Iranian Protests

[Tamas]

Yeah you go to Budapest and talk to young middle class folks there, by and large they will be near-perfectly Westernised and firmly anti-Orban. The farther you go from Budapest though, the more of the Eastern dystopia you are going to encounter.

I imagine this must be even worse in a place like Iran.

Yeah, I've read a couple of travel-type books on Iran, and this is the way those authors described it.  That's also the case in places like Turkey.

To be fair I am reasonably certain its the same in the UK as well.  There's just not as big a difference (yet) between the progressive urbanised global culture the big cities are assimilated into and the more "rural" culture.

Not sure what to do about it apart from education and improving prosperity/living standards. That would be hard enough even if anyone was trying to do it.

[Josquius]

Yeah you go to Budapest and talk to young middle class folks there, by and large they will be near-perfectly Westernised and firmly anti-Orban. The farther you go from Budapest though, the more of the Eastern dystopia you are going to encounter.

I imagine this must be even worse in a place like Iran.

Yeah, I've read a couple of travel-type books on Iran, and this is the way those authors described it.  That's also the case in places like Turkey.

To be fair I am reasonably certain its the same in the UK as well.  There's just not as big a difference (yet) between the progressive urbanised global culture the big cities are assimilated into and the more "rural" culture.

Not sure what to do about it apart from education and improving prosperity/living standards. That would be hard enough even if anyone was trying to do it.

Build more trains.
Seriously.
With better transport the country 'shrinks' and the opportunities of the cities spread to further flung people.
Transport is the key to everything.

[Berkut]

Yeah you go to Budapest and talk to young middle class folks there, by and large they will be near-perfectly Westernised and firmly anti-Orban. The farther you go from Budapest though, the more of the Eastern dystopia you are going to encounter.

I imagine this must be even worse in a place like Iran.

Yeah, I've read a couple of travel-type books on Iran, and this is the way those authors described it.  That's also the case in places like Turkey.

To be fair I am reasonably certain its the same in the UK as well.  There's just not as big a difference (yet) between the progressive urbanised global culture the big cities are assimilated into and the more "rural" culture.

Not sure what to do about it apart from education and improving prosperity/living standards. That would be hard enough even if anyone was trying to do it.

No different in the USA.

Hell, even in just one state the difference is very marked. New York is blue as blue overall, but in reality everywhere outside the cities is Trumpistan it seems like.

[OttoVonBismarck]

For me it's not that I'm indifferent to the protesters, or the dream of a non-terrible Islamic world, it's more a recognized reality that in the vast majority of the Islamic countries these anti-traditionalist anti-regressive style protesters simply represent a small portion of the population in these countries. Kabul had genuinely embraced the West, the 70% of Afghanistan that live in rural communities never did. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan largely continue to have this core problem which is a major inhibitor of any sort of enlightenment.

Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia all seem to have a bit more reasonable balance, albeit not without issues (you could say the same about America with Christian fundamentalists, frankly.) I don't really know what magic wand turns countries like Saudi / Iran et al. to be more reasonable like Turkey and Indonesia.

[grumbler]

Build more trains.
Seriously.
With better transport the country 'shrinks' and the opportunities of the cities spread to further flung people.
Transport is the key to everything.

Infrastructure helps, but moving poor people from wretched rural villages to wretched urban slums does not make them more progressive.  Education and communications are far more important, and infrastructure that allows the rural poor to at least be able to aspire to being rural middle class is much better than infrastructure that just lets them be poor in a place with many times more poor people (even if the prospects of sweatshop jobs are better in the city).

[Barrister]

Build more trains.
Seriously.
With better transport the country 'shrinks' and the opportunities of the cities spread to further flung people.
Transport is the key to everything.

Infrastructure helps, but moving poor people from wretched rural villages to wretched urban slums does not make them more progressive.  Education and communications are far more important, and infrastructure that allows the rural poor to at least be able to aspire to being rural middle class is much better than infrastructure that just lets them be poor in a place with many times more poor people (even if the prospects of sweatshop jobs are better in the city).

Rural conservatism isn't really connected to wealth though.

Rural Alberta is surprisingly wealthy, as historically almost anyone could get a very well paying job doing oilfield work.  It's not a great job as employment is not guaranteed and frequent layoffs (either seasonal, or due to the price of oil) plus being very hard work, but relatively easy for someone with no more than high school to earn six figures.  But rural Alberta is still very conservative in it's voting patterns.

[grumbler]

Rural conservatism isn't really connected to wealth though.

Rural Alberta is surprisingly wealthy, as historically almost anyone could get a very well paying job doing oilfield work.  It's not a great job as employment is not guaranteed and frequent layoffs (either seasonal, or due to the price of oil) plus being very hard work, but relatively easy for someone with no more than high school to earn six figures.  But rural Alberta is still very conservative in it's voting patterns.

The degree of rural conservatism probably is tied to wealth, however.  The conservatism of rural Alberta does not extend to condoning the killing of young women for having the wrong type of bourka (Iran), or honor killings (Pakistan), or dowry murders (India).

[OttoVonBismarck]

I tend to take the view that rural lifestyles, in general, insulate traditional cultural norms and practices from the more rapid pace of cultural change found in urban areas. I think this does tend to be true almost everywhere. The church and the nuclear and immediate extended family are bedrock institutions in rural America. For many urban Americans, it is common to move a timezone away from your family and uncommon to be a part of a church.

[Valmy]

Does it though? The rural youth in my family all moved away to cities. The rural communities they left behind are graying with the conservatism that goes along with that, though temporary workers in oil and gas and for harvest time tend to add a little bump of 30  something men for short periods of time.

There is certainly an anxiety in those communities that their way of life is in danger, much less that there is this solid bedrock of family and church where the kids never move away. Plenty of youth crime and drug use as well. Those issues also add to its conservative mentality.

But this is about rural communities I have personal experience with so it is anecdotal and certainly doesn't extend outside of the United States. The rural conservatism in Pakistan I am sure is a dramatically different animal.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The United States is largely an urban country by most sociological definitions. I think we're actually over 70% urban if you count not just the very large metropolises, but their suburbs, and medium sized cities (50,000-100,000) and small cities (10,000 to 49k) and the truly small towns (say 5k-10k).

In many less urbanized countries, the true rural population is literally living in small villages (less than 500 people) often in family lines going back centuries.

The U.S. rural population also generally sprung forth from profit seekers and frontier types less than 200 years ago, so I think it is a relatively "unsettled" rural population in comparison to other places.

All that being said, I think many rural communities in America still have the predilections to conservatism that I mentioned, particularly cultural conservatism. The examples you give are examples of people who self-selected out of living rurally and moved away. There are plenty of people I am familiar with, who faced with economic negatives and other negatives of rural life, dug in and simply refused to move. Many have had less developed careers because of it, but some have ultimately done fine. Most tend to have groups of friends they have been close with their entire lives, and have families (and spouse families) that are all living in the same small area. These people have much fewer of the influences towards progressivism versus someone who grew up in a rural area and moved away for economic / social / educational opportunity.

[Valmy]

I know some folks aren't emotionally invested in Iran, but I'll post updates and bits of interest as (if) they appear.

Women cutting her hair in protest against Mahsa Amini's death, while the crowd chants "death to the dictator": https://twitter.com/GEsfandiari/status/1572268954684653571

Yeah I have noticed people are not exactly enraged around the world standing in front of the Iranian embassy shouting 'Justice for Mahsa'

I guess murdering women for slight wardrobe issues is just something people expect from that regime.

[Jacob]

Iranian women: https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1573128160115400707

[The Minsky Moment]

Note that the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power was triggered by urban demonstrations led by youth.  It was not a rural religious reactionary revolt.

[Jacob]

Burning statue of Khamenei in his own hometown: https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1573372214833041409

I guess Iran is cruising for another crackdown. Here's hoping it fails.

[Valmy]

They already cut the internet like last time, though stuff is still getting out somehow.

We'll see.