![]() ![]() Dysfunction! Closed minds! Lives of quiet desperation! A far cry from the Good Ol’ Boys, in this latter conception the good-mannered festoon of the Midwest maliciously distracts from the true rotten, crumbling edifice. On the other hand, there is the dark underbelly lurking beneath this genteel exterior, the thick sludge underneath smooth stones a myth no less ubiquitous. On the one hand, you have the Good Ol’ Boys: not quite bumpkins, but some manifestation of “no thoughts, head empty.” A mainstay in what the dust jacket of the Ohio University Press edition of Winesburg, Ohio calls “the myth of the wholesome American small town.” Ignorant of the socio-economic-religious superstructures that inform and enable indifference to The World Around Them, these cheerful chuds are always aw-shucksin’ and just want to be left to their corn, church, and sports. Two characterizations prevail in national discourse around the Rust Belt Midwest. ![]()
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