After much thought I have decided to come clean on the matter of the supposed inherent goodness of growing up rural. I was born to Iowa corn and hog farmers in the late 1950’s. This business of supposing that growing up on a farm magically confers a kind of wholesomeness is based on some faulty assumptions: 1) Farms are wholesome environments untread upon by people corrupted by the incessant Bacchanalian orgy of wanton excess found in the city. This is plainly wrong. Farms and farmers are just isolated. Modern conveniences get to farms later because of the isolation. Farmers are exposed to pathogens and insecticides in the course of their work. They often get mangled in unspeakable ways by their equipment. Farmers would party like brain-damaged test monkeys with everyone else if it wasn’t such a long ride into town.
Misperception 2) Growing up on a farm brings one into better harmony with nature. This is wrong as well. Farming is about the conquest of nature. Farmers know alot about nature, but take it from me, people who plow the ground, churn in soil amendments, and neutron bomb the insect population are not nature lovers. They are nature conquerors. Farming is about return on investment. Just watch Ag PhD if you don’t believe me. Hey, I watch this show- it’s pretty interesting.
Misperception 3) Growing up on a farm is peaceful and soothes the soul. Well, it seems outwardly peaceful. This is true. And that can soothe the soul. But consider that the prolonged lack of intellectual stimulation has a dulling and isolating effect that prevents people from finding a whole spread of achievement that is possible in the modern world.
Misperception 4) rural life is good because people know each other. You know the guy who owns the CO-OP and the family who sells the home grown eggs. Folks pull together when times are tough. Well, maybe. The Gaussian distribution of saints and knuckleheads applies everywhere. In a rural community you just know the saints and knuckleheads who farm. Farms have produced Ed Gein and Dwight Eisenhower. Less pathologically, people in rural communities are just as frequently unhappy with their lives as those in the city. It’s faulty thinking to conclude that the farming or rural life imbues some special merit to a person. As always, your life story is about what you put into it. I would offer that rural life is less than good because people know each other.
The notion that a politician with a rural history, or one displaying an outward appearance, is invested with a more nuanced sensibility than some city slicker is also faulty thinking. You can manipulate people with the “aw shucks, ma’am” act as effectively as with the tools of a cosmopolitan confidence man. In fact, the country boy approach may be more persuasive.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
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August 31, 2011 at 1:21 am
agogmagog
I have a slight quibble with this post.
Growing up rural is great. I absolutely loved growing up on a farm in rural NZ. Fishing, cycling, hunting, building huts in the bush, building dams across streams, playing with fire, axes and knives, pets of all shapes and sizes, amateur dissections, a great view of the universe every clear night, small engine maintenance, driving tractors age 8, etc etc…. It was the perfect nursery for a kid interested in everything.
Living rural is another story. Myself and all of my siblings have turned out firmly urban (and 60% vegetarian). Those with romantic notions of farming have most likely not lived on one.
August 31, 2011 at 8:17 am
gaussling
Oh, I agree with your point completely. Being a kid on a farm was great. I do miss being around animals. Even hogs. I loved the smell of fresh silage. Midsummer you could hear the rustling and popping sounds of growing corn. I could arc, gas, and spot weld by the time I was 12. A farmer with a welder is an awsome thing to behold. But farming is a hard life and there is a reason why the cities are not emptying into the cartesian grid of Iowa farms. Start up is capital intensive and the markets are seriously distorted by agribusiness.
My beef is with people like Gov Perry who want you to believe that his just-plain-folks bit confers a special kind of purity or folk wisdom. It does not. A doctrine that celebrates ignorance is a species of anti-intellectualism that we do not need.
September 9, 2011 at 10:18 am
Curious Wavefunction
Neat post, and I agree that a country boy or girl does not necessarily have their hand on the pulse of the nation, but I think it also depends on the context and times. When FDR was on his way to the presidency he was as much of a sophisticated Eastern snob disconnected from most Americans’ problems as you can imagine. Then he started going every year to the rural town of Warm Springs in Georgia to treat his polio. That’s where he took long drives around the countryside, met farmers and rural folk and actually understood their travails and needs. Later he noted this experience as a transformative experience that allowed him to finally connect with real people’s problems. Truman on the other hand had solid country-bred common sense and integrity and he generally did a good job considering the enormous challenges he faced, but a little FDR-style city sophistication may have helped him deal with some problems and people differently.
September 9, 2011 at 10:56 am
gaussling
I like your insightful comments about FDR and Truman. What I’m speaking to is similar to what Bertrand Russell referred to when he wrote about the fallacy of the inherent goodness of the poor. This is an old myth that tried to make the English aristocracy feel better about the maldistribution of wealth. It is easy for the wealthy to conclude that the poor are somehow happier because they lead a “simpler” life.
September 9, 2011 at 10:20 am
Nell
absolutely loved this article……Gaussling sums it all up…with his last comment….A doctrine that celebrates ignorance is a species of anti-intellectualism that we don’t need. Diversity in everything…remains essential to great doers and thinkers….involved in any segment of society. Thanks for sharing Matt….made me think again ! 🙂
September 9, 2011 at 10:57 am
gaussling
\;-)