Some Things Never Change

"Except for half a dozen in each town, the citizens are proud of that
achievement of ignorance which it is so easy to come by. To be “intellectual” or
“artistic” or, in their own word, to be “highbrow,” is to be priggish and of
dubious virtue….
…Doubtless all small towns, in all countries, in all ages,
Carol admitted, have a tendency to be not only dull but mean, bitter, infested
with curiosity. In France or Tibet quite as much as Wyoming or Indiana these
timidities are inherent in isolation."

- From "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis (1920)

Jim