Regional Diversity

Over the past four months I had the good fortune to spend this year’s winter in Southern California instead of my home in Western North Carolina. Given all of the extended nightmarish weather experienced across the country this winter, going without snow for the first time in 40 years was a welcomed change. To get to Southern California from North Carolina, there are only two options: on I-40 across middle Tennessee / Arkansas / Oklahoma and northern Texas / New Mexico / Arizona, or the deep south route on I-10 through southern Mississippi / Alabama / Louisiana / Texas / New Mexico / Arizona. Either route over the 2500 miles will display a vast array of images, vegetation, distances of view, and varying weather conditions, often dramatic and sometimes bordering on the extreme. From such a visual contrast mile by mile, one is reminded of the extraordinary differences in this country’s landscape, yet its unifying beauty.

I have often said that to truly understand a people, you have to go to their place: stand on their land; feel the wind, the cold and the heat of the place; walk the flatness or the rises; eat the native food God made available on that land. Then, as you listen to them talk about their history – of migration, of wars, or desperate struggles for survival, of periods of alternating power & prosperity and then weakness & desperation – their stories, values, opinions, politics and cultural way of life begins to come alive within a context. Without that critical understanding and appreciation of their context, you hear their story only through your own lens, thereby not really understanding it at all.

Unlike most except the biggest of countries, the U.S. does not have one topography that molds a common context for us, such as Japan’s experience for example. Surviving the land means something far different to the New Englander than to the New Mexican. Shelter requires something very different for the Floridian than for the North Dakotan. The commute to work is a different regimen to the office worker in Huntington Beach, California than to the farmer in Van Wert, Ohio. The dusty heat of El Paso, Texas summers calls for a different rhythm and tolerance than the deep snows of winters in Buffalo, New York around the Great Lakes region. And the 90% humidity of Fort Smith, Arkansas creates a different form of heat than the extreme 15% dryness of Tucson, Arizona, regardless of the thermometer reading.

Basic values of patriotism, faith and religious observances, compassion towards others, charity to those in need, and respect for law and democratic process can be shared universally. Yet how those values are expressed and fulfilled cannot, and should not, be the same, given our incredible diversity of situations. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at the ongoing efforts of some people to try to enforce an ill-fitting homogeneity at a detailed level across this land. Be it a faceless bureaucrat dictating educational standards and teaching methodologies; a building code based upon big-city realities pushed out to rural communities; a religious denominational belief and practice attempted to be made a secular standard; architected homes completely mis-fitted in style to the land they sit on and the historical culture they embody; or the mandated allocation of governmental budgets applied to specific local action programs – all of these reflect a supposed knowing of “what is best locally” without any real understanding of what local really means.

Tip O’Neil’s famous observation was that “all politics is local.” Over the past years we have dangerously tried to turn that on its head. The idea was not to tell the locals what to do, but to listen to the locals and then give them a wide swath and meaningful support to pursue their individual directions. Allow people to respond as best appropriate to local conditions and priorities. We should remember that our view is our own, but other views are not necessarily a disagreement with us. They may rather reflect a life that is often outside of our own field of vision, and thereby outside of our real understanding.