By Sam Benson, Sr.
The boats arrived in 2020 in Upstate, New York just as Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492. Instead of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, the boats were very different. All sorts of gray and black Mercedes, Audis, and Lexuses brought our newest bout of colonizers ready to offer the great salvation of a foreign faith and the trappings of civilization.
‘Colonizer’ has become a very popular term in pop culture and academia, and it should be little surprise that many of those who love using the term with pointed fingers turned out to be the most like the great Conquistadors of old. Having privilege, wealth, and connections, these new settlers came not bearing the flag of the Spanish Crown, but instead that of a culture vastly different than the (for lack of a better word) indigenous culture of Upstate New York.
Bringing an alien disease with them, our new friends had the opportunity to either assimilate with the natives or attempt to teach them civilization. Replacing the ‘White Man’s Burden’ with the ‘Woke Man’s (and Woman’s) Burden turned out to be the same mindset, except with about the same amount of hubris. Swap out Cecil Rhodes for the newest ‘artisanal artist’ experience, and you have a small slice of post-2020 life in the Catskills.
Ironically, the pressure of being a small fish in a big pond was often just too much. There were only so many trips to be taken during a pandemic or so much of a trust fund to be spent quickly. It was time to become boutique farmers or artists or take your pick. There were dirty Republican-voting gun-lovers who needed desperately to be told that they were wrong.
And so they were.
Therein lies the irony of the great proselytizers of culture on the unwashed masses of Upstate, New York. Those who often would not pass the culture smell test in Manhattan often believe that the uneducated rubes in rural New York simply won’t notice.
Where a midlevel career in Long Island or Yonkers may have elicited eyerolls in Manhattan prior to the pandemic, here’s an opportunity to explain that your time as a small blip at a private school in NYC provided you with great haute culture. Heck, just throw a few French phrases in and you can act like you’ve run rings over the local folk.
There’s a key issue here, especially when considering the role of culture in the Catskills. There is plenty now and there was plenty before the pandemic. As much as some urban, urbane expats may believe that they are delivering culture to the area for the first time, the rich tapestry of Rotaries, Kiwanis, church groups, and square dances rival and solo artist’s explanation of why they’re better than you.
There is always a need for more culture in this area, or any area. However, the lone wolf artist ready to explain to a mechanic how socialism just hasn’t been tried yet will continue to fall on deaf ears. And try as you might, there just won’t be the same impact of imparting culture when someone who has but didn’t earn it does their best to explain to someone who has not but works hard.
So are there direct parallels between Christopher Columbus, who has become a hated symbol in our new culture, with the post-Covid explorers? Not every single one, of course.
But if you’re reading this with any ounce of condescension for the folks who lived up here before or complained about the noise at a gun range or complained about the smell of a farm…well, you’re probably more like ol’ Chris than you’d ever give yourself credit for. And you think that Columbus was evil because of what he did to Natives? Sure he was. But do you think of some rural Trump supporter any better than he did the people of the West Indies?
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