https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_RKu-ESCY

Lots of controversy over this music video this past week or so.

In addition to some of the double entendre meanings of "we take care of our own", I'm most appalled about the tacit support of the mythology that small towns are "good" and large cities are "bad" (or otherwise scary, crime-ridden, or dangerous).

What are the crime statistics per capita about the safety of small versus large?

Availability bias of violence and crime in the big cities are overly sampled by most media (newspapers, radio, and television). This video plays heavily into this bias.

There's also an opposing availability bias going on with respect to the positive aspects of small communities "taking care of their own" when in general, from an institutional perspective small towns are patently not taking care of each other or when they do its very selective and/or in-crowd based rather than across the board.

Note also that all the news clips and chyrons are from Fox News in this piece.

Alternately where are the musicians singing about and focusing on the positive aspects of cities and their cultures.

Salali, G. D., Uysal, M. S., Bozyel, G., Akpınar, E., & Aksu, A. (2022). Does social influence affect COVID-19 vaccination intention among the unvaccinated? PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5qc3z

I really appreciate the respect given to indigenous knowledge here.

The researchers could have gone much further in depth in describing it and the aspects of what they mean by cultural "safety". They've done a disservice here by downplaying widespread adoption. Why not? Why couldn't we accord the proper respect of traditions to actively help make these techniques more widespread? Shouldn't we be willing to do the actual work to accord respect and passing on of these knowledges?

Given my reading in the area, there seems to be an inordinate amount of (Western) "mysticism" attributed to these techniques (here and in the broader anthropology literature) rather than approaching them head-on from a more indigenous perspective. Naturally the difficult part is being trusted enough by tribal elders to be taught these methods to be able to pass them on. (Link this idea to Tim Ingold's first chapter of Anthropology: Why It Matters.)

All this being said, the general methods known from the West, could still be modified to facilitate in widespread adoption of those techniques we do know. Further work and refinement of them could continue apace while still maintaining the proper respect of other cultures and methods, which should be the modern culture default.

If nothing else, the West could at least roll back the educational reforms which erased their own heritage to regain those pieces. The West showing a bit of respect for itself certainly wouldn't be out of line either.

Hein, G., Gamer, M., Gall, D., Gründahl, M., Domschke, K., Andreatta, M., Wieser, M. J., & Pauli, P. (2021). Social cognitive factors outweigh negative emotionality in predicting COVID-19 related safety behaviors. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5sbzy