Cultural Exchange

Chris in Paris at AmericaBlog asks an interesting question:

Also, is this just another rich foreigner (or foreign government or NGO) who wants to do it their way instead of working with the local community to build a solution that is more integrated with local communities?

Oh, me. The lessons of history, etcetera etcetera. Oprah's approach, in the final analysis, smacks very much of a slightly more subtle brand of the cultural imperialism of the nineteenth century (and earlier, in the case of the Spanish in America), which was really nothing more than the deliberate destruction of native cultures. While I have some sympathy for the idea that in certain areas, some cultures could benefit by changes, to be really hard-nosed about it, what gives us the right to demand or instigate those changes? Our superior morality? Excuse me?

That seems to be the quandary of the PC left, except that area of the political spectrum is not marked by particularly rigorous thought so I doubt they ever notice that little problem.

It's obvious from the results of past "interventions" in native cultures that the problems will eventually pass far beyond those peoples into the larger world, and it's not always the results of deliberate cultural destruction. Look at the use in the tropics of farming methods developed in Europe and North America: total disaster. Look at the repeated attempts to impose "democracy" on nations with no traditions that feed into that particular concept, or feed into it in a way that doesn't fit our model. Sure, the Euro-American model works fine in Europe and America, and even places like India, Japan, and most of South America (finally). But other places, with stronger cultural traditions of their own, are prey to perversions of the model that cause us to recoil in horror -- such as Iraq before the invasion.

To be really dispassionate about it, we should just let cultures develop on their own, but that's a) impossible in this world, and b) we probably don't want to have to deal with the results in some cases.

So, I think in most cases my vote comes down on the side of working with native cultures to develop solutions to problems that fit their traditions and will lead to a more stable result, mostly because it you just butt in and start making changes to fit your world view without having a clear idea of what you're replacing, you're just making a mess. That said, Oprah's school seems like a good compromise, if you want to take responsibility for mucking around with someone else's culture.

Footnote: this post by poputonian at Digby's Hullbaloo gives a native take on European encroachment in North America. I should point out that cultural disruptions do not belong purely to Europeans and Americans, nor the the recipients of this bounty always non-White. There is ample demonstration in the history of the world that it's a bedrock phenomenon, whether the means is conquest, gradual "infiltration" due to migration or other causes, or trade, and happens no matter the color or ethnicity of the perpetrators. One can see a reflection of it in the development of languages -- think about things like loan words, or even the development of a language such as English, with its Germanic roots and Romance overlays, and even the deliberate piracy of the modern version. (In this light, it's no mistake that the Jesuit missionaries who ran the mission schools on North American Indian reservations forbade children to use their native tongues.)