If we adopt the traveler’s strategy of looking for Brand Name establishments, then instead of getting to know our towns and growing connected to them, we’re effectively choosing to dissociate from them—willfully opting to pay more attention to the advertising messages of national brands than to the literal reality of what’s really out there for us to sample.

We’re also inflicting significant damage on the aspirations of local entrepreneurs who are trying to engage us. And by doing this, we’re contributing to a climate of gigantism in which our own chances for independent endeavor are diminished.

Considering what’s at stake, it behooves us to at least try the little shop’s coffee.  

Or the lesser-known local manufacturer’s pasta or salsa (assuming we can even find it on the shelves of our supermarket).

If we find we like the less-known local product, then every time we make a routine purchase, we can help foster a more human-scale and nurturant environment, and strike a blow against a climate of sterile and dissociative gigantism.