What Happened....

[BlueTrain]

My father was much the same way. He was a route man for a laundry for over fifteen years, his route taking him through miles of country roads in West Virginia. Then he became a rural mail carrier, traveling over pretty much the same roads and seeing the same people. He didn't know any Emily Post stuff or Amy what's her name but he had good manners towards everyone but never in a servile manner. My mother was an invalid so she never really taught me anything.

 

[Fading Fast]

Another silly Star Trek thought. One thing that has always driven me crazy is that on Star Trek, they'll be preparing for a diplomatic mission to some planet and will say, "now remember, it is a great insult to ask how the councilor is feeling if he isn't in the room [I'm making this up] and that will cause an end to the negotiations."

Really? That culture is so narrow-minded, so unable to see that other cultures might not share every custom and signal that a small transgression wouldn't be seen for what it is - a harmless cultural difference? Wouldn't that culture be doing what the crew of the Enterprise was doing - preparing and learning about the "other" culture?

If a spaceship landed in Chicago today and we started interacting with this new culture and they shocking looked very humanoid but raised their middle finger at us overtime they came and left, but seemed nice about it, don't you think we might be smart enough to realize that what we see as an insult is probably just their handshake?

Sometimes, even as I read through this thread, I think (and I'm as guilty of this as the next guy) some of our subcultures are as guilty of narrow-mindedness as my made up Star Trek example.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's when the Star Trek fans meet the Star Wars fans you have to watch out for. In my experience, the Dr. Who fans are much nicer people than either -- because in terms of American science fiction subcultures they really are the outsiders among the outsiders.

Cultural differences are very real, and it's important to acknowledge them. Many people today will puff up their chests and hold out their hands and say I TREAT EVERYBODY THE SAME, but their actions say, time and again, that they do not. Look at how people on the Lounge rag about the t-shirt and ballcap crowd, or how reenactors turn up their noses at the farbys. Larger society is exactly the same, it's simply the parameters are different. I have never met a person in my life who actually does "treat everybody the same," and I don't expect to in this lifetime. I think it's better, and healthier, for a society to acknowledge that no, it *doesn't* treat everybody the same, and to then question exactly why that is and how it's being done, than to stick fingers in ears and insist that EVERYBODY HAS A FAIR CHANCE I TREAT EVERYBODY THE SAME.

One thing I notice up here is how hard a time people from the South have when they come up here, and get offended because we don't act like Southerners or relate to them like Southerners. Well, we're *not* Southerners. We'll never *be* Southerners. We have our own culture here, and it's very very different from what you're used to. We don't interact the way Southerners do, because we're Northerners, and our culture is just as old and just as ingrained as yours is. By all means, visit us if you're so inclined, but remember that you're visiting a foreign country and conduct yourself accordingly. And, I presume, it goes the same way for Northerners visiting the SOuth.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If a spaceship landed in Chicago today and we started interacting with this new culture and they shocking looked very humanoid but raised their middle finger at us overtime they came and left, but seemed nice about it, don't you think we might be smart enough to realize that what we see as an insult is probably just their handshake?

If they landed in the North End of Boston, on the other hand, and did that they'd be immediately hailed as long-lost brothers. YO, I COME IN PEACE! WICKED PISSAH!

One of my favorite kids at work usually greets me each day with "You suck." And I, as a sign of mutual affection, usually respond with "No, you suck." If she ever greeted me with "how are you today," I'd think she was sick and send her home. But that's often how people who deeply care about each other up here talk to each other.

 

[BlueTrain]

I was never given any lessons on proper behavior or manners but I had good models to imitate.

 

[HudsonHawk]

You don't put your elbows on the table, you don't chew with your mouth open, you wipe your feet, you take your hat off, you say thank you... Not because it makes you feel superior, but because it's not all about you. It must be different up in Maine, but where I'm from social interactions with other people weren't just only about your own personal convenience, and were a welcome part of existence, not a chore to be tolerated.

And yes, you'd tip your cap to everyone you interacted with.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I never saw a man tip a hat or a cap to anyone in my life. Ever. Even Ted Williams wouldn't do it.

And as for elbows on the table, how else are you supposed to hold your newspaper without getting it in the sausage grease?

 

[HudsonHawk]

I never saw a man tip a hat or a cap to anyone in my life. Ever. Even Ted Williams wouldn't do it.

If life was like you describe, I would find that to be a miserable existence. Our world wasn't like that at all. We weren't class warriors and genuinely enjoyed meeting new people, talking to strangers, and the hospitality of others. It's just who we are.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Another silly Star Trek thought. One thing that has always driven me crazy is that on Star Trek, they'll be preparing for a diplomatic mission to some planet and will say, "now remember, it is a great insult to ask how the councilor is feeling if he isn't in the room [I'm making this up] and that will cause an end to the negotiations."

Really? That culture is so narrow-minded, so unable to see that other cultures might not share every custom and signal that a small transgression wouldn't be seen for what it is - a harmless cultural difference? Wouldn't that culture be doing what the crew of the Enterprise was doing - preparing and learning about the "other" culture?

If a spaceship landed in Chicago today and we started interacting with this new culture and they shocking looked very humanoid but raised their middle finger at us overtime they came and left, but seemed nice about it, don't you think we might be smart enough to realize that what we see as an insult is probably just their handshake?

Sometimes, even as I read through this thread, I think (and I'm as guilty of this as the next guy) some of our subcultures are as guilty of narrow-mindedness as my made up Star Trek example.

I get what you're saying, but I've also done business in enough different cultures around the world to know there is value in getting to know the customs and culture of those with whom you seek to do business. At the end of the day relationships mean everything, and showing some knowledge of the other party's culture will certainly help to ingratiate yourself and improve the chances of business success.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If life was like you describe, I would find that to be a miserable existence.

New England was founded by Calvinists. Life is *supposed* to be miserable.

Seriously, though, I'm convinced a lot of the way we look at summer people comes from the fact that we endure seven or eight months of cold, rain, sleet, ice, snow and general wretched darkness just to get to summer. We believe those summers have to be earned, and there's quite a bit of both subconscious and conscious resentment for the dillyboppers who come up here to take up space on our shores and use up all the parking spaces without having first had to suffer for it. Sure they spend money here, but they haven't suffered like we have and they don't understand or appreciate what a summer day means to us.

 

[MikeKardec]

Another silly Star Trek thought. One thing that has always driven me crazy is that on Star Trek, they'll be preparing for a diplomatic mission to some planet and will say, "now remember, it is a great insult to ask how the councilor is feeling if he isn't in the room [I'm making this up] and that will cause an end to the negotiations."

I got a bit of a laugh out of this. For part of my youth I lived not far from the Big Reservation, the Navajo Reservation. To the older Navajos, if you used their name while talking to them it was considered odd or slightly insulting ... a name was what you called someone when they weren't present. I guess some of that came from the fact that outsiders (non family members) really only knew them by their "public handle" style name. A real name was a pretty private affair. It used to always amuse me to get one of them to point or rather indicate a direction. They did this with their lips, twitching them toward whatever you were asking about. They were nothing if not economical.

 

[MikeKardec]

New England was founded by Calvinists. Life is *supposed* to be miserable.

And I thought it was fun that was supposed to be miserable!

 

[HudsonHawk]

If they landed in the North End of Boston, on the other hand, and did that they'd be immediately hailed as long-lost brothers. YO, I COME IN PEACE! WICKED PISSAH!

One of my favorite kids at work usually greets me each day with "You suck." And I, as a sign of mutual affection, usually respond with "No, you suck." If she ever greeted me with "how are you today," I'd think she was sick and send her home. But that's often how people who deeply care about each other up here talk to each other.

Apropos to nothing, but...here we often greet each other by our formal names. So I would say "good morning Miss Elizabeth". It would be a sign of a personal relationship and one of genuine affection, not a cold deference to authority. Of course I might also say "howdy Lizzie". We like to mix it up.

 

[HudsonHawk]

New England was founded by Calvinists. Life is *supposed* to be miserable.

I'll never understand how we Baptists learned to tolerate each other so well without getting liquored up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And I thought it was fun that was supposed to be miserable!

You need to sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park.

 

[HudsonHawk]

New England was founded by Calvinists. Life is *supposed* to be miserable.

Seriously, though, I'm convinced a lot of the way we look at summer people comes from the fact that we endure seven or eight months of cold, rain, sleet, ice, snow and general wretched darkness just to get to summer. We believe those summers have to be earned, and there's quite a bit of both subconscious and conscious resentment for the dillyboppers who come up here to take up space on our shores and use up all the parking spaces without having first had to suffer for it. Sure they spend money here, but they haven't suffered like we have and they don't understand or appreciate what a summer day means to us.

I get the disdain for what we'd call the "carpetbaggers" or the "halfbacks". And as a native Floridian, who's family was there well before it was even a US possession, I certainly understand the interlopers wanting to change your culture.

 

[Joe50's]

reminds me of rebas relationship with barbara jean

I'll never understand how we Baptists learned to tolerate each other so well without getting liquored up.

went to a small baptist school for elementary and tolerence and getting along was one of the big things they taught.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I got a bit of a laugh out of this. For part of my youth I lived not far from the Big Reservation, the Navajo Reservation. To the older Navajos, if you used their name while talking to them it was considered odd or slightly insulting ... a name was what you called someone when they weren't present. I guess some of that came from the fact that outsiders (non family members) really only knew them by their "public handle" style name. A real name was a pretty private affair. It used to always amuse me to get one of them to point or rather indicate a direction. They did this with their lips, twitching them toward whatever you were asking about. They were nothing if not economical.

This is fascinating to me, because we're like that here. We very rarely refer to each other by name in conversation -- and there's often an actual sense of discomfort about using someone's name that way, as though it's an imposition on their identity. When someone engages us in conversation and repeatedly uses our name, the reaction it usually provokes is one of suspicion, like we're about to be conned into buying something we don't want.

I don't remember ever using my friends' names in conversation when we were kids, and I don't remember ever doing so after we grew up. At my current job, we mostly refer to each other by random oddball nicknames, which usually make no sense and have no particular context, and very very seldom by our actual names.

The only other place I ever heard of this kind of habit was on "Vic and Sade," an absurdist radio comedy of the Era, where Vic would call his son "Stove Poker" and his wife "Dr. Sleech" for no apparent reason other than that he felt like it.

 

[Paisley]

Re: changing neighborhoods. The sense of community in Denver wasn't destroyed because there wasn't one to begin with. When I moved, I knew the people in three houses in the whole area after living in the neighborhood for 20 years. (Further, most of my loved ones are dead and all but a few of my remaining family members are assholes. Most of my coworkers from Denver that I cared about had retired or moved on. There's just my mother, and I'd be happy to move her out here.) It was like the line in the movie Death Becomes Her: "In 13 years in Los Angeles, have you ever seen a neighbor?" Denver is basically Los Angeles without the beach. A lot of people pull up stakes and move there for the lifestyle or their careers. As an example of their common attitudes, very ordinary men try to meet women 10 to 20 years younger and, when they don't find any takers, call Denver "Menver" instead of wondering if their approach is the problem. Careerists, jocks, bros, and people with overinflated egos aren't necessarily bad people, but they generally aren't the sort to relax, get to know their neighbors and do their bit in a way that doesn't build up their resume.

Indianapolis is very different from Denver. I've heard people who've lived in the same neighborhood for 20 years call themselves newcomers. People are friendly here without getting into your business. Drivers shout comments to random pedestrians (I haven't heard anything crude far). I haven't encountered any pretentiousness, and status symbols are by far the exception. One of my coworkers has a mounted elk head in his office, another shoots squirrels, and the neighbors here set off so many fireworks on the Fourth that it sounded like a war movie and smelled like a shooting range. I'm not into hunting or fireworks, but they both show a sense of spirit that's long gone from Denver. I feel like I've found my home, and at work, my tribe, and wouldn't want to change the culture.

High-crime, high-poverty neighborhoods will certainly see some cultural changes as people homestead abandoned houses and hipsters and the yoga-pants crowd move in. But those changes have included some good things--law-abiding neighbors, vacant houses being reinhabited, houses being rehabbed, others (in terrible condition) being demolished, and there's the fairly new Paramount School of Excellence and a co-op in a "food desert" that stocks local meat, dairy, eggs and produce. New houses in the area look new and modern, but they pretty well match the size, shape and roof pitch of existing ones. Historical houses have to remain historical. The effect is evolutionary rather than looking like an exotic species is taking over. In nicer areas, most of the transplants seem to be from Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky, but other areas have a large Asian immigrant population that will probably change the culture there.

Culture is great, but financial concerns are important in choosing a place to live. I chose Indianapolis partly because it's a growing city with business-friendly policies and a low unemployment rate. (I'd been here before and really liked it, too.) Given a choice, I want a house that will at least retain its value and be located in a good job market. Had money been no object, I'd have chosen coastal California (near my aunt), a perfect example of a nice but declining (and expensive) place. In any case, I wouldn't move to a place I disliked, no matter how good a deal it might be.

I see my house as somewhat of an investment, since I think property values will rise here, but it's mostly a place to live. My time horizon is about 20 years. (I've read most people own their house for only five years.) From just a financial point of view, I think a horizon of only a few years is a mistake (unless you're fixing and flipping), mostly because of transaction costs, but also because people have so little skin in the game in maintaining the property and the community.

 

[Paisley]

Re: taste. Good taste is fine, but it's not some great accomplishment.

As for food, I'm limited in what I can eat, so I maximize the rest. Sushi--yes. Canned tuna--yes. Deep-fried fish--I enjoy seldom. Steak tartar, seaweed, Velveeta, dandelion greens, chicken livers, elk, wild boar, tofu noodles, carpaccio, all yes. I even made low-carb, non-dairy sanguinoccio out of blood from liver packages when I injured my teeth a few years ago. It was filling.