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March 28, 2006
San Francisco
Lest someone think I have some unkind grudge against SF, let me cut off all speculation right now. My objection is to its oft-muttered self-characterization as America's "most tolerant" or "Most progressive" city. It simply is not. Like every community in America, it attracts a certain type of person, with a certain viewpoint, and effectively becomes an echo chamber. Whatever public discourse does occur is within the narrow band that avoids putting a ding in any of the community's cherished assumptions about the way the world should be. If your lifetstyle, worldview, outlook, etc. is consistent with that community consensus, you are all set. If not...
What does this mean? It means that SF is basically no different, and no more evolved, in any profound or meaningful sense than any other community in America. Many of its citizens and admirers from afar have convinced themselves otherwise, but in all of the most important respects the place is terribly...ordinary.
That said, one edge SF definitely has on my little corner of the South is that the local universities there offer courses like this one. Why can't UNC or Duke do this???
Posted by dag at March 28, 2006 5:49 PM
Comments
I agree, especially after living there for over a year. To be honest, though, I don't think that the problem is with the city per se (there are actually a fair number of conservatives in the area), but with liberals in general. They make some valid points, but it's completely lost on me because I can't stand the way they approach things. The constant condescension and the assumption that they are somehow more enlightened than the rest of us. Conservatives can be just as bone-headed, but at least they don't assume I'm in need of their "advice."
Posted by: The Good Rabbi at March 28, 2006 8:40 PM