[rpmisms]

I've watched many Californians move here over the past few years, and I've noticed a few things:

There's the obvious, stereotypival Californians. Whiny, entitled, generally bothersome people. Not a lot of them move here.

I know a couple families from conservative/rural Cali, and they're not too bad, although they just have a weird attitude. It's like their priorities are out of order compared to their surroundings. The air is different on the west coast, might be a part of it.

The biggest problem is the imports who move here because it's so beautiful and cheap (true), but they just want to change a few things. We don't want your progressive policies, gun regulation, or any of the other hundred nitpicks you have. Some of them may be fair ideas, but the reason we don't have them is partly to keep people like them out, and partly because they stem from the way of thinking that goes with living here; We take care of our own business, we take care of our families and churches, we don't idealize ambition, and we don't like changing things. If you're willing to actively adopt that mindset, please come here. If you aren't, stay the hell out.

[alienthrowaway]

If only California was as protective of its values against the many transplants who try and change its culture, the paradox of tolerance, I suppose. Sigh

[Broken_Hippo]

Some values should change.

If a trans person (or other minority) cannot go around your town unharassed, I don't understand why you'd want to keep that value instead of valuing humans as humans and treating them as such.

Why the fuck would I, being bisexual, move to such a place - where I can't be open about basic things? Why would I move somewhere that friends didn't have that option?

[rpmisms]

They wouldn't be harassed. They would simply feel estranged, because there's a comprehension barrier between the people here and the people who've made sexual identity their raison d'être.

[Broken_Hippo]

Just because you wouldn't see it doesn't mean that they wouldn't be harassed. Harassment happens everywhere, but it is more in conservative areas that cling to outdated, selectively applied religious "morals".

Estrangement and shunning is a type of abuse and has the same sort of effects as actual harassment. They happen at the same time. Do you think this is an OK alternative?

Trans isn't a sexual identity, btw. Might try learning from people better spoken than I am - or even better, from someone actually trans.

[rpmisms]

> Estrangement and shunning is a type of abuse and has the same sort of effects as actual harassment. They happen at the same time. Do you think this is an OK alternative?

Yes. Freedom of association is perfectly acceptable, even if it makes people unhappy.

> Trans isn't a sexual identity, btw.

I'd disagree. It's strongly related to sexuality. I have also had two good friends who were trans, and both killed themselves, one due to depression from realizing they could never be their old self again, the other in a psychotic episode. I'm not anti-trans-people, I'm anti trans-as-the-first-solution for dysphoric disorders. Most people in my area simply don't get good vibes and therefore don't engage.

[rpmisms]

Agreed. Local culture is critical for healthy society.

[caslon]

Luckily, your culture will die eventually through your youths anyway. It won't be this generation. It may not be the next. But there will come a day where everything you value within your own culture is gone. The accents will fade and the values will shift. It's the really beautiful part about the constant and inevitable internationalization of culture. It'll happen to Hawaii, it'll happen to Kentucky.

It may be sped along by transplants, making more money than Kentucky is willing to pay its citizens, rich in comparison after moving to cheaper areas, but, almost insidiously, the vast majority will just come from children deciding to join the rest of the world, in the same way entire languages have died, let alone American subcultures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time_of_e...

You mention your churches, and those are dying too, if you look at trend graphs: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...

A really beautiful part of the process is how little you can actually change it. Regardless of whatever laws you push, regardless of any cultural loathing you have, Californication is inevitable. Your universities have thousands of international students, but if you get rid of them, children will still follow the trends of the rest of the world.

The most you can do is cross your fingers and hope that the inevitable doesn't lead to cultural "natives" being outpriced and left behind.

I'm not from California and I've never lived there; this isn't coming from a position of feeling scorned over not being welcome; I have spent less than a week in total of my life outside of the borders of states bordering Kentucky and Kentucky itself.

In person, it's unlikely you would see me as particularly distinct from your culture. I spent the day stitching wounds in myself and others from an accident that occurred while performing physical labor outdoors. Half of the people I talk to on a daily basis are tied intimately to their respective churches, one of them a pastor. I'm not particularly liberal. I frequently have dinner with neighbors, as conservative as they come.

It's just incredibly funny to see the death rattle of a culture; "stay the hell out" doesn't matter when your descendants a few steps down the line will be indistinguishable from Californians without a single Californian needing to enter your state at all. It's happening to the Indians, who had the same attitude and much more cultural distinction; it's happening to you.

[rpmisms]

This is a pretty tired set of barbs to throw, but if we die out, we'll die out as us, not as some sad imitation of culture that isn't ours.

The part that really makes me sad is your bubbling hatred. Who takes joy in a declining culture?

Either way, it's a pendulum, things change, but I'm not worried. The kids here aren't too bad, especially in the areas without cell service. Some of them leave, many don't, and many are more interested in their roots than their parents. Sorry to burst your bubble.

For context, me and my wife are from here, left upon adulthood because we felt opportunities calling, then realized that life outside our homeland wasn't very nice, so we moved back and got a farm.

My sister-in law did the same thing, and several other friends are in the process of doing exactly the same. It's not like existing here is difficult, but if you were raised in it, it's addictive. I'm unconcerned for my future and the future of my children. To quote a song that was written to make fun of people like us:

They'll come day and they'll come night

They'll have our children in their sights

But if they don't have Faith their eyes are blind

They can scream and they can shout

But they will never smoke us out

Keep your rifle by your side

[HopperSpeaker]

Your world view decries a youthful attitude to the lessons of history. The cycles of history ran before 1950...

The pendulum between attitudes to morales and conservatism does not always go in one, extinction-laden direction. Just look at the continuous rise and fall of conservative Christian views and norms, which has typically risen in times of scarcity and danger, and fallen with abundance. In the cycle of history, like Rome, wealth tends to grow as morales have reduced in their significance for managing society, only for the pendulum to be reset entirely by a populist figure or revolutionary, or through reforms that forcibly redistribute and tax wealth (as in the history of Rome). There is no single human force more powerful than fear meeting order, which is another description for the typical seed of conservatism.

A great example is Christianity in the UK: There were periods of persecution (hence many groups in the US now extinct in the UK), and periods of lax morales, largely driven by the economy and success of the local and world economy. Contrast that with Ireland which has similar religious dynamics except religion remains culturally important to the current older generation, which is about 3-6 generations from the famine caused by the UK there and which reinforced religion.

In chaos and lack of order, people turn to religion(faith that is unprovable). It can be a person, a deity, a system. This can happen in the west again. It happened many times in Rome with their sweeping reforms. The idea that culture in a place like Kentucky, which in its fundamental conservative essence, has much in common with countries spanning centuries, and in practice, implements a type of society with more secure order, ending up dominated by culture from the most progressive aspects of the US would follow a trend, but only in the short term of history in the last 70 years. Events that could easily reset the conservatism clock 30-100 years, according to history, include major wars, civil war, or inequality reaching levels where chaos enters the fray. Read about Tiberius, Crassus, Caesar and Gaius in Rome. Germany became more conservative out of a false fear, described in horrible terms of disease. But whatever the cause and speaker, it illustrates how a society losing order, whether through falling economically behind their peers or with a minority against whom to direct the anger of inequality, often turns to inequality. People in the grip of fear don't see logic. In the 1920s, Germany was amongst the more liberal of countries in many ways, ironically.

You should really read Will Durant - Lessons of History and the chapters on the rise and fall of civilisations, cultural transformations and how inequality almost always leads to significant (and generally conservative) reform to order. Maybe you will disagree with the examples, find those omitted, or you will find you can't comprehend how redistributing wealth often leads to a more conservative society obsessed with norms and order - but history is history. I suggest if you really care about the country and citizens of this country remaining safe, you would like to investigate how civilisations fail and end up slaughtering internally, and aim to avoid that fate for your country.

[caslon]

Actually, my view is extremely influenced by history prior to 1950. You cite Nazi Germany, but Nazi Germany was actually a new occurrence. It wasn't from tradition. Hitler was a modern politician, and fascism a new movement. It lends credence to my point, it doesn't take away. The culture that replaced the Nazis, too, was not representative of the culture prior to the Nazi government.

Languages have died prior to 1950. Internationalization comes for all.

Even the Catholic Ireland you cite is a relatively new concept, part of the internationalization of the region. Christianity has a rich history there, but it's only a relatively recent happening that they cared about Papal supremacy; it wasn't a great deal of generations ago that the Church of Ireland was by far the largest, and prior to that, papal supremacy never got that much of a foothold in the region. Presently? 69% of people in the Republic of Ireland believe in God. It's a plurality, but the trend is still down.

Cultures die; any view other than this is ahistorical. Prior to 1950, much of the dialects of French within North America were dead, or close enough that it didn't matter. Quebec is left, but Quebec is considered an oddity. There are a few dialects that are hanging on by a single speaker, but is that really a living culture? Those will be gone in a generation.

Wales was oppressed similarly to Ireland, and Welsh is on the path to dying, too; reactionary pushback won't save it. Try and save the language all you want; it will die. Scots will die, too, despite the pride stereotypical to the region. It's basically already dead; its Wikipedia was written in a fake pidgin of Scots for years, and it took years for anyone to notice.

The failing of civilizations and internal slaughter is inevitable. I agree with that. There's no avoiding it. I think it's funny when people try to avoid it. They will lose, inevitably. My position is without regard for the quality of culture, without concern for what culture is going into, but rather, with full enthusiasm over seeing things turn over, and the reactionary, exclusionary attitudes that come when cultures are near death.

A subculture that will survive for another century isn't filled with people trying to keep it small, it wins via numerical superiority. There's a reason that Latin is the basis of most language in most continents. Californication, in a century, may be known as a Mandarin Shift, or Hindufication. California isn't eternal, but tiny cultures being subsumed by larger ones is.

Certain conservative cultures will stay around, at least for a while. It's likely they'll get bigger, even. Geographically-insular ones rooted in exclusion rather than proselytizing won't, though.

[HopperSpeaker]

I'm glad we are closer to a shared understanding, but loss of culture isn't what I was adamant against. Just that assuming Kentucky will only move to a California like culture is not sensible. The cycles of history illustrate how fear and chaos typically lead to a desire for order that many would consider right wing, regardless of prior politics.

I agree culture must die over time; any finite container with new input experiences that. But abstract culture doesn't, it cycles. Like the level of social order/norms, freedom and hierarchy in culture.

I'm glad you took up the Germany bit, as I wanted to compare there: What were the two most leftwards countries in the 1920s? The attempt at democracy in Germany, and Russias liberalisation (e.g. the sexual liberalisation well preceding that in the USA with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_of_water_theory)

But today, one country is considered to the left - Germany - and one to the right - Russia?

How can that be if history moves in one direction?

Can it be the present condition or culture of politics has less influence in time than economics and cycles, and trends and ways of human behaviour that have been observed and commented on for thousands of years, like by Will Durant? Why did the Roman empire and Christian nations swing from liberal to conservative views largely with no truly extreme points in long term political mechanisms (relatively speaking) until in both cases their end of dominance, in the Christian case, birth control?

I simply suggest the abstract nature of culture, such as fear, social norms and order as reactions to recent generations experiences are far greater predictors of future political culture than time alone. And one usually sees societies over longer time scale cycle between the strongest norms and conservative attitude, to more liberal ones in times of abundance, and then back in teams of need for order.

You may find that if the population starved, like in history, a strongly social norm based low tolerance society would emerge rapidly. Think about the 90s in Russia or the dole issues. The enforced norms could be left or right wing, but by the lessons of history, they will be enforced absolutely, in a conservative, order-based or dictator-like manner. Freedom and freedom from norms tends to fall away in such times. I think you see part of this wider abstract view, from your last two paragraphs, but viewing history as shifts rather than cycles containing within them eras, is a choice you are making to fit your own vision.