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[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Leave the city some time and hang out in the burbs for a few months. There's an antagonism toward anyone offering views differing from those of our media. And scarier than that, there's a strong suspicion of anyone discussing things beyond the immediate. The focus seems to be on what's going on in the locality, then, if necessary, what's going on in the closest large city, and then nationally, and rarely if ever, what's going on abroad.

It's not mere complacency and lack of curiosity. It's deliberate. They talk kids, sports, entertainment, and perhaps a little politics in election season, and that's it. As far as travel abroad, that's discussed only in terms of what museums were seen, or resorts visited.

The majority of Americans in flyover land don't want to know more than what's comfortable to hear. They're just smart enough to understand its doubtful it will ever directly impact their little world, and clever and cynical enough to realize that if everyone sticks their heads in the sand together, it creates a pleasant self-reinforcing reality in which nothing bad is ever focused on for more than a minute or two. "Oh, those French cartoonists were killed... How awful. Oh, well-- got to back to turning all the lights on in the great room. I have to show this house to three more couples this afternoon!"

When I lived in Rhode Island I saw this in spades. I swear, if a nuclear bomb were set off in Cairo, the headline in the Providence Journal would be "Three Rhode Islanders Killed in Egypt," followed by the subtitle of "500,000 others also die in nuclear incident."