I don’t think much of the term ‘movers and shakers’ (that a nearby newspaper used to describe supposedly influential people) or ‘big’ people, etc. The terms almost always exaggerate actual influence.
I am sure, though, that a combination of diverse social media, the decline of print, the shifting demographics within Whitewater, and the next generation’s unwillingness to be obsequiously deferential dooms the accurate application terms like ‘movers and shakers’ or ‘big’ people.
This is all to the good: Whitewater’s future will be incomparably better when it’s no longer possible (or even believed to be possible) for a few to insist on reserved seats at the political table, at the expense of others.
The Puritan-like insistence on one city, one culture, one view depends on a willful ignorance of our actual condition: diverse groups, by age, vocation, ethnicity, and ideology.
The careful, narrow presentations of print publications, or the imitation of the same online, haven’t – for years now – adequately described this city. The expiration date on that way of thinking passed long ago.
This thinking lingers because those who push that view benefit from it, by insisting they have a pre-eminent place, and by advancing their work without even simple review.
Whitewater’s neither a principality nor a banana republic: she’s a small and beautiful city in a beautiful, continental republic.
The undeniable end of ‘big’ is approaching in Whitewater, and it’s a welcome, indeed a very welcome, prospect. There will be lots of scrapping along the way, but the outcome is assured.
In its place: thousands, different in many ways, but none higher or lower than any other.