We the People: Forest, Trees, or Roadside ZoonPeter Davis: Hometown: A ContemporarynChronicle; Simon & Schuster;nNew York.nJohn Shelton Reed: One South: AnnEthnic Approach to Regional Culture;nLouisiana State University Press; BatonnRouge.nby Marion MontgomerynJreter Davis’s Hometown is anstranger’s imposition of ideas aboutn”America” upon a local community ofnsome 63,000 unsuspecting souls; fromnthat community he selects some 12 specimenncitizens to stand for the whole—notnmerely the town, but the whole country.nA writer/producer for CBS, Mr. Davisndisguises his abstractionism with a techniquenpethaps learned from fictionnwriting or journalism courses or his experiencenwith TV docudramas. He presentsnhis material as if it were empiricalnobservation untainted by subjective distortions,nbut he gives it the immediacy ofnnarrative technique—a deadly combinationnof pretense and method.nMr. Davis sets out to “map the passionsnof one American town,” whichnsounds like hype for a new movie or soapnopera. Since it is passion he is after, hentakes a curious approach—he consultsnthe Census Bureau: “Tell me where I canngo to combine categories of social researchnwith techniques of storytelling.nWhere I can observe activities the way annanthropologist might, as Robert andnHelen Lynd did in Middletown, andnthen tell about them as Sherwood Andersonndid in Winesburg, Ohio. ” Such antask would require of the researcher thenformal training of the sociologist and thentalent of a fiction writer before he couldnhope to divine any passions. But abstractionismnseems too far advanced in Davis.nHe is thus determined to locate a road-nProfessor Montgomery is the author ofnWhy Flannery O’Connor Stayed Home.nside zoo that houses fauna he maynfeature as representative of a hemisphere.nDavis’s requirements, presentednto a kindly wizard at the Census Bureau,nmeet a kindly tesponse: Hamilton, Ohio,nis fingered. Why? As the Census Buieaunnecfomancer tells Davis, his townn”should have a population between fiftynand one hundred thousand since belownfifty the complete array of situations andninstitutions is lacking, and above onenhundred the community becomes tooncomplex. … The town should be northernnenough to be industrial, southernnare the lives of the two outlaws who occupynso large a portion of the book? Andndo the ladies of Hamilton speak so openlynabout their most private family andncommunity matters to drifting Easternersnwith pad and pencil in hand? Andnabove all, since the authenticity of thisnstudy is in question and the words reallynspoken by the selected specimens arensupposed to demonstrate objective reality,nwhy do the citizens of Hamilton tendnto speak with Harvard refinements andndiction? At a wedding reception a bitternold working-class grandmother and vari-n”The harm that can be done by rigid morality conjoined with political power—a holynalliance that has now surfaced in our national politics—is indelibly set down in PeternDavis’s book.”n—Richard LingemannPsychology Todaynenough to have a gentle rural aspect,nwestern enough to have once been on thenfrontier, eastern enough to have a past.”nDavis—like Goldilocks with the bears’nchairs, porridge, and beds—finds Hamilton,nOhio, “justright.” Whatthebearsnhad to say about the intrusion is anothernmatter; an appendix (unedited) of responsesnby the subjects of this “study”nwould be interesting.nMr. Davis’spresumptionisthatmanisna cteature environmentally determined,nwith some slight modification by heredity—especiallynif he is of Appalachiannorigin. The wizard’s geonecromancy,nthrough which the ideal place is pinpointednon the map, is further demonstrationnof the implicit determinist presumptions.nAs Davis isolates individualnspecimens from the Census Bureau’sn”culture,” one feels as if he is watching anspecies of TV headache commetcials. Wenwatch thtough a one-way mirror, whichnis Davis. Wliat we see is neither the controllednobservation of the anthropologistnnor the enlargement of life that is thenprovince of the fiction writer. We have,nin other words, a brief visit to a Hamiltonnzoo. How representative of 60,000 soulsnnnous telatives on both sides bring up oldnquarrels with such candid openness thatnone becomes suspicious. Then there is anstriking paper-mill worker who is nearlynas articulate as Ciceto. Good Lord,ndeliver us from the “science” that wasnpracticed on the good folk of Hamilton,nOhio.nVl’hen we turn to John SheltonnReed’s One South, we come to quite anotherninterest, one justifying our attention.nInstead of an outsider imposing anformula in the interest of a project, wenhave in Mr. Reed’s work a native’s attemptnto define his home country, tonunderstand it for himself and his readers,nand to explain it to his professional peers.nWhat does it mean to be a Southerner?nMr. Reed of Tennessee, a professor ofnsociology at the University of NorthnCarolina, seems less than comfortable innhis efforts: there is in the book a dis-easenwhich I applaud. Mr. Reed understandsnsociology to require that he stand asidenfrom—indeed outside of—his homencountry if what he has to say is to bencredited by his professional colleagues.nThe sociologist is expected to rise abovenJanuary 1983n