[T. Grone]

Why do people think Midwesterners are boring, un-cultured idiots? Because usually you’ll get at least two out of three.

I should explain my credentials: I lived in Nebraska (40 minutes from the South Dakota and Iowa borders) for the first 17 years of my life. It was a town that, compared to the surrounding communities, had ‘culture’ (a college, a library and a drug community). At my high school of about 250 kids, we never had more that six who weren’t Caucasian. Of my graduating class of 60, perhaps five could identify a Picasso. Maybe 10 could tell you who wrote the Communist Manifesto. I went to college for two years in Minneapolis before heading to the East Coast. Minneapolis is a very nice town, as the above posts mention, and living in the heart of it you do get a wiff of the world, but at its core Minneapolis is very Midwestern.

The problem is that Midwesterners have a narrow-minded set of standards. Culture is not that important. The world is not that important. Even family is not that important. The one thing Midwesterners think is important is security. They like to feel secure; they like to know they have money and people to depend on and things that are familiar. Even small-town hierarchies are based on security. Traveling or learning about interesting things or doing interesting things isn’t always safe, and so these aren’t a true Midwesterner’s top priorities.

It’s too bad, but those who could most benefit the Midwest leave early on, and very few want to return. I feel bad saying there’s nothing there, but there isn’t. It’s not that there never could be something worthwhile, or that the Midwest can never be culturally sound. It could. But for now, it is full of people who do not care to change, and little else.

User Detail :  

Name : T. Grone, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Pentecostal, Age : 19, City : Falls Church, State : VA, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

[T. Grone]

This is an interesting question, because Americans in general seem to be of two minds about it. Fairly safe (I hope!) example: there’s sort of a mindset that Brits are more well-educated than us, simply because Amerians associate British accents with education. The French seem more cultivated, Asians seem, ah, more intelligent, and so on. Whether or not this is true on an individual basis is, of course, uncertain, but for the most part Americans do have certain gut reactions to various groups and their assumed superiority on some level. But I can’t deny that, despite the aforementioned gut-reaction, Americans do tend to think of themselves as the best. The only conclusion I can come up with sounds silly, but I think it’s right. It comes to this: America (we think) has the best visual entertainment industry in the world. (Okay, there’s Bollywood, but we Americans don’t appreciate it.) So we’ve got the greatest actors, the funniest sitcoms, etc., etc. And when we get stuff from other countries, it seems laughable in comparison. Really laughable; films are either poorly acted, poorly shot, or poorly marketed. Television series are doomed to PBS or, if they’re lucky, Comedy Central. One can argue that television and film productions are not an accurate representation of a paticular country. Well, obviously, but it doesn’t make a difference if that’s all Americans see, does it? America is a country so saturated in pop culture that we think we really live it, and we extend that assumption to other countries’ attempts at pop culture. Like I said, it’s a bit silly (and elementary), but I think I’m right. We go by television to tell us what’s happening and movies to tell us what should be happening. Since, for the most part, the rest of the world isn’t up to par with our entertainment industry, we think we are superior.

User Detail :  

Name : T. Grone, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Pentecostal, Age : 19, City : Falls Church, State : VA, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

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