Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Sword&Spade podcast is about...
speaker-0 (00:00.034)
The small town has been buried and unfortunately it's just now seen as almost matter that that needs to be sort of taken over by whoever wants to take over that matter, that space, a developer, a franchise, even a peoples with different agendas. And for me, I I see localism, small town revivalism in that sense, again, as a source of vitality, of renewal, of genuine renewal.
speaker-1 (00:37.198)
Friends, subscribers, listeners to Sword and Spade Podcast, welcome back to another edition of the podcast born out of a magazine, which was drummed up by a bunch of friends that were a little bit sick of the internet and wanted to talk about real things in real places for a long time. We've been doing that now for seven years, which my understanding in magazine world is an eternity.
and our rule of thumb was to talk to people that are actually doing something, not just having expertise, but having experience. so once again I'm excited to have the perfect kind of guest for that sort of podcast, Javier Velasquez. Did I say that right? Velasquez Velasquez.
Yeah.
You I don't a painter. You're not a painter yet.
I can doodle I can hand draw some maps but I'm not in any way shape or that
speaker-1 (01:29.612)
I've got just enough I've got just enough skill that when I doodle, my kids are impressed. And and no one else. Javier, you might remember his name from the Metaphysics of Bass Pro, which we published a couple issues ago. he is a writer at the subset called Exiled Heart, where he writes about what I I love this this phrase, deep America.
the mythic, mystic, historical, cultural, spiritual realities beneath the surface, especially, I think we'll probably get along because it's Southern Appalachia, the South in general, but definitely Southern Appalachia where I live. I I think I'm like you. When I drive through a small, I think what people would call a failing or forgotten town, I just want to pull over and walk around.
Talk to people. I just I just so jazzed up. He writes about place, exile, home, inheritance, localism, beauty, memory, culture, belonging, and all these things. and he I think you have a an amazing ability to see past or to see deeply into what many people just drive through as something that's a forgotten America, but you think it's actually the place of deep America.
so I'll let people look you up if they want to get some background in bio, but I would just want to begin asking you about sort of this this big idea that modern man is like he's homeless even while he owns a house. and he's longing for a place to belong. but he keeps instead of belonging, he keeps flipping his assets and moving on.
Right.
speaker-0 (03:15.032)
Correct. So Yeah, yeah, it's the the placelessness th that Wendellberry talks about.
Yeah. And I saw a number of your posts, a number of your writings beginning with Wendell Berry, which is you know, I always point to him because he's not he's not an abstract thinker. He's actually chronicling something that happened that he witnessed. So he's a witness, right? He's not studying the artifacts of a of a began culture, he's watching it not die, but really be ripped away from him throughout his career. So I
I guess we'll just begin. What what sort of responsibilities do we men have? How how have you come to understand this idea of a return to place and rootedness that comes up just over and over in so many I it's like a it's a it's an it's a a very keen and real ache that you see in the writings and the commentary of many people that we're just we're a rootless people. Right. so
Where do we begin or how how can you begin explaining this phenomenon of lacking something that we can inherit and be initiated into? Especially, you know, just I'm just judging your face right now, but from a young father's perspective. what is it that we're really trying to return to when you know, this this this hoped for revival of of small town rooted living, or as Catholics would call it, village life. Village life what are we after?
Christian culture, right? So yeah, that that that's a great question. And I'm not gonna pretend like I I I have the perfect solution. I it l like you said, the root the rootlessness and the placelessness, I feel like it's been now diagnosed for what, probably two generations now. And like we kind of know we're a sick people, like w we're searching for a cure and there's a sense of, you know, I I I guess like from the
speaker-0 (05:13.674)
earl like early mid century, right? There's like a return to earth, return to nature, like a secular romantic response to that. And now I think now with the internet, with AI, with the you know, fragmentation of even social life in my own like life that I've seen, like, you know, I can't go into any restaurant without seeing people on their phones, like sitting, you know, in front of each other. I would say like I guess in like the
work where I sort of write about small town localism. I feel like the deep America term, there's a country beneath the country, right? So the abstract country that we understand, the Walmarts, the parking lot, the sort of CNN Airport America. Beneath that, especially at the small town level, there's an archive of I would almost say, you know, I I would go as far as saying a a archive of genuine vitality
that I think locals, people, especially if you were born in a small town and you moved away and now you're coming back, there there's this that archive of distinctiveness, identity, and history that unfortunately has fallen into forgetfulness, which is another wound that that I think Americans have. We've forgotten our history. Like there's a lot of people that don't know what happened in their small town fifty fifty years ago.
That there is a tradition for a festival, or you know, there was a parish life, or you know, there was some type of community bond that's just been completely placed over. And I talked to Joe about this, how you know a lot of our common spaces have been in in a way colonized by sort of empty matter, a Walmart being a great example of that, right? A Walmart's the same in Bozeman as it is in Alabama, as it is in Hawaii.
I think there's even Walmarts in Mexico now, but like there's it's it's a it's a how did I put it? Like there's there's a a taking up of space at the small town level that unfortunately has sort of been compiling and it's been it's been what's the word I'm looking for? It's just it's just been buried. Like the small town has been buried and unfortunately
speaker-0 (07:36.096)
It's just now seen as almost matter that that needs to be sort of taken over by whoever wants to take over that matter, that space, a developer, a franchise, even a peoples with different agendas. And for me, I I see localism, small town revivalism in that sense, again, as a source of vitality of renewal, of genuine renewal. And and I could talk about some of the things I've been doing.
At the small town level, but I guess that's that's a long winded sort of response to I guess your question there, Jason.
Yeah, I I well I'm thinking of I live near like if so where I I'm very rural where I live and I can drive into a town called Bowling Springs, South Carolina. And it's where we go, it's where the Walmart is, where all the things that still have stuff that we need is. you know, we've suffered through where I've moved the loss of four local hardware stores, right? So now the option that's the if you want to talk about a sign of decline to lose hardware stores, four of them.
so the other day I had to go it was a UPS store and a Verizon store that are connected. They're like one store. So the UPS is where you go to return your Amazon crap. and then the Verizon store is where you buy the devices to buy more Amazon crap. And I walked I walked around the corner of this place and there was a plaque that said, Here's the boiling springs.
And I and I realized what I thought was a drainage ditch around the side of the Ryzen store was actually this place's namesake. that would is totally forgotten and unimportant, but it's literally the thing that built the place. So I have like a a very real sense of what it looks like for that to be erased.
speaker-0 (09:27.392)
Yeah, that's a and you know, one one idea that's been sort of percolating in my mind for a while now is how our roads used to sort of like yes, beah well yeah, well well well not just that, but they used to sort of respect the geology. And they used to you know, you can only build a road where it was geologically possible. Sometimes that meant, you know, over a creek or something like that, but
Yeah.
speaker-0 (09:55.15)
you know, nowadays I think another broader symptom is like literally building a road anywhere feasible, buying out farms, you know, eve you know, obviously engineering's much better today and it's much more capable to literally just treat the map. Again, map as as open matter, open space to just almost yeah, it's like Minecraft for for for the people doing this. versus the I would almost say the more
vertical way of thinking of, you know, this is a place, there's distinctiveness. And again, all all the things I think people that write about localism, when Wendell Berry and and I would even say Father Romano Guardini, it's they're really circling it around the same problem. It's just the same problem of of just man and again, here's another thing I've been thinking, it's like man and humanity or species is is and and not to
say I believe in the Chardin's ideas of the omega point, but it seems that there is like all of humanity is headed towards this sort of sameness omega point that is just everything is is is is media, architecture, taste, everything is kind of going towards one direction. All of humanity a at its own pace. Right. So
sort of homogenized. So you yeah, maybe you could use the fra like Yeah Yeah, I think anyone who's listening, if what I just described, the strip that is Lowe's, Walmart, depending on your region, maybe Publix, maybe Kroger, maybe King Super. but it becomes a homogenized reality. Maybe that's a good place for you. You describe it as anywhere USA. Right. So I I that makes me think of
Flynery O'Connor's you know, she says somewhere is better than anywhere. Always. so what do you mean by anywhere USA? 'Cause that seems to be what it becomes.
speaker-0 (11:57.506)
Yeah, so basically, you know, when you allow your town to sort of have its narrative I and and this is more now kind of crossing intent kind of like the work I do with some towns. Like once you let the town sort of outsort its narrative towards outside parties. Be again, I keep using the word developers because that's kind of what's going on in my corner of the world. you let them again set this place is for tourism. This place is not a
distinct community of peoples with a distinct history, with a distinct lineage, a distinct agro tourism or ag you know, pastoral tradition. and when you know when that happens, unfortunately in America, you know, the main key drivers of setting that narrative tend to be developers. And those developers, again, they most of them, I would say ninety-nine percent of them, I'm sure there's some more benevolent ones, but
They tend to s again, this this sort of metaphysic of seeing the world as just open space to be plastered over. It works perfectly with their more utilitarian spreadsheet way of thinking of okay, how do I make the most use of this space to be as profitable as possible? Not to be, you know, life-giving or community giving in that sense. so it kind of like
you know, by treating our towns as that sort of open space, it opens the door for all sorts of you know, third parties to be able to again narrate that that that town into something that might make sense on the spreadsheet. if that makes
Yeah. That absolutely. No, I'm okay, you know, to one, I think this will I I think there are some people that maybe are in I I actually the deeper urban place they are, they probably have more of what you're talking about. I have found cities like deep within the urban center, there's there's like a history and there's a preservation. We're really talking about the middle ground, and you and I are probably talking more of the the rural, like the towns that had a cohesion amongst themselves. You know, Wendellberry famously in his books will just
speaker-1 (14:10.038)
He has all these saved newspapers where he just opens up and reads like what businesses were there. You know, and I could do that for Rutherford, which is the town near me, that used to have it's a tiny little strip and it had three men's clothing stores on this one strip, right? we're really talking about that the anywhere is that in between that has by its definition, it sort of has to erase those things so that it can pop in the neighborhoods with, you know, the white board and batten.
House with the black shit with the black windows and duplicate it because it's the most problem. But I I'm living through this. I'm on a text thread that's going that due to my dumb phone, I feel like I'm not participating in well. But as far as an outside force, so we had a thriving locally run Rex sports sports league that was perfectly fine. Like there was no complaints at all. And
Now the YMCA of like the sort of giant YMCA from Spartanburg has come up and has established itself. And they had this big or I'm it's attempting to establish itself. They took over the local rec stuff. Everyone got edged out of the use of the local gyms, which were the old schools that had been consolidated into the big, you know, state run consolidated high school. but we had all these little local gyms and there was this thriving local league run by like
Dads, like literally local farmers. I mean, it was just it was thriving and it was happy and no one was upset. And they have they have come in, they have seen that we had that, and they have asked the county to basically fund like a $10 million business venture that the developers were then, you know, come in and and pay for. And there's this big blow up at the county commissioners meeting. Like, why are you doing this? No one asked for this.
I'm saying that I'm wearing my Melvin Hill Meats shirt. I wear it proudly on this all the time because he's the butcher across the street from me attempting to start a business. Whereas he is being harassed constantly by the county for all sorts of things. They just don't like him that he's a butcher. They would rather have and at this meeting they had all these they called it, you know, these virtues virtue signaling blue hairs is what that was on the TechSread. That wasn't me. Yeah. That were saying, like, well, these kids aren't learning how to swim, and they won't learn how to swim if we don't have the why.
speaker-1 (16:37.28)
And so there's businesses like this that are fighting to be able to exist versus outside interests, which are just the the way is being just grease. Cause there's I think there's a pressure from the in the county commissioner's imagination that like, well, we've got to be like Boiling Springs. Like we're behind because look, all the dads are still running this youth sports league, and that must be bad, right? I mean, it's it's yeah, so like I'm I'm watching it unfold and it seems to be that
That's terrible. Yeah.
speaker-1 (17:08.321)
That really the the men letting it happen is where it it really happens, or the sort of pressure to make it happen.
And that's where I would say like from po politically from like even to the small town level, they they're already like they've set up their entire political structure almost almost to mirror what a larger urban center would be, which is you know, again and I'm all for sub sub sub se subsidiarity, right? Like let's let the decisions happen at the local level.
But I do feel like a lot of the small local im imagination, at least with the chambers that I've talked to, with the mayors that I've talked to, they seem to still have they I don't know, I would almost say like it's a urban
Playbook. Like a playbook. They have like a playbook that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like a I think it originates from like the urban renewal imagination from the sixties and seventies and eighties that somehow has sort of held on in like, hey, we need to modernize all these small towns. Cause in the sixties, seventies, eighties, urban life was still thriving in America. And a lot of small towns were were being emptied out. That's where the centers of economic power were kind of shifting, the cold war, all that stuff. And
speaker-0 (18:32.642)
you know, a lot of a lot of the I I guess political imagination and it's you know, it's it's changing in s in different ways. I do I am optimistic about it in it in in certain areas, but a lot of local imagin political imagination still sort of has that idea that we need to look up to these you know urban centers that of course, you know, you know, just look at the news, you know, a lot of larger urban centers
mismanage things. Some even go bankrupt. Some of them have high crime. Some of them, you know, do foolish things as well. And if anything, one thing that would all you know, just off the top of my head, would probably help renew small towns is if there was you know, I'm not a libertarian, but like have a l less of a regulatory you know hoops that you have to jump through for that entrepreneur, for that small business owner. versus again
It's just the w same thing with the data center stuff, right? They're gonna pay all these taxes. It s like a lot of it's even makes sense on a a piece of paper. You know, they're going to fill up the the the taxpayer you know, reserves for twenty years. You know, we're gonna be able to allocate this and that. But it's like it's like I think all tea telologically backwards, right? There's it's like the the definition of human thriving.
of community thriving, of even individual individual individual flourishing, none of that is taken into account at these decisions. It's just to make a number go up and appear operationally efficient in some development plan survey that some outside auditor will do of the town in five years about community engagement or or or whatever those stats mean. Right? So that's
That's what I've noticed.
speaker-1 (20:28.94)
Yeah, the interesting thing about my community, and I think you would drive through and you would write a post on Substack. But what was interesting was when I got here, the reason I moved here is that they had this thing called it was like Vision 2020. And it was actually a beautiful I mean, anyone who's listening who's from Polk County, North Carolina, go read it. It's this Vision 2020 document and where they really legitimately asked the people like, what do we need? What do we like?
What would we like? You know, where all right, let's because that's the the when you get into like the libertarian question, the it's very it's a very stunted conversation because it's basically is there laws or no laws? Right which is not really the case because they're going to be laws, it's what are they ordered towards? Right. And this one simply said we would like to order them towards the thriving of small family farms in our local like history and community. That's what they asked for. And effectively, that document and that
sort of guiding principle, which was adopted and voted on like, you know, by and with the people, was completely cast out because there is no imagination. What does that actually look like? Because it's just now basically how can we like have how can we be cool like the neighboring city and just get stuff, get people to develop? How can we entice developers to come here? and it's been sad because not because
And the reason is there are places where like that might be the like your city might be gone and the best thing in the world for you might be a Walmart and a Chili's. I'm sorry. Like it just might be. but there are places where there's actually a displacement of you know, a relatively stable, contented local community that isn't asking to be developed. So how do you cause I this has come up a lot when people
articulate the word development, it's like, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Developers, they think of them as just like people that are building stuff that's needed. but I don't think that's what you mean by that. So when you say a place is being developed, what do you mean?
speaker-0 (22:29.28)
Right.
speaker-0 (22:35.842)
Yeah, a place is literally yeah. yeah, some of it is literal developers that develop these, you know, soulless subdivisions. but many of the times it's when I mean the word developer, I am saying somebody is coming here to either repurpose an existing building, which c can be neutral, right? There are some there is a lot of decay in small towns as well that does need outside capital, outside imagination even. as unfortunate
as that is. and then the other idea is that the the the main developers at least in southern Appalachia in my corner of the world which I guess I can be a little bit more authoritative is that they're coming in with selling a completely different narrative to what the town is because the town does not have like you said local leaders with imagination or even locals unfortunately
That maybe weren't trained to have that civic pride, that civic sort of knowledge of their history, of their distinctiveness, of their of their yeah, of their yeah, distinctiveness really. Like they they they just sort of I d I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's a generational thing, but it seems like there is, and obviously it's more prevalent in the younger generation, but even in the generation above mine, I would say older millennials and and and Gen X.
There's a sense of not I don't know apathy, sort of a historical apathy of the area. It's like, you know, and a a lot of the locals themselves do want suburban anemones. Again, same thing. They were not trained in that sort of I hate to use the word taste, but it's how do I put it? It's it's it's more so, yeah, just just just trained in that sort of orphous sense of having civic pride, I guess. That's like the best way to put it, right? And
I have seen that a lot. I have seen that a lot. That people people need outside imagination to hey, look, you're sitting on a treasure trove of distinct identity. Like, why aren't we teaching the people in the local public schools about this area? And I've actually seen it in Southern Appalachia, probably closer to you, Raven County, on the South Carolina-Georgia border. Like that county.
speaker-0 (25:00.93)
Does what I'm saying. Like they like a lot of the locals do have a lot of civic pride in their county. They know their county creeks and their history and all the things that make the county beautiful. And then there's a sense of protection from the locals. of course, there there's a few institutions that anchor that, which is another thing that could also actually help a lot with forming that local imagination of place.
but it does start at you know at the local level, at the family level, at the parish level, of who we are as a community. and then I contrast that with other Southern Appalachian counties that I work with and some of them, you know, I don't I don't know who's who who I don't know who's on the wheel of like sort of narrating the town in the future. But if nobody's on the wheel, it's again, like I said, those third party, I don't want to use the word opportunist, but like
It's there for the taking. And somebody could just come in and buy all of downtown and we're gonna be the next Gatlinberg, right? We're we're gonna be a data center community, you know, we're gonna be, you know, this is perfect because there's a ton of traffic. Let's put every franchise in the world here. yeah, and just small things like you know, one community I'm working with right now does not their downtown development authority does not have like a
Yep.
speaker-0 (26:26.946)
They have the state mandated historical architecture downtown protections. But if a Dollar General wants to open right next to right next door downtown, they don't sort of apply any form of design design bottlenecks. They just kind of build the same warehouse, right? Like they can easily do that. And a small thing I've seen in certain towns I visited across the country.
There like Cashiers North Carolina's a good example. If a franchise wants to open there, which I don't think they have any franchises, but let's just say they did, in their community d development plan, the franchise has to respect the Appalachian look. They have to use natural stone. They have to, you know, their sign can't, you know, like like s like sometimes even ban billboards. Like it's those small things that you can sort of build into the like.
community plan as a local law and and these developers I mean these national brands have to respect that obviously but yeah I I feel like I went on a rant there about also
No, that's I know. I had a friend, I don't know the author, but there was somebody who was a probably of the same ilk that we're discussing. And he said, America lost its soul when it allowed billboards up and down the highway, which is something to tower above the natural beauty and to rain down without your permission an advertisement for something you didn't know you needed, right? Like there is something and we we drive by these things and we don't think how hideous it is. but what like when you're driving through and you can see
The mountains of Appalachia. Except there's a there's a there's a sign for the Chick-fil-A in the way. Like the the how did we let that happen? Is is a really astounding thing. So then, all right, all right, now we're just rambling. It sounds like aesthetics, but it's important because you use the word like generational, you know, you're using the word inheritance, generational. On the one hand, it's easy for me to go, well, of course I know how this happened, because if everyone's online getting the narrative of life.
speaker-1 (28:37.378)
And your kids are on the phone and your kids are on social media. And this I'm I sound like such a fuddy duddy just ran. But like if that's who's telling the story, then yours gets disappeared because then you're part of national conversations and and and all these things. You're you're not attending because you're not aware of what's being given to you. But I can't help but think that the fault and maybe this is trying to decide, you know, who who you blaming here, the kids or the parents. But we've been conditioned to not create something.
That we can pass down. We have we have been conditioned. and I think I I I have a long history of telling Catholic families that if you want Catholic culture, you cannot make every family a diaspora of itself. Meaning, if you want to kill any hopes of ever having a Catholic culture, then you what you would do is condition your children to think that success means leaving, and you spend your entire
formation of your children, essentially telling them the things that are important in life, faith, family, tradition, kin. And then practically speaking, though, you prepare them to leave all that is important behind to go do something else. so I think you wrote an article, I couldn't find it, but someone had sent it to me a while back about, you know, how the the simple way to destroy a town is to send your children away. so is it in your experience it it almost
We're not we're not creating something inheritable and then we're actually not even presenting it as something that ought to be inherited. And then we're wondering, why don't we have why don't we have culture?
Yeah, yeah, no, and and specifically in southern Appalachia, it's like your senses, your eyes, are already sort of treated to a feast of like Edenic beauty in southern Appalachia. So you're you're you know, y like your main site is already sort of there, like hey, this is a place that is special.
speaker-0 (30:41.622)
And then there is the, you know, like I said at the beginning, like the archival deep America beneath the country. Like people are kind of living, like I said, in the national conversations, people are living in CNN America all the time. Like like sub sub subconsciously, they're like that's how they filter everything. Like they filter everything through sort of an airport sort of idea. If you've ever been, you know, waited in an airport lobby. It's like it's like a liminal area.
It's like a liminal area of placelessness. And not once, and again, you know, I I feel like and I've gotten accused of this, like, you're just a tastemaker, you're a tastemaking, you're just upset that people don't have your taste and the and you know, you're just upset that people, you know, don't have subtlety and all that. And it I I'll even get accused of like being a medieval person that wants to bring back a form of tutelage to the peasants so they can know and stuff.
Not not at all. I I think I think this is natural to the human. Like there's probably a creek in in a five mile radius from where you're sitting right now that has an excellent story called Jones Creek, named for somebody named Jones. Who knows what what why that was named there? It was a logger, it was a person had a you know cabin there, whatever. Those small thing again, like the forgetfulness for me is a wound to the natural condition of man.
That ought to know what's in his garden. That ought to know what's in his garden, which is where he lives, in his community as well. And the fact that somebody, and I actually started making videos about this on Instagram, is the the fact that somebody's more familiar with a distant national park, not to take anything of the sublime and the beauty and the grandeur of the Tetons, for example, but the fact that somebody knows more about national parks than they do of their local topography as
undramatic as it may be, I think is just another example of that wound, of that wound of placelessness. so yeah, I would say, you know, of course, there's a need to leave if there's more economic opportunity. Truly there is decay at the local level. and, you know, there's remote work and then there's, you know, people moving back, buying buildings and being the first sort of people to
speaker-0 (33:07.44)
lead lead the revival, that does take courage. That's obviously, I don't think it's for everybody, but it does take courage to go back to to your small town. But I think there's also, you know, I come from a business background, like there's a lot of economic opportunity as well being the first mover, being the first person to sort of be the steward of the downtown. You have no idea right now how many small towns have nobody on a on a downtown development
downtown development authority. and those things are funded by local taxes. Like there's it's a st well in Georgia it is. It's like state law. You have to fund stuff like that. You have to meet. You have to have somebody that lives in the area on those boards. Some of them don't can't can't even muster enough people to have a board. Like all these small things, once a town grows around it because you're able to narrate it with it, because you're there, you live there, you have skin in the game.
you can sort of help narrate that to make it a more distinctive place. And in the world of AI slop of you know, of just endless mass consumerism of that monoculture, distinctiveness is valuable, just as beauty is. But distinctiveness is valuable. There's only one you know, there's only one Bozeman in the world, there's only one Chattanooga in the world, there's only one, you know, Highlands, North Carolina in the world. They're not
God's not making any more of these places. so same thing with a small town. It might not have the dramatic beauty, but it's it certainly has its beautiful identity, its richness, its its its own tr its own distinct traditions that people go for and are known for. And I think there's a lot of opportunity in that as well. So
Yeah, because I I think people could think, well, you're like anybody who's like some remote job, okay, well, that's not legitimate. This place was built by these farmers and that. It's like, okay, but actually, listen, there is built infrastructure that is vacant, that could be inhabited. Right. And if you've ever watched a beautiful old home in the country decay, not because that nature was hungry to to consume it in kudzu vines, which it is, but simply because no one was there.
speaker-1 (35:18.668)
It is better to have someone there with an affection for the place than to have no one there. And someone has to respect and this is where outside development can't have affection for the means of for the the place. They see you know, standing reserve, as as Heidegger would put it. They see something that could potentially be of use and they don't see the big picture. So I was trying to think of how to describe like Ian McGilchrist's you're the attention that you give the world creates the world.
is what is how he would describe it. And so example would be right over here to my right, there's a row of giant pine trees. And I could see in them, well, they're eighteen inches at at DBH, diameter at breast height. they're clean on four sides, which means they have no branches. So they're like highly valuable lumber. Right. So as a developer, I could see that's highly like that's what that is.
But that's a that's a very limited form of seeing. The bigger picture is there's a row of trees that was planted by a man a generation ago to encase a backyard so that it would have shade. There's a thick layer of pine needles that now acidifies the soil to make the azaleas and the hydrangeas bloom. And specifically the hydrangeas bloom blue because of the pine trees, because they lower the acidity, which makes them blue, right? Feeling low, feeling blue, hydrangeas, you remember that. And then now I have the reality that that man's vision.
Now in cases, the backyard where kids could potentially my grandkids actually could play in the shade. That's not romantic. But people if I were to list all those things, they say, Well, that's subjective romantic nonsense. Because they can only view things as the reserve of something of use and control. There's actually no everything I just said is true. I mean, but what it the truth it brings is it brings meaning.
And that's where people are uncomfortable talking about their places as having a meaning, because once something has a meaning, then you have a responsibility for it. Yeah. If it's just useful or not useful or profitable or not profitable, you have no responsibility for it. And I find that people that live in a place and love the place and the people that are there, they have responsibility because they see everything. Whereas someone who only sees its usefulness, well, they're willing to extract and kill and destroy in the name of putting it to good use. Right.
speaker-1 (37:40.002)
And it's not and it's not and then it's not available anymore. Then it's gone.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, and yeah, no, and and back to the back to the point, like, you know, I do think there's an economic argument, like you said, like there's already the infrastructure is there. Like one of the towns I'm working with right now, I'll just say Chatsworth Chatsworth, Georgia. my goodness, they have, in my opinion, one of the most scenic backdrops in the entire state. They're at the basically where the Ridge and Valley kind of
Let's go and let's a Blue Ridge Mountain start. beautiful and for a long time now, you know, it's just been nothing but pawn shops and, you know, subways and and you know, just just for I you know, like I would always say, Man, I wonder if they know what they're standing on, like what land that they're living on is standing on. and I know a lot of them are locals and some of them, you know, a lot of them it's like out of out of state.
carpet mills that have just you know use the empty space there and taken advantage of the low cost of living to get labor and stuff. and that's one of the you know again I I feel like there's just probably hundreds of small towns that have that sort of available infrastructure for the yeah for the taking again. I've I've I've seen that described in more sort of
Capitalist opportunist language before, and that's kind of not what I'm advocating either. Like, don't just go take advantage of a small town. Much better if you have a link to the town. Like if you're actually from the small town, maybe your daughter was born there, maybe, or I mean, or maybe you were born there and you left, or your family was, or at some point somebody in your family tree was much better. It's just yeah, I would I would say there's an economic argument there as well.
speaker-1 (39:38.894)
Yeah, I think there's definitely something that that really needs to be said because it's sort of in the world of homesteading that I, you know, I I deal in is that everyone is discounting anything you do because well that's not how they did it back then, right? So my I call it the blood sausage story. Like I moved to a homestead and I killed my first pig, and like any good millennial, I posted a picture of it on blogger, right? What else are you gonna do?
for my friends back in the city. And somebody responded, but you're not making blood sausage. Which I didn't collect the blood to make blood sausage. And I remember thinking to myself, Well, what the hell? Can I just kill this pig without like not being enough? Right. And so there's this sense of if you try to do anything that brings back connection, people feel it as a sort of rebuke of everything else. That you actually can't, you just if you're not
Going along with the monoculture, with the way things are. If you're trying to challenge it at all, it's not legitimate because they think of things on a timeline. Right. So you're here, you can't do things that they did here. You have to do it the way we do here. And I think that idea has to be rejected. because it it will inevitably lack either lack creativity or it will create people that are legitimately just cosplaying something.
and both of those are a failure of the imagination. You'll end up doing nothing except just going along with the thing that we know is destroying us, the machine, the monoculture, the you know, mass culture, whatever you want call it. and I think it's important for people to have permission to say, hey, you have a new creativity, you have new tools, but you are allowed to return to the built infrastructure of your ancestors and work creatively with an open imagination on on a place where the story, the narrative, the inheritance.
The rootedness can continue. And it provides another option besides Walmart, Chili's, Aldi's, Dollar General, Chick fil A, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I mean, there's or actually it's it's it's the invasion of the chickens in my area. There is an intersection in a town near me that has a Popeye's chicken, a Chick fil A, a Zaxby's.
speaker-1 (42:05.718)
In a KFC. Yes. All in the same intersection. I'm like, how many dead chickens are in this intersection right now? it's a it's amazing. But anyway, I think we have to tell people your creativity
my goodness.
speaker-1 (42:20.01)
Matched up with your affection, meaning your love for a place, is what that place needs. And don't let people discount or dismiss. because I remember I had this there was this old farmer I went into a a feed store and he was in there fussing about me. And you know what he's he was fussing about was I had pigs. And he said, When I was a kid, we didn't just have pigs in the yard and we just dumped feed to them, we grew the feed.
That we gave him. And I engaged this man in conversation and he ended up being our best friend and best advocate. Cause what he really missed, he wasn't mad at me. He was mad at what was lost, a way of life that was lost. Yeah. And he ended up being someone who was there when we were doing hog slaughter and like all this stuff. But there was a certain thing that like he had lost all of that cultural inheritance and infrastructure. Right. And he was mad at anyone that was doing anything.
but when we showed him some affection and then he showed some us some affection, he became like our greatest ally. I mean, we're at his house, he's dead now. He's just our greatest ally. He died in his garden, which is a place I want to die. He's a beautiful man, but it was the pain, it was it was the pain that he felt of knowing something was lost, and here we were recovering it. And there can be a resentment. the way you go to like a traditional ma a traditional you know liturgy, and the old people are the ones that are mad.
And I think it's because they're sick of this family in front of them with all these stupid kids in front of them because they lost all their grandkids and none of their kids practiced the faith. And they're like, can we just continue doing the crap that like we like? the person that's actually doing something different and and passing on the inheritance is an annoyance to them. That there's on the one hand, it's like, well, a few good funerals will make this parish better, but there's also like we can love them and and create those bonds of mutual care and affection.
And the important part is like you are doing something. Don't let people dismiss your imagination that has a better imagination and and a better impulse than success.
speaker-0 (44:28.272)
absolutely. And if anything, it's the counter cultural thing to do now. So it's actually cool to do things that are sort of against you know I guess status quo if we'd use that word, right, in this in this regard. and it's and and it's again, I I say that we're generational because I do think because there's not institutional trust
that has eroded, which I I I think it has at at a societal level. But I think people in the future, maybe out of desperation, are gonna have to be open to these sort of better ideas from people with more imagination. because again we keep seeing these wounds, you'd call you know, pimples if you want, like in different in different avenues of life, even like from like a left lib sort of standpoint.
the the arise of organic foods and and and farmers market, which is like left coated, even though you know it predates that. But in Bozeman, for example, the best farmers market I've ever been to in my life that felt like an actual farmers market with actual farms selling stuff, not just shampoos, was or soaps or whatever they are, goat soap. was in Bozeman and it and yet and it was left coated if you want to kinda coat it that way, even though
We shouldn't be coding everything left right, but those are all, I guess, the wounds er everybody wants to return to this type of life, regardless of the background. Everybody knows the path we're headed on. This omega point of monoculture is anti human. It is teleologically unlivable, in my opinion. It i I mean, look at the birth rates. I mean, it's literally it's like we're in captivity. We're like
in Babylon right now, literally in Babylon. so this countercultural thing, like hey, come to this sort of small town, this arc of living. and go again, all that takes it takes capital, of course, like none of this is free. but like you said, the infrastructure is there and and it just takes some courage and imagination. And there are several, several small towns that you could almost run like a s minor lord.
speaker-0 (46:54.634)
and you will be the first one people come to because you're the one that took the bet on this small town. You're the one that opened the business, you're the one that started to give a hoot about the downtown, about standards. You are the tastemaker in that town. Therefore, you are the one setting the narrative about the ch is sometimes don't even have a chamber of commerce. Like you just start that nonprofit yourself. You're the chamber of commerce of this area, and then suddenly you're the one that controls that institution, that organization.
I mean there's a ton of I mean, I thought about it myself. If if if I had a a twin I would have already took over a few small towns myself and a million dollars or whatever. But
Yep. No, it's true. I think yeah, I have a friend he calls it I I don't know if he calls it this, but when he articulated his vision, it's the good King Wenceslos option, which is there are people with with means that all it takes, all it takes is the virtue of magnificence, which is to move in with those means and to set the standards and to set everyone up to to ascend to those standards. It's not the same thing as type.
Tycoon control. It actually is more like aristocracy. Yeah. Meaning someone is there. And the thing about the aristocracy that's better than oligarchy. and we have, I mean, aristocracy is everywhere. It's everywhere. Is that someone gets to set the standard and to provide the leadership and the vision and the economic means help, you know, and and they maintain a prudent control.
over resources that protects and provides for the people. And that's like I know that that's probably a stretch for some people listening. Like it's not an option. But it's apt it's how
speaker-0 (48:44.812)
Well I mean it it it's better than a distant oligarchy which we do have in this country of some New Jersey corporation making the decision to do something to your small town, open a data center.
It's The biggest investor, not directly in my county, the county adjacent to me. the one who is putting the most money into the area is a we know who it is. It's a man in California that he's just kind of honed in. This is a good place for development. And he does this. This is like you can I mean the the records are there. He goes in a place, he builds a bunch of stuff, he heart he extracts from the land its value in the form of development, and then he moves on.
So that is not the person. And people in my area, they have a hard time as sort of they have a native thought pattern of libertarianism. Well, I don't want to tell you what to with their land. So, but that's not the same because that's not his land at all. in the in the in the common sense that we actually understand my land is not just my property that I can do whatever, it's my property that I can steward and care for in a in relationship to where it actually is. It's not as if this is a moon.
floating around a planet and I can do it and it's not gonna affect anybody. Like it affects everybody. I mean it affects everybody.
Yeah, I know, and especially if they're building ugly places, there is probably a atomic atomic effect of be like of walking into Walmart, for example. which I wrote in my Metaphysics of Walmart. spiritual a spiritual you know, gravitational pull. but but yeah, I mean it yeah, especially anybody with the means
speaker-1 (50:18.584)
That's a great article.
speaker-0 (50:31.178)
i in a sense it's like a noble obligation to sort of edify your town. You know, tutelage is a bad word nowadays, same thing, you know, it's too aris aristocratic, but I do think you know, hu human societies, especially in the cultural desert we're in now, we do need tastemakers, we need people to yeah, with with imagination.
People with imagination and you go get that imagination not out of empty space, but out of the archives, the deep America, the the the country that is living underneath the existing country, like the archives basically. And and there's plenty to be had. There's I have a newspaper.com subscription, and it's like one of my favorite things to do is just search keywords in about newspapers in the area I'm like interested in, and it's just
So many fascinating characters and stories, and I'm like, I'm probably the first person to read this story in years, potentially, right? Is this story gonna die just in some server somewhere? Like all these things conform that civic pride, that civic distinctiveness, that something happened here. but yeah.
And that it ha and that it has meaning. And now if it has meaning, you have responsibility for it. To your point about that's that's the problem with finding meaning in something. You have responsibility. as in your rust your ability to respond to the meaning, right? There's gonna there's there's gravity that comes with it. To your point about people feeling icky, it's what's about like investing locally. What's funny is that the the option though, like what happens, all right. Let's just say there are rich people in your community.
They are compelled to do what responsible rich people do, which is to put their money in the market. So that so then they extract the money, they put it in the global marketplace. It gets passed around the corporations that use the capital to develop places. So why why are you using why are you having the middlemen that cannot care? They can't and this is, I will, I will say this and no one can I'm sorry, you cannot contradict me. This is true. They cannot have affection and love and care for the place.
speaker-1 (52:46.434)
They can put parameters of their moral standards, but they are beholden to the shareholders to turn money into more money. That's what that's what they're constituted to do. You can make the same returns by being creative and investing that in your place. And that is that's actually not an option amongst other options. That is your obligation. Yeah.
You are compelled morally to do that because when you abstract it away from people that you're supposed to care for and love and build and and and cultivate and to elevate them higher, when you abstract that from them and put it somewhere for your own gain and not theirs, you are now in enmity with your neighbor because of your wealth. So why are you not anyway, I'm sorry, that was a ramble. all right, Javier, what's the what's the I'm sorry, if this is too personal, what's the ages and stages of your family?
I have a one year old daughter and I just yeah. I'm thirty. I'm thirty I I'll turn thirty one on Christmas this year. So yeah, I'm I I just left my twenties, my nostalgic twenties, so I'm I'm I'm learning how to be a dad now of a toddler.
Well, I I can prophesy you'll probably turn thirty-two at Christmas the following year. So how when you think about your family and your own fatherhood, I couldn't help but notice you know, you've you've moved around some. And right now this is some abstraction, but like how have you thought about if this is not a if this is a discovered mode of thought that you have now,
Has it already shaped and how do you think it's gonna shape your your role, your vocation as a father?
speaker-0 (54:31.116)
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. And I yeah, I so so I was born and raised in Calhoun, Georgia, which is in the Ridge and Valley. and adjacent to us is the Blue Ridge Mountains. But I was raised in the valley. I'm not a mountain boy. although I did go to the mountains growing up. and for me, I guess through the process of unraveling of moving, I actually lived in a cabin in the wilderness in National Forest, fixing it up.
literal middle nowhere. No like the valley where we lived got electricity like in the 70s. Nobody lives permanently in the valley. It was awesome. at the time. and it probably in one of the most remote areas in North Georgia. through through the time of like having to go into the town that basically to go get supplies, the town of LJ
I started sort of becoming a little bit more aware on what made that town so distinct than the hometown that I had grown up in. Cause my town had been colonized by carpet mills, you know, companies owned by Berkshire, Hathaway, Shaw, Mohawk, just large Fortune one thousand five I I think Mohawk's Fortune five hundred company. so the economy was always sort of like
Down to the chamber was always sort of managed by them, basically. Hey, this is a carpet capital or carpet corridor, which yeah, there's a sense of pride, right? And that's that's the labor and stuff. But they have not been they have extracted labor from my hometown for generations. And they have not been good stewards of the wealth that they've extracted from the town. In fact, sometimes
I would feel like an air of, you know, like they're here and they're providing the jobs and we just have to do everything around them. Like we have to name the park after them. We have to do, you know, they've not they've not, in my opinion, invested into the town. And and now it's gotten so worse that come to find out, the industry has poisoned the entire water table of the valley to keep us. and then and then I saw how the local leaders
speaker-0 (56:56.704)
all Republican but at the state level, you know, they're trying to pass a bill of immunity for these for these carpet mills and
Protect them. Protect them. They were given jobs. You gotta protect them.
Exactly. So and you know, I have tried to work with in you know my town. they're just I I I don't know. I've I I've you know, I don't know, I feel I feel like I've been exiled from my own hometown in trying to do stuff there. But in the time when I lived in the cabin and I went and you know would go get groceries and stuff at this other town, I developed such a fondness fondness for that little town and
I love what they were doing and and they have their problems too. They're if you ever been to LJ, Georgia, beautiful town. a big agro tourism culture there. A lot of farms, a lot of wilderness, a lot of you know, I love to fly fish, so there's a lot of stuff to do there. and yeah, I just you know, I just felt like okay, I need to protect that. It's good right now. I need to make sure this never gets swallowed up.
By the Atlanta suburban sort of appetite that's just been growing north and north and north. so I guess now my goal I am back in Calhoun right now. I'm living with my in laws. and we're in the process of getting mortgage right now. my goal is to move back to that small town and just get more involved in the in the in the local politics of the area, in the development sort of because there's a lot of developers that have already carved up part of the county from Florida mainly.
speaker-0 (58:33.902)
selling the mountain retirement dream. But yeah, that's my goal there. And then while I do that, you know, I started like a little consulting practice called Townward. Go goTownward.com. And I basically engage with small towns, storytelling, narrative. It can lead to a chamber website. It can lead to an essay. It can lead to hey, you know, stop using the sort of tourism chamber slop language of this is a great place to live and you know this is a, you know,
live work play like the standard boilerplate template that every small town describes itself as and use something distinctive and that's kind of what I do there. so yeah I don't know. I just I just I just wait on the big rant.
Well, no, well I I intend to point people in my local community to your work 'cause that I'm just they use the same cliches. I mean the same old play b as I say, the playbook. I mean, I've been involved just in the form of attending enough local politics. You know, this really is where it happens. And that's I guess I would encourage our listeners, like as men, get involved. Like local like local politics is politics. Is that that's still true? Javier, I'm gonna send people then to ex outheart to your sub stack.
And to is it Townward? Go. Yeah. GoTownward.com. I really appreciate you being on the Sword and Spade podcast. Thank you for your time. And if any listeners out there want to join with men that are beginning with themselves, their own families, their own communities, and actually building the social cultural
Yeah, go townword dot com.
speaker-0 (59:56.95)
Absolutely Jason. Thanks. Thanks so much for being
speaker-1 (01:00:11.056)
infrastructure that is inheritable with their kids, I highly encourage you and beg you come and join us at Fraternist, become a subscriber. you'll get Sword and Spade magazine where we feature excellent authors like Javier. and you'll get your daily Sword and Spade to cultivate virtue within yourself and your home so that you're actually capable of building something worth living in and building something worth protecting with the sword and cultivating with the spade. So thank you for listening to Sword Spade Podcast and thank you, Javier, for being here once again.
Thanks is