Someone recently told me that they felt like this town is “way too small” and that everyone knows everyone’s business. They feel like there is too much gossip about what they have been doing.
This person has recently been involved in some controversial activities and made some choices that some of their friends and acquaintances found to be at a minimum somewhat disconcerting, if not hurtful and extremely selfish. I didn’t hear any acknowledgment of the role or place of personal responsibility versus the perception of the community talking about them and by implication potentially judging them.
Many of us have chosen to live in Brattleboro and surrounding areas because we felt something was missing in our previous locations. We were/are seeking a “quality of life” that may be an improvement over many other places. A lot of us come from cities where there are different cultural attitudes and a certain distance that isn’t necessarily as pronounced in a smaller town. It is easy to be anonymous in a city if you want to be. It is also potentially easier to be forgotten and unknown and uncared for. In a smaller town, you begin to learn about your neighbors, their habits and preferences. You become familiar with the rhythms of the town and yes, you learn about what is happening in people’s lives. If you read the police blotter you may see a name you recognize.
In previous generations people tended to stay in the same place their entire lives and I suppose that people tended to have fewer secrets in tight knit communities. The upside of this, in my opinion, was that people enjoyed the benefits of community that fewer and fewer of us now do. It meant that there was less crime and more personal investment in a town. People were stakeholders in the well being and prosperity (not just in the economic sense) of a town.
I guess the significant downside was that a sort of uniformity (cultural, religious etc.) was enforced and there were repercussions for living outside of those cultural norms. Life could be really challenging, even unbearable for those who are somewhat out of the mainstream or play by a different rulebook. Think of someone who was gay in the 1950’s or people of different races who fell in love, or women and African Americans seeking the same civil rights granted to white men. Until fairly recently you would be branded as a heretic if you weren’t a regular churchgoer. In Vermont you can wear your hair long or short, you can live with whomever you choose and make all sorts of choices that are not harshly judged and are often considered to be an asset contributing to the diversity and atmosphere of tolerance of the town.
I am thankful we no longer live under those strict expectations imposed by religious fundamentalists and moral crusaders. I am pleased that ideas that were once obscure and esoteric are now pretty much mainstream. Is the price for these new freedoms the breakdown of the beneficial aspects of what we think of as community? Do we need to accept that there will be more crime and what is broadly considered to be “anti social” activity in exchange for the freedom, the potential to be more of who we want or strive to be?
I am wondering if people think this town is overly “gossipy” or if people just talk about people and circumstances that they find to be in some way a challenge to social unity?