# So apparently rural America (modern hunter gatherers) think city folk look down on them **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 17, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221 "2016-11-17T02:34:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/201 "2016-12-01T22:47:09Z")
> [@crucible](#): > > Characterizing rural residents as, in any way, ‘hunter-gatherers’ is usually inaccurate. The concept of hunter-gatherer was one that described humans prior to farming activity developing, which, in turn, allowed for settlements instead of nomadic wandering, which, in turn, developed into centers that became, eventually, cities. > > Cities were, at one time, central and important to farmers. It is where they went to sell their crops, transact legal business (marriage licenses, deeds, etc…) and to buy goods not available in their villages. Many farmers did, indeed, live in villages for convenience and protection in earlier days. > > Today, the average rural resident is not a farmer. Farms get larger and larger and the number of people needed to operate them constantly decreases. No factory worker has ever been as impacted by mechanization and computerization as have been small farmers. But, as some have pointed out, people remain in homes away from population centers for one big reason – it is a lot cheaper to live on some back road than in the city. Most rural residents, these days who have ‘jobs’ have them in towns or cities. > > So, why do they continue to live there? Partly cost, but also, by choice. CHOICE. And why do they make that choice? To a degree, because they fear people different from themselves and are afraid they will be at a disadvantage among people used to city life. Why do so many kids go off to college from the boonies then never go back except for funerals and reunions? Education exposes them to the fact that people can live together closely and with obvious religious and ethnic differences without any real negative consequences…indeed, we tend to like it after a short period of adjustment. > > To summarize – people live in the boonies because they are afraid to live among people different from themselves. This is a circumstance that pushes rural people to be ever more bigotted in their assessment of city people and city life. They associate liberal goals of opportunity for all, etc., with city people, so they hunker down and take offense every chance they get. Do a lot of the rurals hunt? When they are out hunting to any of them gather food or plants or other things from nature? Sounds like modern hunter gatherers to me. ---
**Author:** ![crucible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/202 "2016-12-01T23:23:44Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Do a lot of the rurals hunt? When they are out hunting to any of them gather food or plants or other things from nature? > Sounds like modern hunter gatherers to me. Hunter gatherers were, mostly, nomadic. some found year around sustenance, such as those who lived by the ocean, or those moreso in the tropics than in the sub-arctic. Yes, as a boy, one could have characterized one aspect of our life as ‘hunter gatherer’, while also noticing that we stayed in one place and harvested and preserved garden crops for the winter, making us some other sort of self-sufficient animal. Many rural residents today still have garden plots, a few even having a surplus to sell locally. Only the biggest farms or most specialized (garlic farmers?) can hope to take their produce to town for a cash crop…speaking of which, generations of young people have financed their higher education by raising a couple of acres of tobacco. I hasten to point out, again, that there is a continuum of variations of rural dwellers…and many city folks would say that living in a town of 20,000 and working there constitutes rural life, even it those folks don’t think of themselves that way. The forgotten folks of rural areas haven’t been forgotten by the Democratic party. Many of them live on the very programs that Democrats have founded and fostered. Yet, because Republicans tend to be more social conservative, those same folks continue to identify with Republican positions. If Republicans were to actually do something truly positive for rural people, they would have a solid voting bloc forever. They don’t, and they keep Democrats from it, to boot. I believe all the above and more, but it blows my mind that so many of those socially conservative people revealed such blackness in their hearts by voting for such a grandly flawed man, Trump. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/203 "2016-12-03T13:39:59Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Pretty disparaging to think that you can sum up the opinions of millions and millions of people by using movies. If I said I can sum up the attitudes of rural folk with the movie Napoleon Dynamite, how would you take that? At least you didn’t go with Deliverance.:eek: > [@Salvor](#): > > Sounds like modern hunter gatherers to me. Hunting recreationally doesn’t make you a hunter gather. Rural areas still mostly live off the same global supply chains that urban people enjoy. Mostly represented by a large Walmart or other box store. > [@burrunderthe saddle](#): > > Not fear, > City People Are From A Different Goddamned Planet > Trends Always Start In The Cities – And Not All Of Them Are Good > The Rural Areas Have Been Beaten To Shit > Everyone Lashes Out When They Don’t Have A Voice > Assholes Are Heroes Of course it’s fear. Rural people come from a very small world where everyone knows everyone and everything about it. And they’re arrogant about it. They think because they know everything about their little world, they know everything about how the big world works. Then they come to the city and it’s overwhelming. Too much noise. Too many people. Too many of those people look and act different. And so they are afraid: -Getting lost and walking into the wrong neighborhood -Being made a fool of or mocked -Being taken advantage of -Accidently offending someone because they don’t understand the customs -Not being able to afford anything -Not knowing where to go or who to ask for help -Getting robbed or attacked Why do you think there is an Olive Garden and TGI Fridays in Times Square? Another thing. Redneck hicks can live in cities too. Las Vegas? Jacksonville? Dallas? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/204 "2016-12-05T02:21:21Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Do a lot of the rurals hunt? When they are out hunting to any of them gather food or plants or other things from nature? > Sounds like modern hunter gatherers to me. That’s ridiculous, hunter gatherers were/are defined as such because their _primary_ food sources came from those activities. Most people outside of the Amazon or Papua New Guinea who hunt today do so as a recreation and/or supplement to their diets. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/205 "2016-12-05T18:47:15Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > That’s ridiculous, hunter gatherers were/are defined as such because their _primary_ food sources came from those activities. Most people outside of the Amazon or Papua New Guinea who hunt today do so as a recreation and/or supplement to their diets. Yeah but every last one of us think we will be Darryl during the zombie apocalypse. ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/206 "2016-12-05T19:17:51Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Do a lot of the rurals hunt? When they are out hunting to any of them gather food or plants or other things from nature? > Sounds like modern hunter gatherers to me. I do work with, and visit, Alaska indigenous communities where the seasonal routine is: fish, hunt seals, hunt moose, get plants from common lands (not planted, wild), fish some more. They are very, very different, both economically and culturally, from farmers who might hunt and fish for fun or the occasional freezer re-stock. Even taking out the ethnic component, their economic and government support needs and expectations are quite different, as they are working as a community on a common resource, rather than working as individuals on individual land (sorry, hope this isn’t too pithy for a deep subject). Non-native fishing communities in the lower 48 are similar, although that more in more is only part-time with that “way of life” becoming less prevalent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221.md?page=10)