What is a Liberal Hick?

PLEASUREMAN - MyPostingCareer.com

I might write a piece on it someday if hicks ever interest me enough to do so.  For now, just a short note.

The defining characteristic of a hick is that, despite evidence that he is sheltered and insulated from anything more stimulating than a bingo game, he assumes otherwise because he owns a television and/or radio.  Were he to be aware of the outside world and his relative inexperience with it, he would cease to be a hick and instead would probably rise to the level of bumpkin.

I describe the hick as he is; I am neither for nor against him.  In a healthy society he is perfectly acceptable--if a little sure of ideas he has merely selected from a choice of two or three large print books.  But then, his conviction that his hamlet or town has really settled the ideal way for man to live is part of his charm--he's not one for very much novelty.

On the other hand, these very circumstances have left him vulnerable to pathological thinking--his mental immune system is very weak and the noise of mass society easily overrides it.  At best he stubbornly (but inconsistently) resists the propaganda, telling people that God does not want gay people to marry and that blacks were better off before the civil rights era, but the result is that his own children think he's bigoted and stupid.  He's never had to think about why or how his hick town functions, much less the world beyond his county line.

At worst the noise of mass society causes him to become more extreme than conventional liberals--he naively and eagerly accepts the new programming, and points his small-minded small town indignation at anyone who doesn't.  That indignation was an organic way to make sure people in town cut their lawns and didn't start trouble, but once the hick is infected with this mental virus he attacks anyone who cautions against his new programming.  You might get a liberal to admit that he feels safer, even though it's totally racist, now that his kid is in a white school.  The hick will double down and say he wishes his children were in an all black school so they could serve as role models on white privilege day (Louis CK was so right!).  The non-hick liberal is a reasonable hypocrite--the hick is just an idiot.

The problem is that the hick gets full exposure to mass society through the media, but his local customs and institutions aren't strong enough to defend against it.  This is predictable, because for most of the existence of hick habitats no such thing as mass society existed.  The hick as he was could only survive thanks to the gentleness of nature--a gale blowing from New York was barely a breeze by the time it reached him.  But now nature--mass society--is massive in its turmoil and destructive reach.  The hick is sure the storm will blow some wonderful nigger families into his area so he can show everyone how much he's learned from television.

And of course when trouble comes as a result of his naivete, he'll be the first to point his finger J'Accuse style and rage about racism.  He'd vote for the cornball nigga Obama twenty times if he could.  Hicks learn what they can learn (not much) and are then certain about it forever.  Therein lies the problem.