Saturday, April 5, 2008
small town conflict
The movie we watched this week in class really struck a chord. It reminded me of the small community where my grandparents live in northern Wisconsin. It is a close-nit tourist community, where everyone knows everyone. Even the littlest issues seem to grow and take on a lives on their own and cause a great deal of controversy. People take sides, and make decisions based on emotion more than logic which leads to bitter feuds between members of the community. There is something about small isolated communities that cause these blow ups. Some people choose to make little, resolvable issues into large, complex, "personal" issues which lead to harassment and other forms of violence. It is too bad that these communities have this type of social structure, because these places are typically beautiful and peaceful. Can anyone think why this might be? Why do little, resolvable issues, get blown out of proportion in these communities? Or do these example signify and represent the basic structure of our country?
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I think the reason the small, resolvable issues get blown out of proportion specifically because of the atmosphere. If everyone knows everyone, then the person who has an issue is going to tell their friend. Well, the friend is going to tell another friend and so on. Pretty soon you've got half the town on one side and half on the other side. I've seen it happen before, also coming from a small town. And I think you're partially right about the example signifying part of the basic structure of our country. Little problems become personal, and personal problems get found out and thereby telecast.
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