns, but I have lived in a dozen or more villages in my lifetime, from Eldon, Missouri (population 4,895) to Chester, Illinois (8,400). Never did I own a firearm nor was I much preoccupied with religious beliefs (though I have considered taking up both since I moved to the big city). I certainly don’t recall much bitterness among my small-town neighbors. In fact, I have always found the people of the backroads and small towns have more love of their country and their fellow human beings than suburbanites and city folks combined.
Not long ago I attended a city council meeting in a central Illinois town of 10,000 people. Midway through the meeting an elderly lady stood and addressed the eminent council members. The folks living across the street from her, she complained, kept their trash cans out front all week long. It was a disgrace. She wanted the council to do something about it. The councilmen exchanged uneasy glances. At length the mayor said, “I’ll talk to them, Blanche.” And I’ll bet he did.
Busybody? Petty? Maybe. But I was rooting for her. To my mind it has always been the Blanches of this world that have maintained order, discipline, and good morals in a community. In contrast, on my city street there is garbage ankle-deep from one end to the other. My apathetic neighbors consider it entirely appropriate to finish a can of beer or a bag of burgers and toss the waste in the middle of the street or (more likely) in my front yard. The alleys are often impassable due to the volume of trash dumped both legally and illegally. What I wouldn’t give for a few Blanches on my block.
Another time, when the company that collected the town’s refuse suddenly went bust, this same mayor (who also happened to be the commander of the local VFW Post) jumped in his pickup and dutifully hauled away the elderly’s trash. When was the last time you saw your suburban or big city mayor do that?
WHEN I WAS A young man, small towns were still places where manners, morals, and good behavior were strictly enforced, where people were harshly judged by their neighbors, and where “everybody knew everything about everybody else.” In those days if a man did the wrong thing, if he was a drunkard, if he took up with another man’s wife, if he refused to work, he was ostracized by the entire community. He was made to feel a sense of shame and guilt. Maybe he would reform or maybe he would pack up and slink off to the city where such ill behavior was tolerated and judgment was reserved. Fear of ostracization and the community’s judgment kept the vast majority of people on the straight and narrow, and this allowed society to function smoothly and civilization to advance.
Sentimentalists, of course, considered such things cruel and unenlightened. It was wrong to judge others, regardless of what they have done. Worse, sometimes the innocent children of that drunkard or the bastard child of some unmarried girl were ostracized too. There was only one remedy for this: judgment, shame and guilt had to be eradicated completely. Better an entire society slide into decadence than one innocent child suffer.
This, quite naturally, opened the floodgates for all manner of pathological behavior. The result of this “anything goes” mentality has been sky-high divorce rates, rocketing out-of-wedlock births, countless one-parent families, the methamphetamine epidemic, and all of the other attendant pathologies. Sentimentality’s triumph has been small town America’s downfall.
But not completely. I suspect sentimentality may have had its day. From what I have seen “anything goes” is on its way out. People are rethinking the wisdom of withholding judgment. Maybe a good healthy dose ostracization is just what this country needs.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 12.8.11 @ 7:30AM
I used to visit Toronto when it was so clean you could eat lunch off a bus shelter bench. In fact, people in other countries used to laugh at Toronto for being clean, orderly, peaceful, and totally lacking in downtown sex shows or prostitutes. This was in the 1970s when other cities were pretty much Anything Goes.
Today when I have an hours trip to work on the subway every day, I watch a particular bit of trash sit in the middle of the aisle for the whole hour --until I pick it up on the way out of the car. Often I see well-dressed young people staring at that piece of trash for the whole hour. Sometimes I wonder what they are thinking.
What I am thinking is that back in the days when Toronto was mocked for being too clean, too obedient and too polite, the majority population was White, Anglo-Saxon and Christian or Jewish. But of course these days one dares not say this aloud.
On the other hand, in the small town where my Mamas people have lived since the 1600s, I have no name: I am Harold and Clarices Oldest Girl. And I was every day of 40 before the town stopped asking *Why dont you get married?* and started asking *Why DIDNT you get married?*
I am all in favour of politeness, good manners and picking up after piggy people. But I do have a name, and its nobodys business whether I ever get married or not.
Jacob R| 12.8.11 @ 8:19AM
That's funny all the kids who throw trash in my front yard are relatively wealthy WASP kids.
Your racism is quaint but this is a crisis of morality.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.8.11 @ 9:19AM
You sound like a Douchebag. Maybe that's why throw sh*t on your lawn. Maybe if you took off that dress, and pulled the shades, when your boyfriend has you tied and gagged?
Dumb*ss.
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:27PM
Oh my word, where are the Religious Idolators to reprimand you for you use of the English language!
LOL.
missbosslady| 12.8.11 @ 4:54PM
Jacob,
You're a liar.
numbatdog| 12.8.11 @ 8:25AM
Why didn't you get married?
Konnie| 12.8.11 @ 10:13PM
Appleby, it's only because they care about you.
Brian Mc| 12.8.11 @ 7:30AM
Indeed, and let it begin at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And upon further reflection, why wait until November?
Nancy in NC| 12.8.11 @ 8:05AM
Excellent article.
Reminds me of that expression: "When anything goes, everything's gone."
Andrew B| 12.8.11 @ 8:13AM
Here's another vote for judgement. I have lived in small towns, large suburbs and big cities, and I will take the small towns any day.
When I was young, broke and lived in rural Pennsylvania, a bank teller cashed an out of state check for me, no questions asked. She smiled sweetly and said "I recognise you from church."
Then I moved to Seattle. Every morning for two years, at exactly the same time, I walked into the same coffee shop for a cup of coffee. I was a National Park Ranger in full uniform, so I sort of stood out. Each morning the same counter attendant would look up and say "What can I get you?"
In a small town, the guy at the coffee shop would have known how I took my coffee, my full name, who my girlfriend was and whether I favored football or baseball.
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:03PM
Well, I lived and worked in NYC for over ten years. One job I had for five years, till I got an even better job somewhere else, and it was on the East side, I used to go to the same coffee shop almost every morning. It was called Bun n' Burger. They served a great breakfast. Sometimes I'd order just a coffee to go.
These guys were great. They knew me and knew what I wanted, and made it the same perfect way every time.
So, really, it's impossible to generalize. It all depends on the business people that run the business.
Man, that place was great. It was a very small chain, and I even did a short stint as waitress on weekends for the extra money. They went out of business, at least I remember some of them were shutting down back then before I moved back to NJ.
"BIG" burgers did it. Ya know, those e-vil big burger joints. :^).
Jacob R| 12.8.11 @ 8:26AM
I sit and pray that people from my generation will decide to respect morality again.
It's hard to say whether we have the strength to overcome pettiness.
Our biggest problem is that our parents have told us we're the world's biggest problem and aborted half of us so we feel like if everyone's going to treat us like garbage anyway why not treat them the same.
It's wrong. But the big problem is that everyone is trying to clean up everyone else's act, especially cops, when they are in need of reform the most. People look at you like you're stupid if you suggest that working on your own behavior is the best way to change the world for the better.
Instead the huge majority of people in this country only bother with a plan for how everyone else ought to change and finding evidence of others' evil.
missbosslady| 12.8.11 @ 4:56PM
Jacob,
I see that you are also a hypocrite.
Mark MacInnis| 12.8.11 @ 9:43AM
The genie is out of the bottle. It will take years, or a cataclysm, to get him back in. Satan is loose in the world, and the world just doesn't give a tinker's damn. People want to be 'free' to make a mess of their lives, make a mess of other's lives, make a general mess of the world their in, and not have any consequences, have a government clean up the mess and provide a safety net to catch them when they fall...
But the safety net is an illusion and the cost to society in politeness, decency and general quality of life for all in America is a staggeringly incalculable amount....
Time to thin the herd....
Citizen Jerry| 12.8.11 @ 10:20AM
Wow! Who wouldn't be absolutely enthralled with the joys of the big city? Constant noise, crime, gangbangers, smog, confiscatory taxes, government corruption and people so broad-minded they brains have fallen out. Detroit and Chicago are just two examples.
Here in my small town, at least I can go for a walk at night without feeling the need to carry a gun or wear a Kevlar vest.
If you love big cities, you're welcome to them. Just leave the rest of us the !&*# alone!
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:54PM
Not that I wasn't glad to relocate to the Far West, but when I lived in New York City for the 12 years that I did, I enjoyed (1) an above-average education; (2) first-run movies; (3) plays with first-rate casts; (4) hosts of people with interests similar to mine; (5) the anonymity that comes with people not knowing other people so well that they know them too well, as in the small town that I grew up in; (6) high-paying jobs (together with the greater expense that often goes with living in a big city).
Rurik| 12.8.11 @ 10:27AM
On first reading, this is a perceptive essay. But on further consideration, it is truly profound. You have unlocked the the answer to the reconciliation of the conservative and libertarian impulses - social disapproval, shaming, and ostracism of the habitual miscreant. Hones certainly has the right to live his life as a "one man Gay Pride Parade", but then I also have an equal right to shun him. Too man Libertarians seem to forget that nobody has the right to public approval. Let community standards substitute for statutory meddling.
KyMouse| 12.8.11 @ 10:41AM
There used to be a left-wing publication called "Ramparts," back in the Sixties. Several decades later, one of the former editors, having grown up, made an interesting point (as has Mr. Orlet in this article).
He noted that the stigma against having illegitimate children was a protection for society, although that stigma was painful to the children themselves. Once the stigma was eradicated, we would see many, many more illegitimate births -- and that would hurt not only society, but also the children themselves, who would most often grow up in poverty and without married parents. "Dr. Laura" often said on her radio show that even birds have enough to make a nest before they lay their eggs.
We're seeing his prediction come true all around us.
Rhoetus | 12.8.11 @ 12:26PM
It's comrade Obama's nest now, it takes a village don't ya know.
DGinGA| 12.8.11 @ 12:31PM
And interestingly, while I agree that the CHILD not bear a stigma, no reason the baby momma and baby daddy not be judged. So what began as "compassion" toward the child, quickly became total acceptance of a practice designed and guaranteed to ensure that children grow up in poverty. Turns out, the "don't judge illegitimate children" was, in fact, a liberal plan to promote illegitimacy and create a permanent, Democrat-voting underclass.
Butch| 12.8.11 @ 3:26PM
Mona Charen said it in 1986 in National Review in an article titled either "The Decline" or "The Death" "of Shame." She pointed out that we are having an explosion of bad behaviors that used to be controlled by simple shame. When the only thing that can be shamed is "judgementalism," society experiences a lot of bad behaviors. Jerry Sandusky just wouldn't have happened in 1956.
Cynthia Pestka| 12.8.11 @ 11:27AM
I don't know how many times I have been called a racist or a bigot(yeah, I have a Bachelor's, so I had to attend a University.). I was called that because I had the audacity to say, in class, that people on welfare were having kids to get more welfare, and that these people were getting a "everyone owes me" mentality. As a student teacher, I had talked to students(from America and Mexico) who felt that the "government" owed them. When I asked "who do you think pays for that? Where does the govenment get their money?" They said it didn't matter, as long as it wasn't them. When I took an hour to discuss with Juniors and Seniors what Socialism and spreading the wealth actually meant, they weren't as impressed. Neither was I when 3 days later I was asked into the principal's office and asked what I was teaching.
Petronius| 12.8.11 @ 11:31AM
Chris you have ventured into dangerous territory. 25 years ago when every block in South St. Louis had it's unelected but self ordained "mayor"; (usually the oldest resident in your hundred), there were vulgates of unwritten law and custom laid down by him and his predecessors which were inviolate because that buttinski knew people in city hall and would report you for anything he could make stick if you bucked him even if you did nothing wrong. His kind, though dead and gone have been replaced by single issue prohibitionists and zealots consumed with ambitions to cleanse Their world of all who offend in some way. I'm a bad boy because I refuse to recycle even though I know all the refuse goes into the same pile at the terminal. Back then, the old farts simply didn't want any change to happen until they were 6 feet under. The new breed are soldiers for the causes inculcated into them by their teachers with costly Utopian dreams of perfecting humanity. The one thing that hasn't changed is any expectation of being left to one's self to do whatever so long as no injury is caused. Busybodies never quit.
Kingofthenet| 12.8.11 @ 12:01PM
Some Small Town folk are 'Patriotic' as Forrest Gump was, if unquestionably licking the Boot of Govt. or dying in some far off land at 18, 'keeping us free' is one's idea of Patriotism, then by all means keep up the good fight, the Govt. always needs a fresh supply of fodder.
Skippy| 12.9.11 @ 5:06PM
What a dick.
Fredx| 12.8.11 @ 12:05PM
Finally, a ray of hope and common sense. I agree with you 100%. We have surrendered our souls. Digging out will be difficult since much of this nonsense has either been codified into law or accepted as "political correctness." I hope it's not too late but I suspect it is.
Ron| 12.8.11 @ 12:35PM
Mr. Orlet,
I too came from a small, rural town. The population sign finally changed in the 1990s from the original 450 to 1100. I am still "Ronnie Jr." (my dad was the Sr.) even 20 years after my dad passed away...I am 45.
You premise is excellent, however, it reminds me of Ms. Klintoon's speech back in the 1990s/2000s about how "it takes a village to raise a child" and then, of course, she and her collaborators have ruined the country by instilling the opposite characteristics you describe. In the democrapic world, it should be more like "it takes a global village to raise a village idiot..."
DGinGA| 12.8.11 @ 12:41PM
I have observed over the years that the people who moan the loudest about people not being "judgmental" are usually the people who are doing something they know they should be ashamed of, but don't really want other people to criticize them for it. Those people who strive to live an upright, honest, moral life understand that nobody is perfect, and we all have our faults, but we're not as concerned about someone else pointing them out.
Hence, when I hear libs DEFENDING infidelity, drunkenness, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, etc., yet going into high dudgeon about someone being overweight, makes me wonder what these people really do in their own lives.
LindaF | 12.9.11 @ 6:28AM
It's not that THEY are not judgmental, but what they are judgmental about:
- lofty environmental goals - for the REST of society
- abstinence from unmarried sexual activity - how odd!
- excessive drinking - however, we have to be understanding of junkies
- looking at them when they dress immodestly - how dare you focus on their exposed body parts!
- voting Republican or conservatively - obviously, the only reason for that vote is because you're a h8r
- not having sympathy (and an open wallet) for those who have screwed up their own lives by their own dumb choices
Franco| 12.8.11 @ 12:46PM
What a bunch of small-minded horsecrap this article is. Yeah, yeah, I know the social conservative playbook: small towns = virtue and community and Good Decent Folk, and cites = liberal hives of grasping moneygrubbing elitism and mobs of welfare-collecting bloodsuckers.
Well, I happen to be one of those money-grasping bloodsuckers. True that some cities suck--some. My grandfather lived to the age of 99 and was a self-confessed Slave of New York his entire life and adored it, warts and all. He lived in Chinatown overlooking Five Points Square, where the Gangs of New York fought for control of the area. And I guarantee that for every big city Boss Tweed there's an equally venal and loathsome small town Boss Hogg. When the time comes I will happily retire to rural Vermont--I love the outdoors and believe it or not I have a respect for small-town life. Until then, side from the inconvenience of not being able to go plinking in my backyard, it's best to remember that the delightfulness of our homes is often only as good as our neighbors--mine know me, incidentally.
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:18PM
"it's best to remember that the delightfulness of our homes is often only as good as our neighbors."
You've got that right, Franco.
And usually, good neighbors are to be found everywhere. Sometimes in the least expected areas, too.
And if you want good neighbors, be one yourself~ and they usually reciprocate. At least, that's what I find.
I was born in upstate NY, grew up in central Jersey. Lived in NYC off and on for over a decade. Loved the city for it's convenience, stores, restaurants, jobs, etc. I lived on the west side & worked on the east.
I met so many great people, and some bad. The small towns has them too.. they just hide it better (the bad ones).
Hustle and bustle's great for those who enjoy it~ and small town living is great for those who want that.
Life reallys IS what we make it!
C Smith| 12.8.11 @ 1:07PM
From Missouri too, but not even from a small town; when to a one room school for my first eight years. Not only has "sentimentality's triumph been small town America's downfall," but also the downfall of the "soul" of small town America i.e., the church:
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2007
Popular Apostasy
I took my father for a drive one evening not too long ago. Over old country roads that were once so familiar. Latent memories brightened his face at every turn: “I used to plow that field for Jake, or plant that one for Dave, or harvest that for Marlon.” Returning from the war, he and his often envied Oliver 70, purchased for several hundred dollars and a mule, not only tended his land but that of a multitude of others, land he knew as intimately as his own.
Suddenly, pointing toward the fading sun, he became disturbed: “There used to be a church there and a graveyard.” But I saw nothing but the silhouette of a fencerow entwined with reeds and vines. Yes, there had been a church, and perhaps as many as a dozen other one room sanctuaries scattered along that dusty meandering road, but like this one, little or nothing now remains. The voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride are now forever silent.
These forgotten churches of fair meadows and vale are so unlike those of today: No satellite receiver affixed to a steeple. No sermons to “spiritually” download or hymns with copyright code. No worship bands to rival a night club or bar. Or messages patterned after some Hollywood movie or star. No popular book studies other then the King James. No “Lights, Action, Camera” directing performers to take the stage. And sometimes not even a pastor. But they continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers in a time when apostasy could travel little faster than an occasional circuit rider, in a time when Satan could deceive but one church at a time.
http://popularapostasy.blogspo.....art-3.html
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:25PM
Ah yes, TRUE Christianity:
And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through the Apostles.
And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." Acts 2:42-47.
Al Adab| 12.8.11 @ 1:19PM
Shhhh. Don't tell everyone. We are trying to keep the advantages of small town life to ourselves. It's great doing business where everyone knows each other by first name. We had a Christmas (Yes, Christmas) Parade Saturday last and other events are always ongoing. We encounter friends everytime we shop or go out to dinner. Of course there are issues. It is harder to keep a business in the black with smaller population and harder to find jobs or make a living, but the upside far outweighs the down.
Dave Williams| 12.8.11 @ 6:38PM
As punishment for my past sins -- and I hope I enjoyed the HECK out of them -- I, a true City kid, find myself in exile in a small town in darkest Ohio. If there is a slower, dumber, duller, meaner, more conformist, more close-minded, more ill-educated, less curious, more arts-unfriendly bunch of country clots in the world than the inhabitants here, I'd hate to meet them. Small towns...hock-ptui, you can have em. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the INTERNET and the NEW YORK TIMES, so I don't lose touch with civilization completely.
Gary| 12.9.11 @ 12:19AM
Having lived in small towns all my life I find your generalized smug and uninformed opinion of the people residing in them to be as ill informed as you think small town people are. There are ignorant people everywhere, but ignorance by supposedly "educated" people is unforgivable. When I hear utter nonsense and hatred spouted by college students and professors I think, they actually think because they are educated they are wise. Intellectuals led the Communist revolt in Russia and we all know how that turned out. Intellectuals have led and promoted all sorts of loony "causes" so ignorance does not only exist in small town America but in the big cities and college campuses everywhere. The difference is that in most small towns people know and care about their neighbors in good times and bad times. I've seen it over and over when death, sickness, and tragedy strikes, so can it with your simplistic hedonistic loathing of small towns and do us all a favor and abide in the cities you love so much.
Konnie| 12.8.11 @ 10:11PM
Dave, get the hell out, ASAP! Different strokes for different folks, etc. etc. No really, why would you stay there? Either you are in the wrong town, or you are not ready for that lifestyle, or you just like cities. I know one thing. In my small town, there are about 25 people that I could call at 3 a.m. (and it sure as hell wouldn't be Hillary or Obama) and they would be there with bells on, no questions asked. It all comes down to what you consider important and needful. Move!
POST American| 12.8.11 @ 11:26PM
---AS InfoWars reports hours ago FEMA
CAMPS have been put on stand for 'activation'
across the nation ---as Congress authorizes
the 'disappearancs' of even American citizens
abroad and ---AT HOME ----
"The Banksters, the INTER-national
Banksters, HAVE TO be brought to justice.
Beyond Madoff. THEY HAVE TO BE.
About 200 that have to be brought in
and put away for life. Folks, THERE IS
NO OTHER WAY. ------NONE."
-ALEX JONES
(days ago)
------------------------Getting the picture?
------------------------------------------YET?
Gary| 12.9.11 @ 12:07AM
At age 65 I recall when a girl got pregnant in high school in the fifties it was a big scandal, a shameful thing, now it's accepted and even glorified in movies. You are right, we dare not judge immorality even if the effect is to destabilize society and place the burdens resulting from such behavior on the tax payer. I have long been fed up with this "non judgmental" mindset. Today it is only correct to "judge" those who oppose gay marriage, abortion, doubt global warming, income redistribution, etc. Personal morality, responsibility, are not important as long as one is correct on the previously mentioned pet causes of the so called sophisticated among us who dominate the arts, academia, and the media. Well too bad, I still judge a person by his or her character, honesty, loyalty, personality, and fidelity. If society as a whole did this our problems would be less and life would be a joy instead of a sordid satiation of appetites, urges, and cravings which in reality bring no happiness, only momentary pleasure.
Naturalborn Texicanette| 12.9.11 @ 12:41AM
Right on, Gary!!
Well said!
Christopher Orlet| 12.9.11 @ 1:12AM
Ankle-deep garbage all up and down the street?
Where in heck do you live? I've never seen anything like that in the worst parts of Chicago. This is not a neat, pretty town. (Well, actually a lot of it is.) Chicago has some gritty grimy sections. My own neighborhood has street-gang activity including occasional gunfire, but the streets and alleys are clear of all but minimal litter.
Chris Orlet| 12.13.11 @ 2:19PM
Curious as to why the above commentator is using my name for his/her comments.