Message-ID: <32D019E4.6C2E@mind.net> Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 21:15:16 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@MIND.NET> Subject: [Fwd: Re: pushing development-] To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
B. Diamond wrote:
>
> mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM wrote:
>
> > "Developers" can't prevent the unintended consequences of their
> > well-intentioned interventions.
>
> Yet you preface all of your support for development with the notion that it will
> destroy cultures and cause pain...so why do it?
>
> > People live longer now, and suffer from fewer plagues (I know about AIDS).
> > Ordinary people by the millions are now freed for part of each day from
> > backbreaing toil, and cn spend time with a child or a book or music. Ordinary
> > people--the children of immigrants, like me, whose immediate ancestors were
> > beasts of burden, worn out early from endless and mindless work--the same
> > endless routine that you see so often in the countries where our
> > "development" hasn't yet reached.
>
> Heart attack rates have skyrocketed, cancer is rampant, sterility among men, toxic
> waste, pesticides, etc. Hunter/gatherer societies had far more free time than any
> modern culture group--despite myths to the contrary. And yes, people do live longer
> now, but then again we have exponential population growth that is out of
> control....due in large part to our embracing the capitalistic ideal that all growth is
> good because it means more profits for a few...
>
> > And as soon as Colonel Sanders puts up a sign in their town which they an
> > read they desert their authentic pubs and flock to the plastic and junk life.
> >
> > I wish it were otherwise. I wish it didn't happen in Barbados, or Kenya, or
> > Tanzania, or Mexico.
>
> So if you can't beat 'em join 'em? Rampant consumerism is inevitable, might as well
> make a living helping it along?
>
> >
> > But it does, no matter how hard our American visionaries try to prevent it.
>
> Prevent it? American corporations spend billions of dollars a year in advertising
> trying to brainwash everyone into being a good little consumer.
>
> B. Diamond