It's not the business of the world to make that happen; it's the business of the people to make that happen. If they wanted it badly enough, they would have made it happen long ago. Whether we can believe it or not from our vantage point, something about the way things are done in that country suits the people.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
Well, that leads to an interesting question: whyever would such a way of doing things suit the people?
And, for the life of me, and though this is going to make me sound horribly Amerocentric and politically incorrect, even for me, I can only think of two possible answers:
1. They're stupid.
2. They're ignorant.
Call me a bigot, but there is such a thing as a "superior" cultural paradigm. And, it seems to me, a culture that yields per capita real purchasing power which is between 100 and 10,000 times greater, nutrition that is substantially higher, and life expectancy on the order of half again as long, is in fact culturally superior to one that does not.
Now, as to #1, I refuse to accept it. That Haitians have done stupid things, I expect. But more than people in general do stupid things. I think not.
Which, then, leaves #2. And, alas, that could be the case.
And, if it is ignorance operating, then, yes, it should be the business of those who are more enlightened and affluent. Part of the reason a profoundly richer culture whose people live longer is superior to one that is not is that it enables that culture to do things that it otherwise could not. Like find ways to make the lot of those less fortunate better.
An ignorant person cannot always "bootstrap" his way out of ignorance, because he cannot always see his ignorance and his lack without help.
This point was driven home to me several years ago when I was a teaching assistant for a professor teaching one of those large lectures in "Western Civilization." As is often the case, the class collectively underperformed on the first exam. You all have heard of this kind of performance: unable to place Germany on the correct continent, failing to get the date of the French revolution within 150 years, etc etc.
After finding out from us TAs just how poorly the performance was, professor's next lecture did postmortem on the exam. And among his remarks was his assertion that the students were rather profoundly ignorant. He went on at a bit of length, explaining why he was *not* calling them stupid, why the consequences of such ignorance were something to try to avoid at all costs, etc. (This, by the way, was the same professor who first introduced to me one of the great essays on why the quality of writing matters, George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language.")
It was one of the most eloquent lectures-within-a-lecture that I've ever heard.
And guess what, it profoundly failed with an awful lot of the ignoramuses (ignorami?) in the room. I know because I had to spend most of the next discussion period trying to deal with student anger and "offense" at being inappropriately called "stupid." I know because, despite his efforts and my own, he got *crucified* two months later in his student evaluations, student after student whining about how he had called them "stupid."
I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking and talking about that lecture on "ignorance" and its aftermath. Because the complaints were too widespread to place on the fraction of the class that might be counted as actually "stupid."
And eventually I remembered something the professor told me when I asked him about it afterward. After joking about how he had the protections of tenure, he got serious and started talking about his moral responsibility as someone who had personally passed that particular barrier of ignorance. I don't remember the exact words, but he said something like this:
Wade, all of us are ignorant about some things. It's part of the nature of being human. What we don't know far surpasses what we don't know; and what we don't know we don't know is, by far, the bigger fraction of what we don't know. And the only way we ever understand the depths of our ignorance is when those fortunate to be less ignorant point out our lack. And make us clear about our ignorance.
It was one of those light-bulb moments for me. Progress comes through our escape from ignorance. And we only escape ignorance when those less ignorant point out our ignorance. Whether we like it or not.
It is a moral imperative. To the extent that the choices that "suit" the Haitians arise out of their ignorance, yes, we should do things that point out the ignorance of those choices.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)