How to Be Happy Lesson #13: Move to…

…Watertown, New York. Doesn’t this sound like a place you would want to live:

Watertown, in a remote stretch of upstate New York known as the North Country, is an unforgiving place. In winter, the snow careens off Lake Ontario and entombs the town in installments of feet, not inches. The crows arrive around the same time, in whirling flocks, to roost along the Black River. There are so many of them that city contractors have to scare them off with fireworks and lasers, a confusing spectacle of cawing and light. By January, when the temperatures can drop below –10 degrees and the wind whips up, your eyelashes can freeze together before you reach your car.

Okay, so the weather may not be great all the time, and the idea of freezing eyelashes is enough to give anyone pause. But, hey, Watertown does have several cool things, purportedly, going for it:

• It claims to be the birthplace of the five-and-dime store and the safety pin.
• It is the home of Little Trees air fresheners.
• It manufactured the first portable steam engine.
• It has the longest continually operating state fair in the United States.
• It hosts the oldest surviving semi-professional football team in the country.

Not enough yet to convince you to pack your bags? What if I told you that Watertown is “The Least Politically Prejudiced Place in America“? And, to boot, that the town resides in one of the most politically tolerant counties in the country? It’s all true.

According to Atlantic author Amanda Ripley (believe it or…no, I won’t go there),

Watertown is the seat of Jefferson County, a generally conservative place, which Trump won by 20 percentage points in 2016. But people here tend to be less likely than Americans elsewhere to say they’d be upset if a family member married someone from the other party, according to PredictWise. They are more likely to describe their political opponents as “patriotic” and less likely to describe them as selfish.

Ripley tells us that this makes Watertown exceptionable because “in the rest of America, half of Democrats and Republicans see members of the opposing party as not just ill-informed but actually frightening.” She cites other studies that say “Democrats now think Republicans are richer, older, crueler, and more unreasonable than they are in real life,” while “Republicans…think Democrats are more godless, gay, and radical than they actually are.”

Wait, it gets worse. Ripley notes that “demonization eventually bends toward violence” and, according to surveys, “nearly 20 percent of Democrats and Republicans say that many members of the other side ‘lack the traits to be fully human.’” And worse: “About 15 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats agree that the country would be ‘better off if large numbers of the opposing partisans in the public today ‘just died.’”

Yikes. I’m sad to say (really) that Monroe County, Florida, where we live, is one of the least politically open-minded counties in the nation. Watertown is sounding better and better, yet…freezing eyelashes. Perhaps we can stay here and just adopt some of the practices that make Watertown a “live and let live” kind of town.

Fred Garry, a Watertown minister, offers two not-so-secret secrets to toning down the rhetoric and acting like human beings. First, eat together: “Once you’re fed, and you’re with friends, you’re a better person.” Second, talk for a long time: “‘We talk about it long enough until we realize how much we don’t know,’ he [Garry] explains. ‘Once you realize how much you don’t know, the honest conversation comes out.’”

And as for Ripley, she comes to this conclusion:

After spending time in Watertown, I concluded that I’d rather have three-dimensional opponents than online foes, as frustrating as they may be. For one thing, I’d have a small shot at changing their mind, maybe, one day — because I’d know them and understand how they think, even when they’re dead wrong…. And even if we never change one another’s minds, which is the most likely outcome by far, then I’d still rather know real people than believe in cartoon villains.

So, How to Be Happy (or at least more at peace with your neighbors) Lesson Lucky #13 is this: Move to Watertown and get with their program, or, barring that, eat breakfast together, talk for a really long time, and check your anger at the door.

[Published originally on RatBlurt™, March 8, 2019.]