Where am I?

Currently en route to Burlington, VT for a weekend of stand-up shows at the Burlington Comedy Club. If you’ve never been to Burlington, it’s exactly what you might imagine: a quaint, small New England city whose streets are paved with hacky sacks. I always enjoy it. I like it for the same reason I like Savannah and Santa Fe: it feels authentic. Go into any of those cities and you know, in an instant, where you are.

For all of the culture war bemoaning our nation’s increasing diversity, in my travels I find a depressing homogeneity. One city or suburb looks very much like another, which looks like another still. American capitalism has done an amazing job of erasing so much of our regional identities; one of the things that made the United States such a compelling experiment in its early days was the fact that disparate regions produced disparate cultures, all of them agreeing to set aside their differences to create a nation.

Where is this? Who knows. But check out the phallic cul-de-sacs!

Consider the difference between the US and Europe, where a two-hour train ride in any direction will likely land you in a different country with a different language, a different government, different laws, a different perspective on history. Get on a train in Pennsylvania and two hours later, chances are you’re still in Pennsylvania. There’s nothing with Pennsylvania, of course, unless you’ve been there. (That’s a joke) When the EU formed, people worried that it would mean a loss of their national cultures. I’m no expert on European culture, but having spent three months in Italy last year, I can state with confidence that there was no mistaking my location, certainly not when we tried to hire a plumber and were told “maybe next Wednesday.”

The US used to be a lot more like that. I remember reading accounts of the American Revolution; when Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys came down from the state to which I am traveling – Vermont - to join the fray, they were viewed as utter savages. Probably no different than the way a horde of Vikings would have appeared to the French. Even when I was growing up, the regions felt far more distinct than they do today. Mom and pop shops were still the rule, regional accents were more pronounced, local news dominated dinner table conversations rather than daily national outrages. We were, of course, Americans before we were New Jerseyans, but only because New Jersey is such an embarrassing place from which to hail.

Now, though, so many towns feel identical to every other. Drive across the country and you’ll pass the same crummy sprawls of gas stations and fast food joints. Get off the exit, drive a few miles, and you’ll see the same subdivisions built by the same national building companies. The internet has made the world smaller by giving everybody access to the same information and entertainment, but it’s also stripped something away – I mean, in addition to our minds.

I’ve never been one who subscribes to the idea that ignorance is bliss but, looking back on it, there was something kind of nice about not knowing what’s going on everywhere. A local issue now gets blown up into national, and sometimes international, news. During a school trip to Washington DC, a kid gets into a stare-down with a Native American and suddenly we’re having yet another culture war moment about tribal rights, racism, entitlement, etc. etc. etc. Events that would have taken place utterly out of sight to those of us not in the immediate vicinity now foment into resentments and ammunition for local school board meetings and arguments in grocery store parking lots.

It's deliberate, of course, although I don’t necessarily see it as malicious. Everybody already understands how the media revolution brought about first by the popularity of cable television, followed by the ubiquity of the internet, has driven a profit model based on outrage about things that have nothing to do with us. I’m as guilty – maybe more guilty – of falling into this trap as anybody. So many of my day-to-day thoughts are dominated by things that have nothing to do with me. What do I care what Joe Rogan said on his special? Why am I getting bent out of shape over what’s happening at the Southern border? Why do I have an opinion on whether the US should send F-16s to Ukraine? Meanwhile, I’m ignoring the fact that my own roof is leaking.

The decentralization of information feels tied to the decentralization of American culture, as well. When girls pose on Instagram in their new Brandy Melville outfits, Brandy Melville begins popping up in every mall and upscale Main Street in America. There’s nothing inherently bad about a common national culture, and I don’t mean to suggest that regional differences don’t still exist. Having moved from Connecticut to Georgia, I can assure you they very much do, but less so than I expected. I remember my disappointment when I got into a taxi the first time we came to Savannah and asked our taxi driver, a big ol’ white boy in bib overalls, for  a restaurant recommendation. His response: “Y’all like Thai food?”

What?!?

I expected him to say, “Y’all like frogs ‘n waffles?” How am I supposed to luxuriate in my stereotypes if you refuse to play along, sir? I know I sound like a crank. After all, who could complain about good Thai food in the deep South? And don’t misunderstand: I love all the information at my fingertips and wouldn’t return to a time where, if you wanted information about, say, covalent bonds, you had to look it up in a hardbound encyclopedia. (NOTE: there is never an occasion when I need information about covalent bonds) But I also miss distinct local flavor, local food, local architecture, and the idea of somebody being a “local” in the sense of being rooted so deeply somewhere that it would be hard to distinguish that person from the place in which they live, the same way a pilot sometimes cannot tell the difference between earth and sky.

Burlington still feels like Burlington. Savannah, for all of its growth, still feels like Savannah. And I still feel like an interloper tiptoeing through all of it, taking notes and looking for a peg on which to hang my hat, at least for the weekend. This diverse nation could use a little more diversity, in my opinion, a return to the local and the authentic and the unique. Without that, the shining city on a hill becomes a strip mall next to a Pizza Hut.