Message-ID: <32C96C48.99D@mind.net> Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 19:40:56 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@MIND.NET> Subject: [Fwd: Re: Escalating philosophising] To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Message-ID: <mailto:32C921E5.71E@mind.net> Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 14:23:33 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@mind.net> Reply-To: mailto:bdiamond@mind.net Organization: Office of Environmental Affairs X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Escalating philosophising References: <mailto:961231064438_1043022879@emout12.mail.aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bitmailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM wrote:
> The first narrative is the story of the destruction of authentic indigenous
> cultures by rapacious Western capitalist cultures--principally the US--in
> search of raw materials and/or markets, plundering the South and leaving
> cultural debris in its wake.
> The second is the story your research documents: USAID and similar unilateral
> and multilateral external agencies ignorant of the need for development to
> grow out a participatory ethos who bring in their notions of what the poor
> nation needs without genuine awareness of what the nation needs and without
> grass roots participation, and foist schools and roads and dams and tractors
> on a country that doesn't need them and can't handle them, so that the money
> brings cultural destruction and little durable gain.
I belive that the connection between these two paragraphs represents the root of the problems facing so-called development projects. Now that the looting of the third world is no longer *as* morally acceptable (I say *as* because it continues, just much more covertly) we have now focused on efforts on what I see as proselytizing the virtues of a cash-based economy over traditional subsistance, communitarian economies. Essentially, we (western societies) seek out converts to our economic system that gives us A) continued access to the raw materials we need via debt, envy, and corruption, and B) self-congratulatory justification that our way (unfettered capitalism) is truly the saving grace of humanity--the irony of course is that capitalism has at best weathered only 300 years or so of human history,(during which time environmental damage i.e. species extinction rates, toxicity levels, etc. have reached unparalleled levels) whereas the indigneous cultures we now destroy with our disease have proven their viability and sustainability over thousands of years.
> The little searching that I've done does not reveal a picture in
> black and white, with indigenous development a story of virtue and success,
> and external aid a story of exploitation and failure.
While I sadly agree with the former, I think that history will inevitably support the latter.
B. Diamond