There is a significant difference between rural and urban life. Traditionally, the gap between the two cultures is felt more intensely by those in rural areas. City people tend not to think about it unless they themselves have relocated from a rural area.

Although today in America and Europe the percentage of people practicing an agrarian life is about 5%, around the world it’s 60%.[1] Thus, the majority of the world still lives in that reality.

The differences between the two are often reported in the media in terms of politics.[2] Worldwide, scholars often analyze the divide in terms of food.[3] There is, however, more to it than food and politics. There are two cultures, two sets of values, and two collective psychologies resulting in two realities.

Culture

Technology, entertainment, enjoyment, and the arts are big influencers in city culture.

Values and collective psychology, discussed below, are also important by-products of culture.

Technology has come to define the dominant world culture. Those who are advanced in it, are considered to be simply advanced. Urbanites enjoy more sophisticated and advanced technologies; thus, the dominant thinking is that they are the ones on the planet who are the most sophisticated and advanced.

However, technology is not truly an indicator of advancement, because it has been used behind the scenes to destroy the environment. On the surface, technology is used to keep humans healthy, live longer, and pursue attractive enjoyments, but underneath there is a huge price our descendants will likely pay.

Entertainment, enjoyment, and the arts reflect culture. The technologically advanced parts of the world tend to export their entertainment and artistic expressions as the norm. And urbanites in the rest of the world often assimilate those expressions into their own culture.

At the same time, they accept the sense of entitlement coming from the urban West. In other words, in addition to music and art, America and Europe export the cultural aspects that exploit and destroy the environment.

Values

Around the world, as stated above, technology and the culture that surrounds it has been adopted in urban areas everywhere. Outside those areas, traditional values still hold sway. In fact, the difference between traditionally held values and the Western influenced values can sometimes be tremendous.

This has caused frustration, mistrust, and misinformation, which sometimes lead to violent confrontations.

In rural areas and in cities, usually among the poor, values are rooted in tradition—that is, “the way it has always been done.”

Cities are impacted by evolving social norms, those having begun with the industrial revolution and are now influenced by the information age. To keep up with new developments, legislators pass new laws. Those who cling to old values, especially in rural areas, still view tradition to be more important, and they have less faith in new laws.

This attitude places the “rule of law” in jeopardy. Such an attitude is particularly provocative in the West.

So, which set of values is correct? Neither. Those influenced by technology have made the serious mistake of having faith in a culture that promotes irresponsible consumption and irresponsible destruction of the environment.

Those outside the cities often need the guidance and protection of their more sophisticated and intellectual brothers and sisters. This relationship is now lacking in the world. Rural folks correctly observe that the sophisticated, iconoclastic, irreverent, so-called progressive culture of the cities is in fact indulgent, ungodly, and destructive.

Certainly, this is a generalization. One should not assume that those living in rural areas, being generally poorer and less powerful than their city siblings, are more responsible or less greedy. The difference is that they don’t have the power and wealth to express their greed.

The problem is human greed, and the dominant culture has the ability to express it fully. Those who have less ability to do so, like those in rural areas, complain that others are greedy, when in fact they, being humans, are also afflicted. They simply have fewer opportunities to express it.

Psychology

Greed is the problem. Greed drives humanity to exploit and kill, whether these abuses are directed to other humans or to the environment, which includes animals, forests, rivers, the ocean, the air—whatever.

With greed comes the psychology of entitlement. “We can do it; therefore, let us do it.” “We can enjoy; therefore, let us.”

The culture of technology has allowed common people to live like kings and queens in palaces. They can easily import food from distant lands, possess exotic pets, and indulge in fantastic pleasures. Ordinary people sometimes live like Roman emperors, and others attempt to follow them.

The earth is normally capable of sustaining such excess when they’re expressed by a small minority, but technology has allowed the masses to exploit on a large scale. And the dominant cultures export this mentality. Thus, the two psychologies, traditional and progressive, clash.

Does this mean that the progressive culture is bad? No. The Bible says, “to whom much is given, much will be required.”[4] This means that those who possess more must be more responsible.

The culture of technology is not to be condemned per se. But the psychology that has grown from it must be corrected. It has produced an irresponsible, entitled, greedy mentality that is destroying the environment.

Humans with such a mentality defy the God who has supplied the gifts. This is not responsible.

But is this mentality only a part of the city? No. It’s everywhere, but in rural areas, especially among agriculturalists, there has traditionally been a greater dependence on God or the higher powers for agricultural produce. This is good. Moreover, the attachment to tradition and reluctance to blindly rush to the ways of new technology may also be healthy, depending on the situation.

Reality

There are indeed two realities. Rural and urban. They bleed into each other. Some folks from the country come to live in cities and bring their values and mentality with them. Some in cities become frustrated with the negative side-effects of sophisticated life. They adopt simpler values.

And many who live in remote areas yearn to move to cities and enjoy the advanced technology and greater facility for enjoyment practiced there. Many in rural areas do everything they can to import the city life. Indeed, governments do their best to provide better and better communications and transportation facilities to remote areas.

Thus, the realities mix, become confused, create culture clashes, and lead to great frustration.

Greed

The culture wars and environmental destruction are due to human greed. If Americans and Europeans, as bastions of the dominant urban culture, become responsible and adopt methods to control greed, they might be able to influence the world properly. They need to learn not to be disdainful of their cousins in the country, to acknowledge that tradition is not necessarily backward, that simple values are good, and that a godly way of life is essential for humanity.

Bhagavad gita

There are three hundred million followers of the Gita. Their name for God is Vishnu. Five thousand years ago He incarnated and taught the Bhagavad Gita. Thus, the Gita is considered to be God’s words.

In the Gita are effective ways to control greed. The scientific analysis of greed that is presented there is superior to that in religious texts and modern texts on psychology.

Thus, one may look at the Gita culture to see a practical example of how to live and have a positive impact on the environment, since its people, as a collective, are less greedy than those of other cultures.

Of course, one may find many different perspectives in a group so large. There are undoubtedly bad examples, and some are influenced by Western cultural norms that encourage the over-exploitation of Nature.

However, the difference between the 300 million followers of Vishnu (Vaishnavas) and those who follow American culture is vast when it comes to protecting the environment. In general, the Vaishnavas live in harmony with it while Americans destroy it.

The first step in correcting this serious problem is for Americans to read and study the Bhagavad Gita.

[1] http://www.expo2015.org/magazine/en/economy/agriculture-remains-central-to-the-world-economy.html

[2] “The political divide between rural and urban America is more cultural than it is economic… [According to] The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey  …nearly 7 in 10 rural residents say their values differ from those of people who live in big cities, including about 4 in 10 who say their values are “very different.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/rural-america/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.facb80c5f016)

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foundation-food-farming-idUSKCN0I516220141016

[4] Luke 12:48