Can We Please Select Another Criticism Besides “Imperialism/Colonialism”?
The Good Blog brought to my attention yesterday an editorial that appeared on FastCoDesign.com – “Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?” – inked by Bruce Nussbaum, former assistant managing editor for Business Week. There are, to say the least, some excellent comments that follow the piece (be sure to read them). In the VolunTourism Community, this kind of drivel is nothing new. I’ve seen it from countless corners of the globe, and you know what, I’m tired of it, frankly. Critics need to come up with another argument, one with some teeth, no less.
What most critics of VolunTourism, humanitarian design, and any other effort that is indeed geared towards achieving prosperity for others, instead of solely looking after self, is that we are in a transition period here. This stuff looks awful from the outside while you sit in your barcolounger and take pot shots at it. There is no exact science here. This is a new language of the heart that is trying to be introduced on a global scale, and I’ll be damned if the first time any of us tried to start speaking as wee pups, we didn’t sound like a bunch of ‘blah, blah, blah,’ as we made those ‘disastrous’ attempts. What do you think crying is? As awful as it sounds, it is a means of communicating. And, in my opinion, VolunTourism, humanitarian design, and all of these other efforts to improve the living conditions we collectively experience on this planet are our first attempts at communicating this new language.
No, it is not pretty. And, yes, it looks like the same old imperialism and colonialism of the West going East and the North going South. But I am here to tell you that it isn’t the same. This is not the same old same old. This is global consciousness at work. This is the real ‘dirty job’ of trying to become a global citizen, with a worldcentric view as one goal on a journey toward a much larger view. And when you are surrounded by a host of folks who tend to think only of themselves (egocentric) or of their own cultures and nations (ethnocentric), you have to get accustomed to being seen as the ‘bad girl’ or the ‘bad guy’ with, at best, good intentions. Let the persecutions begin and the flogging ensue!
I know for certain that not every voluntourist or every designer that embarks on these efforts has a worldcentric view, but they are making the effort, an effort that counts. If we keep spending our time using paradigms of the past to judge the present and the future, we are in for a rocky, rocky road. (And they don’t call these journeys ‘the road less traveled’ for nothing.) Let’s see if folks like Mr. Nussbaum and others who are being critical of these attempts can put the same amount of energy into assisting pioneering individuals in doing what they do even better. “Some people try to stand taller by cutting off the heads of others,” as Swami Sri Yukteswar and other great sages remind us. Lopping off good intentions for the sake of holding onto a dying paradigm is the worst, if you ask me, it is the worst kind of colonialism and the worst kind of imperialism.
So to the critics of VolunTourism, humanitarian design, and other equally compelling efforts to change the status quo, I say relax, take a load off, and peruse the following words of Anton Ego, the restaurant critic from the movie Ratatouille (2007):
….In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends…”
Taken to heart, these words may come in handy in shifting criticism from the worst type of colonialism to become something of great value when it is delivered with wisdom and sincerity and with an attempt to support the growth and development of ‘the new’. ‘The new needs friends…’ indeed.
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