Why do citizens care about their reputation, but not what strangers think?

armouror

Very Few people know anything about me including my friends so Strangers know Nothing about Me no matter what they claim so why would i care what they say which is Obviously Lies

CrustyCurmudgeon

The don't have to, or aspire to interfacing with strangers or making friends of them.

Impaled

I've never read that Twain story until now. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I think the term you're looking for is "myopic." I am physically myopic, and probably far too often metaphorically such. In that story, though, the latter is the point. The citizens of Hadleyburg had their minds set on what right and wrong, good and bad is. They had their dogma, and they were trained not to depart from it. When a man came to town whom they mistreated, they were so ensconced in their own way of thinking that they couldn't even recognize that they had done harm to another human being. That's the hallmark of religious and dogmatic thinking. The citizens of Hadleyburg were taught what they were taught, and were never taught to consider whether or not their actions actually caused harm on others. That lead to the harmed man exploiting their ignorance... and rightfully. Twain was pointing out how lazy ignorance and blind obedience actually harm people. That's something people like McConnell, Cruz and Trump have never even come close to understanding.