The Deserted Village
Stein, Maurice
This important book* provides detailed information about a form of community that few people still experience at first hand— the rural village. Those of us who live in cities are thus...
...This favorable self conception is juxtaposed by them against an image of the big city as a place where political corruption and impersonality reign supreme...
...Introspection is headed off by the feverishly active life that small towners lead...
...These "friendly neighbors" render judgments of personal worth in terms of impersonal economic success exactly as do their urban counterparts...
...Yet everyone ignores this dependence just as they ignored the diffusion of urban living standards and life styles...
...And this "invisible government" is itself subservient to state and national authorities on all matters of significance...
...Studies of various suburbs suggest that the myth of the "happy" suburb is as dubious as the myth of the small town...
...It is also hoped and ex pected that the program will be rounded out with Lewis Coser discussing aspects of mass society and Seymour Melman, the editor of Inspection for Disarmament, speaking on the armaments race...
...Farmers depend upon urban markets and sources of supply as much as local businessmen and professionals...
...EVEN THIS would probably not be enough to inhibit awareness of the "obvious" social realities were it not reinforced by a round of life which leaves little opportunity for reflection...
...Only the disreputable "shack people," the lumpens of the countryside, escape this constant pressure towards organized activity and they do so only by taking the extreme step of abandoning the local versions of the American Deam—they accept "failure...
...It gives their lives meaning and dignity of a sort even though the price paid is a steep one...
...For most people living in Springdale, facing reality would threaten the basis of their self-esteem...
...If the myth of the small town were to hold true anywhere in America, Springdale, with its tiny population, its independent farmers and its relative isolation from large cities, would seem a likely choice...
...Once the validity of these contrasting images is granted, then the choice of Springdale as a place to live is not only sensible but downright inevitable...
...Their personal identities are found upon a commitment to an idealized small town way of life...
...This disparity between ideology and reality which strikes the outside observer so powerfully is systematically ignored by the people involved...
...On the level of conscious opinion, most of the townspeople consider Springdale an ideal small town...
...Important local decisions are made by a political machine consisting of four top leaders who work behind the scenes to control the affairs of the town...
...Small Town in Mass Society, by Arthur Vidich and Joseph Bensman, PrincetonUniversity Press, 1958...
...Their finding that small town life is completely dominated by influences from metropolitan centers might have been anticipated, but the circumstances surrounding this "rural surrender" deserve careful attention...
...ization"—a concept used by Vidich and Bensman to characterize the ways in which Springdalers perceive social processes and events...
...It is this commitment which justifies their choice of Springdale as a place to live in...
...This important book* provides detailed information about a form of community that few people still experience at first hand— the rural village...
...SPRINGDALE is organized so that responsibility for managing the political surrender to mass society lies in the hands of the top leaders who hold no formal public offices...
...Please write in advance to Bob Bone, 267 Willow Street, New Haven, Connecticut...
...Springdale, the town studied by Vidich and Bensman, is as close to an authentic farm village as one is likely to find in present-day America...
...They talk about its "neighborliness' and are especially proud of the "rugged independence" and "grass roots democracy" which they feel to be characteristic of local political life...
...6.00...
...It involves habitually segregating perceptions of particular events and processes so that generalizations about them cannot be drawn...
...Everybody is expected to work hard at his job, his family life, his leisure, his church membership and his political responsibilities...
...Dissent Student Conference On May 2-3 the George Orwell Forum of Yale University will sponsor a confer ence of New England students interested in the views of DISSENT...
...Such recognition is prevented by the habit of "particular...
...By scrutinizing the sources and effects of false consciousness in rural American life, Vidich and Bensman not only call into question one of the most cherished popular illusions about American society, they also help to preserve, with great skill and sophistication, the tradition of radical criticism...
...Students from the entire New England area (or adjacent colleges) are invited...
...Housing: limited housing available for Saturday night...
...Indeed, the people of "Springdale" depend far more heavily on these prefabricated images for their conception of their own community than they do on the evidence provided by their everyday experience...
...But when our two sociological observers disregarded what people told them the town was like and concentrated on what they saw in front of their eyes, an entirely different picture unfolded...
...Those of us who live in cities are thus given an opportunity to check our conceptions of rural life against the report of two skilled observers who lived in an upstate New York village for several years...
...In Springdale, report Bensman and Vidich, anyone who shows signs of thinking too deeply about himself or his community is quickly labeled "abnormal" (in Russia they call it "cosmopolitan") and efforts are made to bring him back into line with the normal state of mindlessness...
...The handful of local citizens who dare question the small town myth in public, expose themselves to heavy penalties...
...Springdalers are able to accept any number of specific facts attesting to the existence of the political machine, class differentials or the towns dependence on mass society, yet they refuse to recognize that this evidence fSI can lead to any important conclusions...
...Idealized conceptions are never exposed to realistic tests because the capacity for generalized thought upon which such confrontation depends has been sacrificed to the need for preserving the image of rural independence...
...It lies in the fact that a search for critical insight into the relations between social myths and social realities is an integral part of the radical tradition...
...It always is easier and more fun to poke holes in our neighbor's mythology—but what about our own...
...Yet we at least have one advantage...
...The list of speak ers is not yet definite, as we go to press, but the Orwell Forum announces that Michael Walzer, a DISSENT editor, has agreed to speak on "The Campus Scene" and B. J. Widick, a UAW Shop Steward and co-author of The UAW and Walter Reuther, will speak on "Labor and the Intellectuals...
...Beneath the claims of "neighborliness" and "equality," they found a set of clearly differentiated socio-economic classes having different life styles and life chances...
...The existence of this "invisible government" and the impotence of the formal political structure could constitute a threat to personal and social stability if the local citizenry were ever to realize that these make a mockery of their assumptions about "grass roots democracy...
...As Bensman and Vidich report in impressive detail, small town residents seem quite unaware of their dependence on cities...
...These farms are for the most part independent holdings, since the growth of large scale farms, which Carey McWilliams once aptly called "factories in the field," has not taken place in this part of upstate New York...
...they are forced to relinquish their capacity for "realistic" social thought...
...Saturday night party...
...The total population of the township is 3,000, of whom 1,000 or so live in a village and the remainder on outlying farms...
...Sunday, hike and cookout...
...If attention were called to these facts, the people concerned would deny their significance and vigorously reaffirm the idealized image of the "independent small town...
...Registration fee: $3...
...This book leaves the reader with a disquieting suspicion that he too may be clinging to illusions about his own community...
...And our own myths —the myths of the socialist community —have received their share of critical attention from friend and foe alike...
...The cultural life of the community is dominated by patterns imported from the city and few traces of an indigenous "small town" culture are to be found...
...The economic surrender is arranged individually by the members of the various occupational groups as they go about their daily affairs...
...Their images of small town life, like those held by city people, are akin to and drawn from nostalgic movies and Norman Rockwell magazine covers...
...The much vaunted "grass roots democracy" proves to consist of endless political ceremonies conducted by elected officials who have no real power...
Vol. 6 • April 1959 • No. 2
