Urbanity, most would say, is America with a capital “A.” Hubs of industry and culture, our cities are The Places-Where-Things-Happen. With roughly a third of the undergraduate population hailing from California and New York, this sentiment abounds on Yale’s campus. I’d hazard a guess that more than a third of Yalies will never know what they’re missing as they recoil in disgust at the thought of small-town life.

     Hamilton was right to model the American economy on that of post-Industrial Revolution Britain. The production and trade among the burgeoning merchant class of that time set the precedent that the archetypal American go-getter would have urban sensibilities. Jefferson’s humbler agrarian vision proved much too far behind the times to yield the prosperity we as a nation enjoy today. Now, we are experiencing a modern-day equivalent to the transition from farming to industry: that of goods-producing jobs to service-producing ones. The technological advancements of the digital age only accelerate this shift. 

     Evensville, unincorporated — my hometown in Tennessee. Where does that leave you, other than a few miles away from the site of the Scopes Trial? Where does that leave you, other than the wrong side of history? The goods-producing side instead of the service-producing one. The side which condemned teaching evolution in public schools instead of condoning it. The long march of history has become a breakneck sprint towards greater progress, yet there you are, having barely learned to crawl. 

     Is public opinion correct? Had the pace of my life been set to a crawl before I was off to the races in New Haven? Perhaps my life was not as exciting, but I do think it was just as interesting. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that most Yalies would find a small town like mine much more interesting than New Haven — with the right mindset.

     This article is not, contrary to what you might expect based on what you’ve read so far, an aesthetic defense of the “simple life.” Instead, I say that rural living would intrigue many Yalies for the psychological insight it would provide them. Rural America thinks in a way that most Ivy League elites will never comprehend, simply because they have never lived there. 

     Think of all the other “backward” habits one associates with a stereotypical small town. Beyond economic stagnation, other trends include a conservative political majority and extremely low vaccination rates. I’m comfortable generalizing and saying that the average Yalie will assess the typical rural American in a manner similar to Hillary Clinton. In the minds of most urbanites, these people are “irredeemable.” They voted for a demagogue that was, at best, rude, and at worst, an anti-democratic bigot, after all. Now, they tear our masks asunder, sport Stars of David to lament that we oppress them, while they are the ones who disregard the possibility that they might kill their neighbor. What else can one call this behavior but “irredeemable,” if in no other sense than a logical one? If someone is logically irredeemable, they are beyond reason. You can’t engage in rational dialogue with these people. All you can do is make them pariahs. Consign them to their rural squalor and pray you never cross their path.

      “Othering” is a convenient political strategy to adopt, but in a democracy, it is not always the most prudent. Rural America lives in self-imposed exile from urban hubs of industry and culture, so they do not care what you think of them. Call them a “basket of deplorables” all you want. Like everyone else, they just want their way. Of course, there are a lot of flaws in this way, flaws that city folk ought to want to change. But these flaws become more understandable should one take time to carefully trace their origin. This requires that we put “othering” aside and imagine a world where “irredeemable” is too easy of an answer — especially if one is interested in persuading voters.

       Why might a denizen of small-town America oppose vaccine mandates? At first, a low population density temporarily reduces the transmissibility of disease, delaying the onset of a COVID-19 spike and lulling people into a false sense of security. Even when COVID-19 finally catches up, the scale is not comparable to the devastation that America’s largest cities experienced during the pandemic’s darkest days. Hearing about seven or so friends who are sick does not evoke the same visceral response as seeing New York streets seemingly post-eschaton. 

      Additionally, they distrust the expertise of public health “apparatchiks” because the bureaucratic structure of the educated elite is entirely foreign to them. And when we attend a college which ushers a third of its graduates into the world of finance after we proclaim such diverse interests on our applications, why are we surprised when anyone from the outside looking in refuses to trust our public appearances? I’ve still yet to mention the trope of crooked politics attached to this Ivy League mystique, which rural Americans perceive as typifying the ethos of any upper-level bureaucratic position.

      I could write about issues other than vaccination, but the essential message would remain the same. Ignorance is not always such an intractable issue once you realize it is a two-way street. You can write off small town populations as undesirable remnants of a systematic brain drain. The truth is, though, that their world is different from yours, so it should come as no surprise that the issues they care about are different, as well. I doubt this article will persuade anyone to spend the prime of their youth in the middle of nowhere. 

     Perhaps, though, if you find yourself on a road trip, stopping at the first gas station you’ve seen in miles, you’ll think twice before demonizing the unmasked cashier behind the register. Instead of thinking that he has no regard for the elderly and immunocompromised, consider that he probably chose to live less than half an hour away from his grandmother should she ever need his help. Instead of assuming that he is malicious, consider that he is merely mistaken.

Elijah Boles is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles college. His column runs every other Tuesday.