General Discussion

Spent 18 years in town of 320, county of 1200 people. It was exactly like field work and felt like the anthropology work I read about in school.

The essay cited in this OP's post is spot on and explains a lot. Also backs up my contention that what we need to bridge the divide is a student exchange program like we had with foreign exchange student programs.

When I was about 10, and the 'Troubles' in Ireland were violent again, some people here in the US did an experiment. They brought some Irish kids, some Protestant, some Catholic, to the US for summer. Each host family took in two children, about 10-11 years old, one Catholic, one Protestant.

A break from the violence, at least for a few months. A time to get to know more than just the face of the religious and political 'enemy' up close. A time to experience a different place, different reality, and some peace.

Those few kids, my age, grew and as they entered the age of being able to take on positions of some influence, the political realities began to change in Ireland. Coincidence? Maybe, but progress was made after some kids got out of the narrow scope of their little worlds and got a glimpse of other ways.

Used to observe the people in the tiny town I lived in not long ago. Saw the 'barn blind' ways most were entrenched in and how many who left for school, but not far enough from home to matter, failed to survive in a different atmosphere, failed to learn the real lessons, and came home to take up drinking like the generations before them. So sad.