The Triumph of the Country Mouse By Victor Davis Hanson

[mystery-ak]

nationalreview.com
The Triumph of the Country Mouse | National Review
About Victor Davis Hanson

Cities lose their charms when they’re engulfed in chaos, crime, and mobs — and run by virtue-signaling appeasers.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n Aesop’s Fables and Horace’s Satires a common classical allegory is variously retold about the country mouse and his sophisticated urban cousin.

The city-slicker mouse first visits his rustic cousin’s simple rural hole and is quickly bored and unimpressed by both the calm and the simple fare.

When the roles are soon reversed, the country cousin at first is delighted by big-city mouse’s sumptuous urban food scraps and the majestic halls where they may scuttle about. But as the crafty clawed house cat and sharp-toothed guard dogs threaten both, and the noise and bustle mount, the stressed-out country mouse scampers home — at last realizing that his unappreciated quiet and safe abode trump action and sophistication every time.

These Greek and Roman fables reflect the classical world’s paradox of not particularly enjoying life in the fetid, plague-ridden, and dangerous big cities of Athens, Rome, and Alexandria that nevertheless gave the world Socrates, Virgil, and magnificent libraries. As towns grew into metropolises, their sheen as heady places for art, literature, and cultural change began to fade. In response, the once commonplace farm and distant town were increasingly romanticized, especially in such genres as pastoralism and bucolic poetry. The escape to the country estate was the ideal of the Roman senator, the same way that the “ranch” sometimes becomes the getaway from the Washington swamp for American presidents.

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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/protests-urban-chaos-americans-will-seek-to-avoid-big-cities/

[Cyber Liberty]

When the roles are soon reversed, the country cousin at first is delighted by big-city mouse’s sumptuous urban food scraps and the majestic halls where they may scuttle about. But as the crafty clawed house cat and sharp-toothed guard dogs threaten both, and the noise and bustle mount, the stressed-out country mouse scampers home — at last realizing that his unappreciated quiet and safe abode trump action and sophistication every time.

Ya know what's missing from the Parable?  The city mouse didn't learn a damned thing, and accepts the cat's claws and dogs' teeth.

[catfish1957]

Ya know what's missing from the Parable?  The city mouse didn't learn a damned thing, and accepts the cat's claws and dogs' teeth.

The Ant and the Grasshopper is another fable lost on today's society.  And much of that thinking runs along lines of urban vs. rural.

[Bigun]

“The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442

“I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.”

Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

“Our cities... exhibit specimens of London only; our country is a different nation.”

 Thomas Jefferson to Andre de Daschkoff, 1809. ME 12:304

“Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401

[truth_seeker]

The Ant and the Grasshopper is another fable lost on today's society.  And much of that thinking runs along lines of urban vs. rural.

During my lifetime, the population has been doing two things;

--Moving South, and moving West

--Moving to suburbs (from both cities and the country)

So winning elections can depend on persuading voters in the suburbs, to mainly uphold rural values

[Cyber Liberty]

During my lifetime, the population has been doing two things;

--Moving South, and moving West

--Moving to suburbs (from both cities and the country)

So winning elections can depend on persuading voters in the suburbs, to mainly uphold rural values

Then we're in for a world of Schitt.

[roamer_1]

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[Smokin Joe]

Problem is all those city mice running to the country will think they should live like city mice all over again, and not do anything but build up another batch of ruins to leave in their wake. They remain what they are, there's few redeemable, and there's a lot of them.

[roamer_1]

Problem is all those city mice running to the country will think they should live like city mice all over again, and not do anything but build up another batch of ruins to leave in their wake. They remain what they are, there's few redeemable, and there's a lot of them.

Yep. the damn thing's going to seed.

[truth_seeker]

In history cities grew up

--along game movement trails

--along waterways

Since WWII people moved from cities, to suburbs to leave behind problems like congestion, crime, etc.

So-called "White-flght."

[Smokin Joe]

In history cities grew up

--along game movement trails

--along waterways

Since WWII people moved from cities, to suburbs to leave behind problems like congestion, crime, etc.

So-called "White-flght."

They moved to waterways that once were used for commerce, stripped the landscape of that past with development, protected the view with new laws, and now occupy what could have been commercial spots on waterways you can't harvest shellfish from any more, full of invasive species that have wrecked the commercial fishing. How about some "white Fight, instead of flight."