The World is Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
I spoke with someone who is relatively bright but not particularly knowledgeable recently. I gave him two periods in the past 40 years, and I asked him to rank the relative strengths of the economy during those two times.
He said that the economy was great at one of those points, and bad at the other point. In reality, the economy was roughly equal during both periods. When I pointed this out to him, and gave him some of the documented numbers, he was surprised.
The reason is simple. During one of those periods, the economy was being covered extensively in the media; during the other period, it wasn't. With a lack of national coverage, he simply gathered facts the way most of us are inclined to do so: we look at the stuff around us and assume it extrapolates to the rest of the country.
This is an obviously faulty way of doing things. If you're in a bad section of an inner city, or a small town dependent on an industry which is in decline, it doesn't matter what the country's general economy is like, it's going to be bad in your area. If you're in a place where economic development in on the increase and businesses are cropping up all over, it doesn't matter if the country is in dire straits, in your area the economy's going to be good.
It's not just the economy that works this way. Attitudes toward just about everything can be different locally compared to the national stage. Views toward abortion aren't going to be the same in Berkely, California as they are in the rest of the country any more than they're going to be the same in a heavily Catholic town than the rest of the United States. Gun ownership, voting patterns... very little, in fact, can be accurately extrapolated from one town or city to the remainder of a state, much less the entire country.
This also holds true in attitudes seen in a particular group of people. Most of us think we're reasonable people, and our friends and coworkers are generally reasonable people, too. And we think the US is full of mostly reasonable people. So we assume that attitudes of our associates are more-or-less reflected by the majority of the educated country. It's flawed reasoning, though.
A great example of this lies in the music industry. Rock artists tend to overwhelmingly tilt liberal in their thinking; Country artists tend to overwhelmingly tilt conservative. To some extent, that seperation extends to their listeners as well. Listeners hear their values and beliefs reflected in many of the songs they hear, and assume that this indicates something about society as a whole.
It doesn't. It only reflects the views of a majority of the artists you listen to.
And that's the important thing to get from all of this: if you're living in a town in Tennessee, the state, the country, the world isn't all like your home town. It seems obvious when it's put like that, but it's easy enough to forget.
He said that the economy was great at one of those points, and bad at the other point. In reality, the economy was roughly equal during both periods. When I pointed this out to him, and gave him some of the documented numbers, he was surprised.
The reason is simple. During one of those periods, the economy was being covered extensively in the media; during the other period, it wasn't. With a lack of national coverage, he simply gathered facts the way most of us are inclined to do so: we look at the stuff around us and assume it extrapolates to the rest of the country.
This is an obviously faulty way of doing things. If you're in a bad section of an inner city, or a small town dependent on an industry which is in decline, it doesn't matter what the country's general economy is like, it's going to be bad in your area. If you're in a place where economic development in on the increase and businesses are cropping up all over, it doesn't matter if the country is in dire straits, in your area the economy's going to be good.
It's not just the economy that works this way. Attitudes toward just about everything can be different locally compared to the national stage. Views toward abortion aren't going to be the same in Berkely, California as they are in the rest of the country any more than they're going to be the same in a heavily Catholic town than the rest of the United States. Gun ownership, voting patterns... very little, in fact, can be accurately extrapolated from one town or city to the remainder of a state, much less the entire country.
This also holds true in attitudes seen in a particular group of people. Most of us think we're reasonable people, and our friends and coworkers are generally reasonable people, too. And we think the US is full of mostly reasonable people. So we assume that attitudes of our associates are more-or-less reflected by the majority of the educated country. It's flawed reasoning, though.
A great example of this lies in the music industry. Rock artists tend to overwhelmingly tilt liberal in their thinking; Country artists tend to overwhelmingly tilt conservative. To some extent, that seperation extends to their listeners as well. Listeners hear their values and beliefs reflected in many of the songs they hear, and assume that this indicates something about society as a whole.
It doesn't. It only reflects the views of a majority of the artists you listen to.
And that's the important thing to get from all of this: if you're living in a town in Tennessee, the state, the country, the world isn't all like your home town. It seems obvious when it's put like that, but it's easy enough to forget.
posted by AM | 8:47 PM
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