On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Chris Doss wrote:
> I think a lot of the dumping on the South behavior characteristic of US
> intellectuals is a product of the US having simultaneously a large rural
> and a large urban population. You get the same thing in other large
> countries (you know the one I'm thinking of) with a similar population
> divide.
It's more widespread than that. It's an old joke among cosmopolitans that if you're ever at a party and stumble into a clump of people discussing a country you know nothing about, you can almost always sound in the know by waiting for your moment and then saying "Yes, but in the south of course it's completely different from in the north."
Michael