Before I jump into what Westover says in the interview, let me link to my thoughts about Educated here on Legal Ruralism. I also used Westover's memoir to make a point here about how varied Idaho is--for many purposes, not least affirmative action at Harvard.
Truth be told, Educated moved me profoundly. I grew up in a remote and mountainous area of Arkansas, with a mentally ill father and an abusive brother, so I felt I had a lot in common with Westover. Also like Westover, access to higher education transformed my life.
Westover's is the rare book that moved not only my mother and my sister (who, like me, grew up working class in rural Arkansas), but also my poshly-raised and poshly-educated husband. That said, I noted that it moved each of us for somewhat different reasons, in somewhat different ways.
In any event, I'm surprised I never wrote about the book in my Literary Ruralism series. Put that on the "to do" list.
For now, though, I'll just excerpt some short passages from the conversation between Goldberg and Westover, with a focus on politics, the rural-urban divide, and a failure of empathy:
Goldberg: Do people in Idaho and people in New York City have more in common than they think? Or are we really becoming two countries?
Westover: We have a shared history and shared interests as Americans, that’s true, but it’s also true that Democrats and Republicans increasingly live and work in different places. We have different experiences. As a general rule, I think we focus far too much on Donald Trump. We act like he’s the problem, but he’s not. He’s just a symptom—a sign of poor political hygiene.
Goldberg: Poor political hygiene?
Westover: Social media has flooded our consciousness with caricatures of each other. Human beings are reduced to data, and data nearly always underrepresent reality. The result is this great flattening of human life and human complexity. We think that because we know someone is pro-choice or pro-life, or that they drive a truck or a Prius, we know everything we need to know about them. Human detail gets lost in the algorithm. Thus humanity gives way to ideology.
Goldberg: So good political hygiene includes a respect for human complexity?
Westover: Our political system requires us to have a basic level of respect for each other, of empathy for each other. That loss of empathy is what I call a breaking of charity.When asked if Idaho is parochial, Westover responded:
I used to think of Idaho as parochial, and I used to think of cities as sophisticated. And in many ways, I was right. You can get a better education in a city; you can learn more technical skills, and more about certain types of culture. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to believe that there are many ways a person can be parochial. Now I define parochial as only knowing people who are just like you—who have the same education that you have, the same political views, the same income. And by that definition, New York City is just about the most parochial place I’ve ever lived. I have become more parochial since I came here.On her migration from rural to urban, Westover concedes she's "more urbanite now than hayseed."
At some point, you have to acknowledge that you can’t embody your origins forever. At some point, you have to surrender your card.I appreciate her honesty in this regard. Westover's decision is in contrast to Sarah Smarsh, who chose to return to Kansas, albeit to a different slice of life there, so she could write more authentically about it. I think I'm somewhere between Westover and Smarsh in my relationship to my rural roots and my home state.
Read the Westover interview in its entirety here. And if you haven't already done so, read Educated, too. It's an extraordinary story of an extraordinary life. And if you're the type who takes your education for granted, it might counter that impulse.
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