ABSTRACT
Modern farming is condemned for despoiling the landscape and denying habitats for wild life and pleasure for residents. Small or scattered settlements which once blended with their environment are portrayed as festering sores swollen by 'newcomers' with their urban attitudes and habits. Small or scattered settlements which once blended with their environment are portrayed as festering sores swollen by 'newcomers' with their urban attitudes and habits. Rural society today fits neither the hierarchical nor the egalitarian stereotyped community. It is far from socially homogeneous and its class polarization corresponds more closely with length of residence than with a specific relationship with the land. The new symbols of community identity are overwhelmingly secular and it is the school, decreasingly under religious auspices, which has undoubtedly ousted the Church as the major institutional underpinning of village life. The concepts of what constitute 'traditional ways of life' and true countryman are thus constantly being reformulated to meet the psychological needs of contemporary society.
