QotD: Western Perspective

But people are not Ewoks. It is not a mistake to criticize our empires of old or the continuing expression of racism and prejudice. It is not a mistake to be appalled by the wars of conquest or the incalculable suffering brought about by epidemic disease and slavery. It is a mistake to imagine the conquered peoples lived in a state of innocence before our rapacious ancestors arrived on the scene. There are two reasons the Eden story leads to error when imposed on our history or contemporary matters of policy. First, turning "the Other" into Ewoks infantilizes them. By this dodge, we well-meaning people of the West may feel guilty but all the decisions remain in our hands. From dam-building to debt-relief to "Do They Know It's Christmas?" the empires shape-shift into NGOs and the old crusading philanthropy carries on uninterrupted.

The second mistake lies in taking cultural difference for existential innocence. In so doing we mistake our myths for history; our sentiment for circumstance. It is impossible to make rational decisions on this basis. Even the relatively untroubled neighbourhoods of Paradise make West Side Story look like, well, a musical. Coke-bottles from the sky and undergraduate anthropology classes notwithstanding, the Bushmen of the Kalahari endure a murder-rate forty times that of downtown Detroit. Teaching cultural ecology for several years taught me one thing: Pointing out this sort of fact is no route to popularity among well-meaning undergraduate students. So much education has no relationship to the world as it is but a re-enactment of the world as we wish it to be. If only the wishful thinking was confined to the classroom. It is one thing for Brangelina to bring their child into the world at an armed camp and call it Eden. It is quite another to decide issues of war and peace on the same basis.

Nick Packwood, "Appreciation of Television", Ghost of a flea, 2006-08-24