Patrick Overton, Ph.D. Director, Columbia College Center for Community &
Cultural Studies
This presentation is about a culture that state and federal funding
agencies don't support because they don't understand it and it clearly
doesn't fit the traditional "criteria of excellence" used by these agencies
to fund programs. People who visit this culture sense it but don't really
get a chance to experience it, unless it is marketed as a product under
the name of "traditional art" and taken out of its context.
Even those of you who live in it and whose lives are shaped by it don't
always see it. Perhaps it is too much with you. Perhaps it is not understood
by you, either. Some people in rural communities do see it and are embarrassed
by it or feel it is inferior to the culture others have, and do their
best to hide it. The fact is, no one has really made a fuss about it before;
it was just there. It was part of the day-to-day lives of its people.
It was taken for granted. It didn't have a name because it didn't need
one.
Unfortunately, it seems that this culture is not only becoming increasingly
invisible, it has begun to disappear. I believe this invisible culture
of rural and small communities is at risk and engaged in a struggle for
its very existence. It is a struggle facing almost every rural and small
community in the United States.
There are numerous contributing factors to the existence of this invisible
culture. First of all, many rural and small communities came into existence
in geographically isolated areas. In fact, geography defined their existence—that
is why they were created. The people who lived in these communities relied
on themselves for education, entertainment, and enjoyment. They spent
time together. Everyone knew each other's name. Neighbors were considered
extended family, and shared in the rites, rituals, and responsibilities
of raising children. The communities had their own traditions and history
and story but they didn't have names for all of this. The terms culture,
values, and art didn't have names because they were considered part of
the everyday lives of the people in these communities. Their culture was
woven into their lives as effortlessly and tirelessly as the quilts stitched
by their mothers and grandmothers that kept them warm in the deepest cold
of the most bitter winter. They didn't need to have a name for it. The
fact it was there was enough.
County Galway Community Arts Network.
The intent of this description is
not to paint an idyllic existence of pastoral beauty and perfection. Anyone
who believes this simply doesn't understand the nature and reality of living
in rural and small community America. I have lived in a small community
of 6,500 for over ten years of my life. I know what it is like. It has always
been a hard existence. It has always demanded a strong survival instinct.
But it has also always had the best of the two driving American pioneer
values, rugged individualism and a strong sense of community. These communities
provided a balance between these two extremes. They created what I call
circles of convergence that enabled these apparently contradictory values
not only to co-exist but to thrive. The determination and will of the individual
was paramount to survival in these geographically isolated areas. But, this
individualism was put into the context of the larger community setting,
which many times defined their lives. It was the best of both worlds.
But, when the world
changed, this changed too. These communities, though still geographically
isolated, were suddenly invaded by another world, the world outside the
invisible boundaries of their invisible culture. The advancement of technologies
and communication media has not only brought everything close to them but
forced it into their day-to-day lives and the lives of their children. This
world and its culture was not the same as the one in which they were raised.
And, increasingly, there has been no place to escape this intrusion. This
invasion of the outside world and its different values has been quiet, slow,
but it has been consistent. It has been called progress and touted as that
which brings people together.
County Galway Community Arts Network
Unfortunately, its impact in rural
and small communities has been a quiet, slow, and consistent erosion of
almost everything they value, understand, live and work for, and want to
pass on to their children. Because of this, the invisible culture of many
of these communities is disappearing. People are losing touch with their
"grassroots" and find themselves in the middle of a world that is both confusing
and uncomfortable. They find themselves untethered and afraid. It is what
I call an "erosion" of cultural values. As it occurs, people gradually lose
their ability to control, conserve, celebrate, and transmit the values they
inherited as a community. They no longer feel able to serve as stewards
of what they received from their parents. They no longer feel they are stewards
of the land because they have had control of the land taken away. They no
longer feel they are the keepers of the stories because there are other
voices telling other stories. The corner grocery story and local cafe coffee
klatch are replaced by quick stops and fast food franchises. The dock speeds
up, we move faster, and indeed, the world beyond the boundaries of our invisible
culture is "too much with us." We forget what makes us special, we no longer
remember why we live where we live. And there are those outside the physical
boundaries of our communities who have begun a second "rural migration,"
moving to what they consider to be more sane and acceptable places, bringing
with them their other world and other worldly expectations.
But it is more than this "rural
migration" that is causing problems for those of us living in these communities.
The external culture and all of its values, many of which are contradictory
to those values that have been the foundation of rural and small community
life for over three hundred years, are finding their way into our towns,
our schools, our families, and our personal lives. We can't escape it. It
is projected into our living rooms through the television, channeled into
the ears of our "Walkman" teenagers, and put on the big screen in front
of us. It is there and we can't escape it a world "way too much with us."
The fact is, things just aren't the same any more and I am not sure there
is anything we can do about it. Life in rural and small communities in the
United States has changed and it is likely it will never be the same again.
County Galway Community Arts Network.
One thing we do know is that our
children are learning more about values from television, film, and music
than they do from their family and neighbors. And these values are in conflict
with the community values we have relied upon for so long. Drive-by shootings,
car-jackings, gang violence, drug dealers, alcoholism in teen-agers, sexually
transmitted diseases these aren't descriptions of those horrible things
happening other places they are descriptions of where we live now it is
a description of our community and while we don't want to admit it, I doubt
there is a person in this room who doesn't know it is either true now or
will soon be so. We are all caught in the middle of a massive "values collision"
that threatens the very existence of our families, our communities, and,
if we are not careful, our nation. The fabric is stretched and the edges
are frayed. The threads are unraveling. The world as we know it has changed
and there is nothing we can do to stop it. We are consumed by the fear of
fear and we don't know what to do about it.
