so you might be wondering, "the rural have been moving to urban centers in droves for over a hundred years now ... how do these people cope with their immersion in differentiation"?

i believe that rural to urban migrants over the past century have been able to take advantage of three phenomena key to their prosperity in new urban settings: a massive growth in marginal productivity among the least skilled workers, enclaves of the "rural" world, and sometimes legacies of urban culture. (I must mention the notable, yet not exclusive, example of the Jews and Chinese who have successfully adapted to thousands of years of urban life and immigration. These groups have successfully engaged "rural" collective values towards urban needs such as creating mutual credit organizations. They have also famously sought education, the ultimate act of differentiation, in their attempts to integrate to the urban society)

the industrial revolution ensured that massive amounts of new tools were provided to the "bare handed" and usually these tools were adapted to the "bare handed" by the desire among capitalists to turn laborers into commodities. "rural" enclaves have taken the shape of actual places (in the US usually in flood prone areas where land is undesirable) where property rights are non-existent or nearly so. most of these physical rural enclaves were eliminated after the drive to build levies during the eisenhower (?) administration. yet "rural" rural enclaves also took social manifestation. this social manifestation cuts both ways: on the one hand ethnic differences such as language often binded immigrant communities together, such that livelihoods often improved collectively. on the other hand "rural" values often run counter to urban ones -- protecting rural-urban migrants but also setting them against their own best interests according to the urban society. where racial differences were perceived, urban societies have had a tendency to affix these differences to race.

when the "tools ran out" and rural places were no longer to be found in the city, the rural-urban migrants fell back on their rural values -- but in the city, community and family values became exclusionary in nature. looking out for one's family and community also meant fighting against those who were perceived as not being in that community.

african americans came to the northern cities in the largest numbers when the "tools" were dwindling and other rural-urban groups were already established. this set the stage for persistant racism towards (and among) Black people in the US.

the rural world can be a place of reconnaissance. just as the urban world usurps land it does too with ideas and creativity. in this urban world an idea must always have an "inventor" or "discoverer" or "author" or whatever -- the creative economy is a cloak for a larger problem: having been immersed in our differentiated culture for so long, we are actually beginning to believe that we (and all the people we know) are much different from the famous songwriter or inventor ... so are we similiar to the people on tv? maybe just a weak comparison? this is a pretty depressing identity for ourselves that our "creative economy" is constructing for us. the truth is that we are all relatively similiar, but with different ideas of who we are and then these ideas actually do shape "who we are" by influencing what we consume and what we produce (which is the lens through which those in this society view eachother).

technology and "innovation" can be described under the more "neutral" heading of "differentiation."

as differentiation occurs and accelerates not only do people have additional trouble understanding each other and themselves (a fact that I've highlighted earlier), but economic output is driven to extreme poles.

i sometimes think of two farmers, equal in all respects, but with one inheriting some piece of agricultural machinery and the other with nothing but bare hands. of course the farmer working with bare hands must work much harder to match the level of production of the farmer with the piece of machinery. now consider that in a more realistic setting, these two farmers are only two people amidst a world of people. the farmers depend on a common market to supply anything that they need or want that they cannot produce themselves. in this setting, not only do they compete for food and goods, but even for the land itself. Introducing yet more realism, arable land close to urban markets is where farmers can actually make an income, that is becoming ever more scarce because of climate change and urban sprawl (try not to think of walmart for a moment and try to imagine the sprawling slums of the developing world). the situation quickly moves from being one of romatic competition in the face of hardship to being a dire struggle against impoverishment and landlessness.

yet this example is even too generous, for that market must satisfy the needs and desires of the entire world -- a world filled with people -- some filty rich and others wretchedly poor. one might object to the usurpation of resources, land in particular, given the marginal benefit to the poor being so much greater than to the rich. furthermore land is a contested resource within the framework of orthodox economics (or at least it should be), for it is not a commodity and cannot be re/produced. land is the original thing -- the original space -- before humans made tools or languages there was land -- before humans there was land. on the other hand, hernando de soto, on of the more popular proponents of property rights in the developing world, points out that there are benefits to accrued through property rights in poor countries. the productivity of land can change drastically upon the improvements made to it.

i agree with de soto that in the "urban" world strict and widespread property rights should be sought after and inforced. yet in the "rural" world, property rights can be just another differentiation used by urban folks or those in power to exclude the poorest from a decent life. this fact was widely seen in brazil in the early eighties when huge tracts of land were all but forgotten by absentee landholders, while the landless workers suffered from unstable food prices).

what i mean to say is that rural places can provide a buffer to differentiation, such buffers are needed in a world where the farmer with bare hands (in my simple analogy) is more likely to be a farmer with no land! these are maybe not the rural places that you know, though those places might give you some sense for what a "real" rural place might be like.

... i will shortly write something about the centralization of creativity ... thought and art ... how this drives and is driven by ego-centricity

The logic underlying the decision-making of the powerful is driven by their own exercise of judgment -- this may seem an obvious or moot point ... what I am getting at is the "modern" logic by which our society operates. On the international front this logic is applied by Israel and its allies towards the Palestinians ... certain Palestinians are acting (and perhaps the majority is thinking, as evidenced by the rise of Hamas) against Israel, often in violent ways. Since as far back as I can remember Israel has engaged the Palestinians in a "game" of logic -- according to the little I know of game theory (a "triumph" of modern thought) they are actually operating optimally ("tit-for-tat"), yet ... their actions are despicable (writing from the perspective of an American citizen, I feel that we are wholly culpable in this tragedy).

The Palestinians are equal to the Israelis, if not worse in their exercise of judgment ... the ill will built up over the years has brought nothing but bad faith to the bargaining table.

Some ingredient is missing from this picture: good faith. I mean, faith in your brother, your fellow man, over both tribe and nation. It was a principal taught by many of the great prophets of this holy land. How cruelly ironic that today there is so little good faith to go around.

The powerful loath to let the advantage fall to the powerless.