In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill condemned government censorship on the grounds that it was detrimental to society. Human beings are fallible, and because of this John Stuart Mill argued that the only way that we could know what is true is to constantly exchange and test new ideas. Censorship, according to Mill, robbed people of their right to either experience a wrong idea or glimpse a new truth: Both are useful; wrong ideas allow people to be more confident that their ideas are right, while true ideas allow people to revise their incorrect knowledge. In this light all idea’s become valuable and any institution that stands in the way of the free exchange of ideas is only hurting society.
Mill acknowledged both political tyranny, which is easy to spot,
as it is a legitimate censorship institution, and the tyranny of thought and
feelings as enemies to the freedom of expression. The tyranny of thought and
feelings is the
social pressure exerted by the majority, and its informal status makes it much
less easy to see.
Charity has become an international effort that is largely
focused on assisting people in impoverished nations. Charity is an organization with the purist of
intentions and the last place that I expected to find any opposition to
Mill's theories. However, in the above ted talk I learned of
a problem in charitable attempts that reminded me heavily of Mill. Today charitable attempts to help those in
need in Africa are by and large failures.
Ernesto Sirolli explains that these failures are the result of charities
that don’t listen to the people that they are helping.
He begins his talk with a story of one of his first
charitable trips to Africa. He and his
peers attempted to teach an African village how to use their surprisingly
fertile land for agriculture. The land
was so fertile that the food they planted grew perfectly, and Sirolli and the
other Italian charity workers were shocked that the village hadn’t been using
the land to its fullest potential. When
the food was finally ripe, hippos came to the land and ate all the food that
had been planted, and the villagers explained “that is reason we don’t plant
food there.”
Sirolli and his team completed this project by paying the
villagers to grow food. The Africans
later explained that the reason they never spoke up about the hippo problem is
because were never asked to. Many other
projects have failed for such reasons.
Jason Sadler, a man who had never even been to Africa, started a
campaign to ship 1 million free shirts there.
Not only is there not a shortage of T-shirts in Africa but also by
donating free shirts to villages, the local textile industry is crushed. Africans can make their own shirts, but why
would they buy them, when a million free ones are being delivered to them? There are many other stories like this one
but they all of one thing in common; the charities are ignorant of the people
that they try and help. In a way this is a derivative of the tyranny of thoughts and feelings. While there is no social pressure subduing the ideas of those in need, there is very little social appreciation of their ideas.
Charities in Africa, according
to Sirolli, are either patronizing or paternalistic. In both cases the charities become ignorant
of the people they are trying to help, and develop a sense of superiority to
them. The title of this Ted talk is
“Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!”
The talk discusses the power of passion as a breeding ground of
ideas. Sirolli realizes that African
entrepreneurs will solve the problems of Africa and all we can do is help
them. Amazingly, many charities tend to
not listen to the most passionate people involved in the issue, the people that
are affected by it.
Mill was determined to teach people the value of expressing
and sharing ideas. Here we see that
value. Just as Mill believed that the ideal government would foster such unrestricted communication, Sirolli’s ideal organization (which he is working to create) talks with
local entrepreneurs and gives them what they need to make their ideas a
reality. By listening he is solving
problems. Charity may seem like our
duty; we live in a privileged country that can afford to help others in
need. However, the nature of charity has
come to yield feelings of paternalism, and some charities aren’t even
consulting the people that they are trying to help. International efforts hinge on the exchange
of ideas. One-sided charity well never
be able to solve the problems of third world countries. Those with the means don’t have the passion
to create the ideas and those with the passion don’t have the means. If we can listen to the ideas of the people
that we are trying to help, we will vastly improve our efforts to help
them. Also, we will add another piece of
evidence confirming Mill’s logic, and giving merit to the unrestricted exchange
of ideas.
Bibliography
http://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen.html
http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/
I really, really loved this post. The paternalism with which guilty Westerners try to "help" the developing world is more of a hindrance than help in many ways, as you mentioned. Another prominent example is the unbelievably bizarre KONY2012 "movement" of the recent past (seriously, what craziness was going on there?). I agree that the best thing we privileged first-worlders can do to help Africa and other poor countries is to put money where we are asked and not where our self-indulgence leads us. I'm impressed with how you tied this idea to Mill - I wouldn't have made that connection, but I think it works really well.
ReplyDeleteThinking about how the Africans didn't speak because they weren't asked to made me think about how interesting it is that censorship isn't always the factor that impedes improvement via comparing opinions. Some cultures and societies are in a sense self censoring. To Americans, this is almost unbelievable. However why express opinions in agrarian societies? Without schooling and venues for communication, it might not occur to us to express our opinions. Censorship does not just come from an oppressor, it can come from a lack of initiative too. Very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, thank you for opening my eyes to some of the pitfalls of blind donation. Another place where I think charitable work is impeded is the Islamic donation of zakat. Every year, Muslims are obligated to give away 2% of their wealth to the needy. For many years, Muslim organizations aggregated zakat money and sent it to poor Muslim countries abroad to help ease some of their troubles. But after 9/11, the FBI and CIA began investigating these organizations heavily and these zakat organizations began to refocus their efforts to the United States, such as helping out Native Americans or working in ghettos. Either way, someone is helped and good will is exchanged. But there is the twofold problem of censorship in the form of money tracking and the opportunity cost of the inability to help the poor in foreign countries.
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