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Perspective poisons prejudice, which is why so many people avoid it.
Prejudices are comfortable blankets of selective ignorance. Though not necessarily evil (my prejudice against broccoli harms nobody) prejudice limits one to narrow insights and inflexibility. Gaining broad perspective is an elegant cure that has fallen into disuse.
Compare Naples and Naples, the Italian and Floridian varieties. Kindly stated, Naples Italy is at present a dirty town with dirty streets and dirtier politicians. The only reason for going to Naples is to leave while you still have your wallet (head for the ferry docks to take you to Capri). Gator State Naples, on your other hand, is a well-heeled, monied retirement Mecca, which does not mean it is littered with old Muslims. It is simply a clean little town with a government about as clean as any body infected with politicians can.
Perspective rarely comes into play where prejudice presides. Citizens in Los Angeles and New York are overly fond of referring to the center of America as “fly-over country”, though James McMurtry more poetically calls it “the middle”. Coastal corkheads chastise those in the middle for being ignorant since they lack the same set of references and understanding as urbanites (one Hollywood hick insisted that folks in the middle were ignorant for lack of foreign travel, though I suspect there are plenty of WWII, Korean, Viet Nam, Afghan and Iraqi vets in Kansas who would decline to agree). Yet take your average Hollywood Hillbilly to a typical Kansas farming town, and he’ll have difficulty holding his own in conversation concerning the fertilizer and water spread mechanics of wheat production, which is more valuable than all his international travel experience because you can eat wheat.
That being said, the eleven residents of Frederick, Kansas likely have little perspective on the nature of homosexuals (unless that is the cause behind their tiny population), which the man from Hollywood likely possesses, especially if he has a degree in theater. Frederick farmers and Tinsel Town Tinkerbelles are as ignorant as the other, but are ignorant on different subjects. Both can learn from the other if willing, though that is unlikely. Kansas kin are raised with their beliefs, know their neighbors, country and soil of their county. Melrose mavens prefer to believe in their self-appointed ‘superiority’ and likely would never deign to drive through fly-over country.
Prejudices preserved.
Yet once exposed to the other under convivial conditions, the two would soon discover what many well-traveled folk have. Stripped of ideology, theology and pretention, people everywhere basically want the same things. They want to live happy and fulfilled lives. They want their kids to have it better than they did. They want to be left alone, to peacefully pursue their passions. Only predilections for controlling one another, to rob select countrymen of their perogatives, cause meaningful differences and prevent pursuit of happiness, fulfillment and spoiled children. The San Francisco sadist who seeks disarming their Sylvan Grove sisters does so through failed perspective. Sinister Sylvan’s who find ways of keeping San Francisco’s Jims and Sams from wedding do likewise.
Stipulated that most everyone seeks the same things in life then puts into instant perspective the basic trouble in America. It isn’t liberals against conservatives, Yankees against Rebels, coastal citizens against midland members. It is us against politicians, the latter being the source of discontent, conflict and the tool for clubbing your fellow American in order to steal their liberties. If partisan prejudices were abated, then Mr. Hollywood and Mrs. Farmer would likely take pitchforks to their congress critters, then part in peaceful perspective.
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