Message-ID: <32C5502B.2B16@uniontel.net> Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 08:51:55 -0800 From: David Johnson <mailto:pinefarm@UNIONTEL.NET> Subject: Re: Pumps that don't work To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
mailto:Elfpermacl@aol.com wrote: >
> In a message dated 12/27/96 11:41:18 PM, mailto:hseaver@northnet.net (Harmon Seaver)
> wrote:
>
> >David Johnson wrote:
> >> The old cliche about teaching a man to fish rather than giving
> >> him a fish doesn't always work out. In Sri Lanka, some agency gave
> >> outboard motors to fishermen who used to have to spend all day rowing out
> >> in the surf to get a meager catch of fish to feed their families.
> >> With the new motors, they still settle for about the same meager
> >> catch, it just doesn't take as long. They don't, as it was hoped, catch
> >> fish for market and raise their standards of living. Possibly they feel
> >> that simply working less for the same living standard is pay-off enough.
> >> Maybe they are right.
> >
> > Actually, it sounds as if they really did the fishermen a diservice
> >by giving them motors, which cost a lot to run, even more to maintain,
> >and at the same time deprived them of the great exercise of rowing.
> >Sails might have been a more appropriate technology -- and maybe trying
> >to get them to seriously expand their age-old exploitation of their
> >environment into larger-scale commercial fishing would have simply
> >wreaked too much environmental damage. Perhaps the fishermen just knew
> >better than to do that.
>
> Or consider the theoretical possibility that people know best how to live
> their own lives and well meaning, excessively affluent busibodies who charge
> in making changes are contemptable.
>
> For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
> 1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
> consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
> permaculture training by email. Copyright, 1996, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O.
> Box 2052, Ocala FL 34478 USA mailto:YankeePerm@aol.com
>
> We don't have time to rush.
You guys could be right. Maybe it is better to just leave eveyone alone. Let them, in a phrase I read somewhere "have their being." That's pretty easy. A lot of Americans would agree with you, even on a domestic level. Most people would not wish to be called "contemptible busybodies". Why subject yourself to such abuse when even the people you are trying to help don't seem to appreciate your efforts in their behalf. As they say, "charity begins at home" which usually comes down to charity ends at home. On the other hand, some efforts to help people do seem to help and be appreciated. It doesn't seem like, because a lot of things fail, we should cease to do anything for fear of being ridiculed or deemed to be "busybodies". I don't know who it was that donated the motors. I just heard about it when I was in Sri Lanka. While it seems the program had results which the donors didn't foresee, I doubt if that would be reason to classify them as "contemptible". I view these examples of programs that went wrong as cautionary tales which can be thought about and learned from. I hope they won't be seen as "see, I told you so", reasons for pulling back from what is a noble effort ie: to help people. Merry Christmas Dave Johnson