To what extent do we negotiate with Neophytes to achieve our ends?

Hill folk, uneducated mes, if you will. Snake worshipping, superstitious, four wheelin' fools? Oh, wait a minute, my primary care physician drives one of those, oh, Christ, so does his wife, his hired nurse istant- oh what may this portend? Are we in fact becoming a hillbilly- like culture merely by virtue of being reasonably well educated but ill informed?