The Story of A-Town and B-Ville

I am glad that Connor brought this up. When I first read this story, I had to think a lot longer about it than it took me to read it, and then I had to read it again. Frankly, I still don't completely understand it. Some thoughts I had concerning the story really go back to a lot of the things we've been discussing concerning semantic environments.

First of all, the two towns were "a considerable distance from each other," and from this I would conclude that their semantic environments were different. Secondly, "the leaders of A-Town... were substantial and sound-thinking business people," while one the commissioners of B-Ville was "somewhat of an economist," maybe suggesting he had the economy in mind more than just the goals of business. The two towns also started off with completely different preconceptions, which I think played a large role. A-Town believed that giving people something for nothing would demoralize their character, while B-Ville believed that the tragedy of unemployment could happen to anybody, and their goal was not to humiliate people, but, rather, to build them up and try to help them maintain self-esteem. Even though both towns did do essentially the same thing from and outside perspective, because the towns themselves had different perspectives on what they were doing, there were two different outcomes.

More comments and clarification on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

(Emily Thompson)