The Developing World: Some Thoughts...
I read a number of opinions about the developing world (ie: the third world, the south, et cetera). The gist of these opinions, as I understand them, is that the problem is, in large part, due to a culture of victimhood. I have heard this all before, I have heard victimhood and a lack of personal responsibility as the reasons behind all sorts of ills. In the case though, I don't really see it applying. In my experience, and in my reading, people in the developing world often lead brutally hard lives composed of much more work for much less pay than anything we would accept here in North America. I have never had to work a 48 hour shift at a sewing machine, I have never had to plant coffee on the side of a mountain. And, I doubt that anyone else who has spent their whole life in Canada has had to do those things either. In these images and in thousands more, I just cannot see laziness or fatalism that is supposed attend all the allegedly benighted peoples of the world. Are there some lazy or fatalistic people there? Undoubtedly, but in the same proportion as they exist in North America or Europe I should imagine.
The real laziness exists in the West. We don't want to do our part to rectify the gross inequality that exists in the world. It's very easy to shrug it off, to say that we just work harder, that we are morally superior in this way. Yet I don't think we are. We are lucky, we won the lottery when we were born. I say this with particular relevance to myself, in infancy I suffered from a medical condition that, while not uncommon, is fatal. Quite simply, if I were born in the developing world, I would have been a statistic, dead before my first birthday. That's right, dead, cold, in the ground. In this sense, I was particularly lucky to have been born in Canada, but everyone born here has really won some kind of lottery. I cannot ascribe my success, or even my very survival to any intrinsic moral fortitude of my own, I was lucky, that's all. It's the same for everyone in the West, we might cast about for some kind of objective indication that we owe our successes to our moral strength, but I doubt that. It was simply a fortuity that England and the Eastern United States had coalfields. Without them, where is the 19th century industrialization that gave those nations power? Going back further, look at where European culture developed early: The Mediterranean. Again, the Greeks were just lucky that they had ample coast line and access to many shipping routes. This is what allowed for the growth of that civilization. Athens lucked out.
In the same way, much of the developing world has been so unlucky on so many counts. And at the same time, our luck and their misfortune, at key moments, has allowed us to compound troubles in many parts of the world. In a colloquial way of speaking, we kicked them when they were down. Just because we could. We demand unequal trade agreements, we dump cheap foodstuffs on many developing nations, we do it all; and we shrug and ascribe it to our moral superiority. What other reason can there be? Europeans, and in turn, North Americans, go lucky, that's it. We are the products of historical luck. It is then, with supreme ease that we can smugly tell others that their "culture of victimhood" is the root of all their troubles. It is too convenient a means with which to absolve ourselves from our naked complicity in the troubles of the developing world. In our "Christian" culture we replace Jesus' standard of whether or not we fed the poor, to whether or not we told them off about being such victims. I find this disconcerting.
The real laziness exists in the West. We don't want to do our part to rectify the gross inequality that exists in the world. It's very easy to shrug it off, to say that we just work harder, that we are morally superior in this way. Yet I don't think we are. We are lucky, we won the lottery when we were born. I say this with particular relevance to myself, in infancy I suffered from a medical condition that, while not uncommon, is fatal. Quite simply, if I were born in the developing world, I would have been a statistic, dead before my first birthday. That's right, dead, cold, in the ground. In this sense, I was particularly lucky to have been born in Canada, but everyone born here has really won some kind of lottery. I cannot ascribe my success, or even my very survival to any intrinsic moral fortitude of my own, I was lucky, that's all. It's the same for everyone in the West, we might cast about for some kind of objective indication that we owe our successes to our moral strength, but I doubt that. It was simply a fortuity that England and the Eastern United States had coalfields. Without them, where is the 19th century industrialization that gave those nations power? Going back further, look at where European culture developed early: The Mediterranean. Again, the Greeks were just lucky that they had ample coast line and access to many shipping routes. This is what allowed for the growth of that civilization. Athens lucked out.
In the same way, much of the developing world has been so unlucky on so many counts. And at the same time, our luck and their misfortune, at key moments, has allowed us to compound troubles in many parts of the world. In a colloquial way of speaking, we kicked them when they were down. Just because we could. We demand unequal trade agreements, we dump cheap foodstuffs on many developing nations, we do it all; and we shrug and ascribe it to our moral superiority. What other reason can there be? Europeans, and in turn, North Americans, go lucky, that's it. We are the products of historical luck. It is then, with supreme ease that we can smugly tell others that their "culture of victimhood" is the root of all their troubles. It is too convenient a means with which to absolve ourselves from our naked complicity in the troubles of the developing world. In our "Christian" culture we replace Jesus' standard of whether or not we fed the poor, to whether or not we told them off about being such victims. I find this disconcerting.
posted by Dan at 4:23 PM
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