It's a better place than even you think it is
by Massimo Pigliucci
It is hard for me to believe, but I have lived in Knoxville for eight years now. Even more unreal is the idea that I will be leaving in a few months, heading to Stony Brook, Long Island, where I got a new job that is as exciting as it will be demanding. It has therefore arrived for me to take the time to pause and reflect, and to say goodbye to my Metro Pulse readers (the few that may be left by now).
Because of a complex intertwining of personal and professional reasons, this is a mixed occasion. On the one hand, frankly, I do look forward to living in a place where—although conservative by northeast standards—Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1. On the other hand, it is precisely because of the Southeast's obsession with conservative values and religious fundamentalism (Why is it that the two go together, anyway?) that I have been involved in the local community much more than has ever been the case in my life. The idea of writing scores of articles to generate a bit of discussion among my fellow citizens, as well as to clarify my own ideas, had simply not occurred to me before.
Knoxville is a much better place than both outsiders and many locals think it is. Despite its awful sprawling, it has a charming constellation of parks and greenways, and regardless of the fact that downtown and the Old City are forever struggling to stay alive, they keep offering an attractive variety of sights, smells, and sounds.
TDOT continuously plans on expanding useless and costly highways around Knoxville, but our public transportation system keeps improving, and it ain't bad for a relatively small town where there are an almost equal number of car dealerships and churches. It is one of the 10 most polluted cities in the United States, but it's also the gateway to the Smoky Mountains, the Cumberland Plateau, and countless rivers where one can hike or canoe to one's heart content.
And not only that: Knoxville and Knox County have a pretty conservative slate of government officials and elected representatives, yet recently even they were able to defeat a silly resolution claiming that every American ought to recognize that our government is inspired and guided by God (incidentally, given how badly our national government is doing recently, I would be careful in pinning it on the Almighty).
Knoxville, as we all know, has been poised on the brink of making the leap from a charming provincial town to a big "destination" ever since the 1982 World's Fair. Alas, despite Mayor-elect Bill Haslam's claim that this is "Knoxville's time," I think it is much more likely that we'll keep following the same hopeful but rather aimless path we have taken for the past 20 years. Why did you guys not elect Madeline? Why is even the Metro Pulse now in the hands of yet another rich white man who keeps assuring us that everything is fine, when it plainly isn't?
What about UT, that funny place near downtown that most people seem to think is mostly a sports complex and football arena, while it in fact hosts a pretty decent university, populated by people who care more about their students than our state representatives seem to care about education? Well, for my thoughts on that you'll have to check out a recent Daily Beacon goodbye column by yours truly (it came out on Nov. 26).
My friends have been trying to convince me to stay in K-town, on the grounds that up north I will find very little to complain about, which will take some fun and even meaning out of my life. I doubt it. I'm old enough to recognize that there is no paradise on earth; there are only places where it's worthwhile to keep fighting for a better world, and others that are better left to their natural evolution. (I count Knoxville among the first, Iraq among the latter—I don't know about New York, yet). Surely, there will be other problems and other challenges on Long Island and its surroundings to stimulate a few biting columns...
I will miss this town and (some of) its people. I have made several friends for life here, despite being an outsider with a funny accent and an even more alien view of the world. Eight years are not a lifetime, but they are more than enough to make an indelible mark on someone's psyche. For that, I thank you all, I wish you the very best, and I hope that our paths will cross again, at least from time to time. Arrivederci, Knoxville.
More of Massimo Pigliucci's ramblings can be found at www.rationallyspeaking.org.
December 11, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 50
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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