Community is better than Veggies!

The people of Roseto, PA

First, I apologize for 2 serious blog posts in a row; I promise the next will be "lighter." After sitting in class today, I knew community was something I wanted to contemplate further. Media ethics was the name of the class, and the book that sparked discussion was "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.


In the introduction of the book he tells the tale of a village in Pennsylvania called Roseto. Essentially an Italian town transplanted over the years into the east coast countryside. In the 1950s, some doctors doing research on heart disease studied the residents. They discovered that the citizens of Roseto had no recorded deaths from heart attack...ever. No resident currently had high blood pressure or cholesterol. Their diets weren't particularly healthy considering they had blended traditional Italian with a lard based carb diet. There were no gyms in this rural town, and most of its residents struggled with obesity. Neighboring villages were closer to the national average so their water supply wasn't some healing stream. The only difference between Rosetta and any other town in America was the community. Most of the citizens saw not one or two neighbors every day, but 4 or 5. Every one attended Sunday morning mass, and there were high instances of extended families sharing a home. Essentially the people of Roseto, truly lived together, and so were healthier.

Now I'm not saying that having more friends means you can eat fast food for every meal, and sit on the couch all day. No, I simply marvel at the power of a close knit community. I don't believe we encourage that today in America. The focus is on the advancement of the individual, earn more money, be happier, gain more popularity are the messages. All of those focus on personal achievements and leave the value of building relationships secondary. Community is more than friendships, it's a group of people truly living among each other, sharing goals, achievements, and dreams (wow that just got hippie).

It's no surprise that community isn't rampant. It's hard, because people together means conflict, and conflict is something my generation is taught to avoid at all costs. Thus, it's easier to simply avoid a community than to deal with the icky messy conflicts that being close to people causes. After all, disagreeing with you is easier to do from a distance. This is where America can take a lesson from rural communities.

I see examples of small "Rosetos" in my involvement in agriculture. On a farm you can't avoid community. Many operations involve multiple generations, and the fact is, living in the country means you don't get to escape family conflicts by walking down the street to the mall. The farms attacked for involving large numbers of individuals are actually communities working toward the common goal of raising food. That's why ranches don't have or need gyms.

'till the cows come home,

Ellie