I live in Maryland. Despite my familial shellfish allergy, I really like it here!
But one thing that always bugs me is when people dump all over the state because they don’t like it.
Here’s the thing: A place, taken in isolation, is neither good nor bad. It simply is. The question of its value only comes in when somebody looks at the place and thinks: is this good for me?
I used to work with a junior airman who, one day, asked the world writ large: Why do they always build military bases in such shitty places?
After I stopped laughing, I explained to him that before the forts are built, these places are just random rural small towns. They don’t turn shitty until the local enterprising businessfolk realize there’s a profit to be made on the gullibility, fear, and desire of naive young men (and, nowadays, an increasing number of women!) concentrated in a single geographic region.
So when the base goes up, so do the tattoo parlors and massage parlors and strip parlors. Those places beget secondary effects, like payday loan places and pawn shops (which our quintessential junior enlisted might themself take advantage of). A military base is a force of concentrated poverty and desperation in a community, and that’s why we all think it’s bad. (And I am eliding, here, all the problematic things that make “us” think the stuff I listed there is “bad;” the only truly bad things I see in my list are the predatory ones. But that’s not the point of this post.)
So when I see people say “I hate Maryland,” I have a very different reaction than I used to. Before, I would get indignant and defend it. Tempers flare, as I’m sure you’re all shocked to hear. But now, I try to be more measured; and I try to make the point that it’s okay to prefer different geographical locations. It’s okay that you want to live in the Rockies or whatever, and that doesn’t reflect on my love for the Appalachians in any way.
Just please own that preference instead of acting like your preferences are the objective truth of the world, yeah? Thank you.
Emilybook 