Take away a man's actual sense of manhood - which is conventionally based on the ability to work, to earn money, to be self-sufficient, to provide for children - and you've got to give them something else. And they did. This hideous religion that's all over the country - these huge church-malls - that's what substitutes for these lost towns. But that's not a town. That's a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A 'community' is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That's just self-righteousness - incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. People have become so rigid; their opinions seem to them like themselves. When that happens (and it has happened) people can't change their minds. If you are identified by your opinions - if that is the very basis of yourself - how can you change your mind?

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