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The comment I was replying to was implying two things, one, that exposure to cultural diversity magically changes someone, and two, that rural areas lack that diversity (one could argue a third implication, that cultural diversity is the only diversity).
Both of these are wrong. If you live close to people of all backgrounds, sure, you're going to be less likely to double down on people who are culturally different than you, and I welcome this. But exposure to people all around the world isn't going to equate to, say, making you believe in raising the minimum wage or that reparations would be great as an idea. I'm not saying there aren't things that would make someone conclude such things, but there's nothing in "exposure" alone that will do that.
In their traditional senses of the words, "conservative" and "liberal" are political philosophies, two of several political philosophies, which include the likes of such things as "libertarianism", "marxism", "communitarianism", "futurism", "fascism", "socialism", and sometimes "stoicism". Imagine asking a presidential candidate a single question like "do you support civilian gun ownership", and if they give an answer you agree with, thinking "the candidate gave a liberal answer, and I'm a liberal, so I must vote for them". That's not how it works. These are fleshed out things. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if the original commenter just hated rural people (and yet I'm downvoted into oblivion for mentioning "liberal" means something more fleshed out and I end up being asked if I'm the biased one, like you're better than this, Lemmy). I'm a rural societal member (side note, rural society has its own types of diversities that are not common in urban areas, such as more tolerance to the handicapped) and I seem to get along great with the liberal cause even though I'm not a liberal (I don't know what I would be considered).
Raising the minimum wage I'd say is a "liberal" talking point, but I think reparations crosses the line into "leftist" territory (this is a common problem -- at the danger of not having read the article, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/12/stop-calling-bernie-sanders-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-liberals/).
This ties back into my whole:
~~The OP's post the comment was responding to references "left-leaning" which is a spectrum, not "liberal."~~
EDIT: I don't like how this reads. What I'm trying to convey is that liberal means a lot of things to different people, and it's got multiple definitions floating around. You may have attached ideas to that word the commenter didn't mean, and may have misplaced feelings about what it means to "be a liberal" or to "become more liberal."
I don't think they're claiming that at all. They're just saying ... to put it in non-political terms, if you've never read a mystery book before, and suddenly you're forced to, you might change your thoughts on what a mystery book is really like.
I'll give you, I think the comment is a bit too "racism" focused. The idea that exposure to new experiences might change your prior feelings is I think pretty reasonable. e.g., you have a bad experience with one mystery book, now reading some others might now change your feelings. It doesn't need to be a matter of hostility, but there is an effect that quantity can have on perception... and that's what I think "exposure" can do for a person's perspectives.
This may not be true for you, but I grew up in a poor county in rural Ohio and found myself in a public high school with (per my recollection) roughly 800 white kids, 3 black kids, and no other racial identities. Things have changed there some in the years since, but AFAIK not by much.
To "out myself" and openly discuss one of those "taboo" talking points folks reference vaguely; for me, moving to the city definitely challenged some inward racism I had. It wasn't coming from a bad place, but I just didn't have much experience with encountering (to set the scene, at night on okay-ishly lit city streets near a bad part of town where I knew people were being mugged) big black dudes (that could've snapped my -- at the time -- very scronny self in half) in baggy dark hoodies and big baggy sweats. They sure looked like what I imagined a robber to look like, they sure looked like what I saw in movies, and they were really different from the carhartt, blue jeans, and baseball hat wearing dudes I was used to; but, the more of them that I walked past without incident, the more I realized I had a warped perception of who's a threat.
It wasn't just "casual racism" though, it was also things like one of my early college friends. He was as white as can be, but he wore some seriously intense gothic clothing. When he first engaged me in class, I wasn't sure what to think, his clothes to my mind threw up red flags... SUPER friendly guy, I'm sad to say I've lost touch with him, but he was a genuinely great guy.
I agree; I can say my background doing stuff like building a vortex simulator from literal junk yard trash at my rural high school while modding Minecraft in my spare time is a pretty unique background that few others I've met have been able to match.
And maybe; more likely, they're just angry with them and lashing out a bit. I'm angry with how my "home town" has chosen to carry itself myself; I've seen lots of Democratic politicians trying to do things to genuinely try to help people, and then Republican pulling what can only be described as fraught stunts to stir up anger and piss off people in the cities or disenfranchise them. It's a hard thing our country really needs to reconcile, way too many people are "vaguely mad that-a-way."
You're an American, we all are, and that's what's important. Don't get caught up on the label on anything.