Sophistication,honesty, or a bit of both?

SmokeAndMirrors said:

I really think you need both for "best results." Being worldly helps you apply that good heart in more situations. If you're motivated by a good heart, it can help you understand and have empathy for people and situations that you don't necessarily relate to.

Lacking either one can result in problems. A good heart that lacks understanding can still wind up doing some awful things -- bigotry of various stripes comes to mind. But of course, an educated person with bad motivation is quite dangerous.

Click to expand...

Can't agree more with this. I do think that a truly good heart is the most important, but it does help to have as much knowledge and experience as one can attain.

Rocketman said:

I like it personally, we have a great place to raise kids, no knockout crime, no gangs, 1-3 murders/year- 3 being high. I can be in 7 metro areas in 1.5-5 hours depending on the place and our cost of living is much lower.

Click to expand...

I think it's all about how we're wired. I am naturally a mover, I get cabin fever easily and I am an insomniac. With me there is always such a thing as "too quiet" for my own comfort. My city is pretty safe for it's size and has lots of good people, as a rule I don't like the idea of ever being in a major city, like +500K but don't do well with under 100K myself. Still, it's always great for me to get into the country every once in a while and connect with some of those folks, great people.

LaMidRighter said:

I think it's all about how we're wired. I am naturally a mover, I get cabin fever easily and I am an insomniac. With me there is always such a thing as "too quiet" for my own comfort. My city is pretty safe for it's size and has lots of good people, as a rule I don't like the idea of ever being in a major city, like +500K but don't do well with under 100K myself. Still, it's always great for me to get into the country every once in a while and connect with some of those folks, great people.

Click to expand...

I stayed out 200 nights in 2013 and I expect more of the same this year so I will get plenty of travel time, that is probably why I like the peace and quiet when at home

LaMidRighter said:

Okay so I am curious, there has been for years a slight against people who are rural in nature and aren't necessarily the best educated or most traveled people. So here is the question, is it better to be worldly but dishonest or unsophisticated but good at heart? The reason I ask is that I've been thinking of a really rural parish in which my folks owned a camp for years prior to hurricane Rita, some of my favorite type of people lived along the route but they were not scholarly types, just people living their lives and being the best people they could be..............salt of the Earth types in my opinion and worth thousands of "scholarly peers".

Click to expand...

It depends on what you mean by 'unsophisticated' and 'worldly'. If you mean 'stupid' and 'smart', respectively - that is one thing.
If what you mean is nothing to do with intelligence, but all to do with way of life and education/experience - that is another.

Assuming you meant the latter, I would say it is far more important to be good then 'worldly'. Anyone with brains and desire can learn almost anything that they wish and have access to. But you cannot teach honor and decency...you either have them or you don't (though there are rare exceptions).

Besides, with the internet, no one is out-of-touch if they don't want to be...even if they live in the middle of nowhere.

Besides, massive education is overrated. Look at the Fed? Chalk full of some of the most educated people in business today...and yet a quick look at the 2007 minutes from their meetings and it is clear these people had barely a clue that the economy was collapsing around them.
Education does not necessarily equal wisdom/common sense. Being knowledgeable and being wise are not always the same thing.

joG said:

I know, what you mean and thought about it. I meant the use of sophisticated economic models to decide on policy, to take an example, instead of saying "this is the good thing to do".

Click to expand...

Well, frankly, I don't think I've ever heard someone say "this is the good thing to do", when making a decision that was significant in their lives.

LaMidRighter said:

Okay so I am curious, there has been for years a slight against people who are rural in nature and aren't necessarily the best educated or most traveled people. So here is the question, is it better to be worldly but dishonest or unsophisticated but good at heart? The reason I ask is that I've been thinking of a really rural parish in which my folks owned a camp for years prior to hurricane Rita, some of my favorite type of people lived along the route but they were not scholarly types, just people living their lives and being the best people they could be..............salt of the Earth types in my opinion and worth thousands of "scholarly peers".

Click to expand...

Why can't someone be worldly and good at heart? Or rural and dishonest? It makes no sense that those things are mutually exclusive.

Starbuck said:

It's very true, I've seen this theory apply across a wide spectrum of groups too. Everything from military branch to geographic residence. I've read a lot by both Rousseau and Voltaire and think that these constructed social divides are almost something inherently built into the set of human instincts. I think someone in this thread's already pointed out that they are part of our factory-installed survival equipment, which I tend to agree with. As omnivores, humans are pattern searching creatures, a trait that fits right into stereotyping and what we are talking about here.

Unfortunately, I think 99% our current stereotypes are illogical and don't actually serve to assist in the survival of anyone anymore. It's one of those components of the human species that's essentially lost its usefulness. . . like the vestigial organs we carry around.

Click to expand...

Its that dilemma of knowing when to separate the wheat from the chaff. Ideological validity is more easily dispensed with than the aggression that gave it its contextual resonance, and its an unfortunate rarity to run across that level of patience. Inertia leaves us with overlap where there shouldn't be any.

Good post.

I think sophistication's too ambiguous a term for meaningful definitions. Culture alone defies anything more than the roughest template. It may be the case that behaviour misinterpreted as lacking sophistication was something approaching a conscious choice. Guaranteed, an Eastern perspective would jar with our own.

Your Star said:

Why can't someone be worldly and good at heart? Or rural and dishonest? It makes no sense that those things are mutually exclusive.

Click to expand...

People can be both, my question was simply if you had an either/or which one would you favor.

NoC_T said:

Its that dilemma of knowing when to separate the wheat from the chaff. Ideological validity is more easily dispensed with than the aggression that gave it its contextual resonance, and its an unfortunate rarity to run across that level of patience. Inertia leaves us with overlap where there shouldn't be any.

Good post.

Click to expand...

Bingo and ditto. . . good post.

lizzie said:

Well, frankly, I don't think I've ever heard someone say "this is the good thing to do", when making a decision that was significant in their lives.

Click to expand...

Oh. In politics it happens all the time. One half of the discussion of minimum wages is built on that principle. Or take the social security system or child pornography. All examples of this phenominon.

joG said:

Oh. In politics it happens all the time. One half of the discussion of minimum wages is built on that principle. Or take the social security system or child pornography. All examples of this phenominon.

Click to expand...

But we weren't talking about politics. We were discussing regional differences, and perceptions based on how one speaks, or whether one lives in primarily an urban or rural setting. These would be personal decisions which effect our personal lives.

lizzie said:

But we weren't talking about politics. We were discussing regional differences, and perceptions based on how one speaks, or whether one lives in primarily an urban or rural setting. These would be personal decisions which effect our personal lives.

Click to expand...

Was that your take on it? And you think that individuals are immune to the effects of unsophisticated decisions, while groups are not?