The Theory of Societal Migration and Natural Selection

America is a very diverse culture, unfortunately separated by mental boundries set forth by religion, race, sexual orientation, politics, and education in over 270 million different people. However, if one were to look at a map of the country, interestingly, one could see these boundries. The differences in the paradigm of reality of the citizens of the west coast vs. the midwest are vast, the same can be said about the north vs. the south or the big cities vs. the small towns. If people are all born equal, with blank slates for opinions, regardless if they are born in New York City or Atlanta, why do these physical boundries exist? Why does the south tend to be racist, the west coast tend to be liberal, the midwest tend to be religious, and the big cities tend to be less than friendly?

To understand this, I think first we need to understand the concept of Darwinism, or natural selection. For instance, the pepper moth findings, found that as the skies grew smoky and dark from pollution of factories, the white moths started to die off, while the pepper moths population was unaffected. This was because the pepper moths blended into the darkened sky while the white moths became a more visible target for hungry birds. This is called "natural selection." Those that cannot adapt die off, those that can, survive.

Now there could've been a second solution, that the white moths left the area and populated an ecosystem with less pollution, thus ensuring their survival. This is called migration.

How does this deal with our society? In a melting pot of a nation such as America, migration happens all the time. There are certain places people go to get ahead in their lives. Big cities tend to be drawing places for educated people, because that is where the good jobs are, and where the money is. New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, etc. No one goes to Montana to try to make it, (except Kristine Williams). People who are not educated enough to get a higher paying job tend to be the ones who stay in Kansas, or Utah. Now, there's nothing wrong with these people, I don't mean to covey that they are lesser citizens, but no one gets a double masters degree computer science and quantum physics and ends up working as a waitress in small town Ohio. People who are more motivated, more driven, tend to leave the small towns and migrate to a place that more suits their needs. People who are less motivated, less driven, stay.

Now I will say at this point that this idea is a broad generalization, but that's all it really needs to be, as it is a theory about generalization.

Now I've read various studies that state that the more educated (not necessarily the smarter, but more educated) a person is, the more left they tend to lean. Restated, the more school a person has gone through, the more liberal they tend to be. That's why college towns are usually filled with kids who are into protesting President Bush, saving the whales, and generally hugging trees. Conservatives could argue that it's because they are young and stupid, but the younger people in more small town, cut off areas generally tend to lean right. They are the ones for war, for tax breaks for the rich, and who generally listen to Rush Limbaugh. College kids are usually more intellegent and informed than your average "Street Smarts" contestant, who thinks Baghdad is in Austrailia. The educated tend to be smarter than the uneducated as well, I think this is a pretty acceptable truth.

Smarter people tend to weigh the facts, as opposed to accepting any "truth" thrown their way. This means that smarter people realize that someone being gay really has no affect on them, and they should live and let live. The less educated people, who have always lived in their small Oklahoma town have never met a gay person, and therefore tend to have their opinions shaped by others. The smarter people realize that the only difference between blacks and whites is color, and no big deal is made over a difference of eye color, or hair color, why should skin color be any different? The less educated small town folks in Alabama are racist beacuse their parents were racist, and their grandparents were racist, and they are unable to create thoughts of their own. They live in a town full of racism, and generally accept that's just the way it is, because they've never been in a town full of educated, non-ignorant people, just like I generally accept humans have two arms, because I've never seen one that has four.

The educated and intellegent have open minds, because they have to in order to accept the information that has made them educated and intellegent. The uneducated can continue to have closed minds and believe what they believe is the ultimate truth, because they are never challenged to believe otherwise. They believe gay people are bad, black people are bad, George Bush is the only person who can save us from terrorism, and that God is in heaven and hates everyone that is different than they are. These people cling to their opinions and let them define them as an individual, floating in a sea of people exactly like them. They tend to not think for themselves because if they did, their ideas would be challenged by their own common sense. So instead they believe what their preacher, or their neighbor, or their father, or their favorite radio personality tells them to. Their ideas cannot change because they will have to redefine their whole paradigm of life. If suddenly Rush Limbaugh says "gay people are okay," they will believe gay people are okay although they never did before, but if Rush says, "drug users are bad," and then is convicted of using drugs, the contradiction doesn't register with them, because they would rather just pretend it never happened than have to change their opinions that Rush gave them. These people who fear change, are typically the definition of Conservativism.

Liberals tend to be the people who weigh the evidence and form their own ideas. They are the ambitious ones who move out of what they feel to be a hostile environment like Georgia, and go live with people that tend to be more open minded. People who believe what they believe because they came up with it on their own. People who realize that because one guy who stole your wallet was black, that not all black people are criminals. Or that because the people who crashed planes on Sept 11 were muslim, doesn't mean all muslims are terrorists. Timothy McVeigh was a white guy, but no one thinks all white guys are terrorists. Ignorance about other cultures, other races, other sexual orientations, other religions is what tends to cause those boundries, and the more educated you are, the less ignorant you are. The more educated you are the more intellegent you are, the more intellegent you are, the more likely you are to get out of small town America and use your intellegence. I mean lets face it, the Beverly Hillbillies was funny because the Clampetts would have NEVER moved to Beverly Hills in real life. Does everyone remember John Rocker? He was the Altanta (south) Braves player who said in a Sports Illustrated interview that he would never play for a New York team because he didn't "want to ride a train next to some queer with AIDS." Rocker also bashed immigrants saying "I'm not a very big fan of foreigners. How the hell did they get in this country?" While driving in Atlanta during the interview, Rocker spit on a toll machine and mocked Asian women. He's ignorant. Why? Beacuse he's lived in the south his whole life where no one challeges him to change his racist and homophobic opinions.

The point of this whole thing is this.

This is a map of the electoral prediction for October 27, 2004. Notice that this map shows Bush winning the election, but not by much at all. If one state like Florida or Virginia were to switch sides, Kerry would win. Notice however, how much of the map is red versus how much is blue. With that much of a difference in land space, how can it be that this is even close?

The ten most populated cities (including suburbs) in the United States are in this order:

1.) New York, NY.

2.) Los Angeles, CA

3.) Chicago, IL

4.) Washigton DC

5.) San Fransisco, CA

6.) Philadelphia, PA

7.) Boston, MA

8.) Detroit, MI

9.) Dallas, TX

10.) Houston, TX

Notice what color the top eight are. The last two are in Texas, which is obviously pro Bush, because he's from Texas, but check out Washington DC. You can't see it on the map, but DC is 78% Kerry, 11% Bush. That's gotta be saying something.

I guess the thing I'm trying to say is that if you're smart, you move out of Nebraska, and you experience life instead of being afraid of it.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Leave a comment. I have to go get some work done.

jgp