America’s Heritage

I have been doing some serious thinking lately. I know it is serious because my brain is getting hot. It is a good thing that I don’t have much hair up there anymore, that lets the heat dissipate better. Anyway, this post is about America’s heritage and how we need to rescue it. This is going to be one of my soapbox/philosophical speeches so hang on.

Compared to world history ours is pretty brief, but I proudly boast that we, at least until recently, have valued our diversity in all aspects of life. Our cultural traditions have some pretty serious dark corners, but generally it is something for all of us to be proud of. One of the things we need to once again celebrate is our cultural diversity, particularly our small-town and big-city diversity. That is one of the things that has taken a pretty big hit these last few decades. There just seem to be a civil war between the two lately.

Why can’t we see that big cities and small towns can coexist and even thrive together if we just recognize that we need each other? As one of my friends at the Medium recently said, we all want the same things. We want security for our families, education and good jobs for our kids and especially a safe country.

During my 70+ years on this earth I have spent a lot of time in both small towns and major cities. To me, small towns give me peace and serenity while large towns give me economic opportunities.

I fear that if this rural/urban divide grows any wider that small towns will even more quickly disappear from our landscape, never to be seen again. Bluntly speaking, if there continues to be a war against big towns and corporations by those in small towns, then small towns will inevitably lose. They just don’t have the economic power to prevent their own demise.

We need to celebrate our heritage and to do that both sides need to recognize where we are going and together to find the best path forward that is beneficial to both. I don’t know how we have managed to be so fiercely in the “Us/Them” war that we are presently buried in. But one thing I do know is that if it continues then, like the Roman Empire, we too will be destined for a big fall, maybe even an implosion, in the coming years.

We need to celebrate our heritage and preserve what is good about it and let some of it go. That goes for both rural and urban life. If we do that we are all better for it.