Soulful Culture – Misery endured solely for the benefit of the tourist
Help me out here. A year or so ago the blogosphere was abuzz about a blog post some British tourist wrote in which he lamented the loss of native culture in Africa and India as modernity encroached. He felt his experience as a tourist was diminished because he couldn’t witness the ancient traditions of the villagers and he couldn’t block out from view the store bought food, clothing and health-products of the villagers.
I’m reminded of this story by a comment at the feminist blog, Echidne of the Snakes:
I am afraid that the New – New Orleans will come to resemble the early days of rock and roll. Black culture/music subsumed and regurgitated by whitey for the consumption of uber-whitey.
That is why I find myself in the uncomfortable position of mourning the loss of crack-addicts, poverty pockets and the like. They made a poignant and effective buffer against the blanc-mange gentrification of everything with soul.
No matter how “negative” you might find that “social capital”, it is infused with deep spiritual and artistic depths as is abundantly clear to anyone who has enjoyed (and LOVED) the amazing music and the confluence of Christian and Santaria spirituality.
We need to keep the magical, ethnic stamp on that city. The Wild Tchoupatoulas should not be replaced by Abercrombie and Fitch and the “second line” should not be replaced by the “bottom line”.
Update: Ok, we found (thanks Razib) two more examples, beyond the excellent pointers in the comments section, that touch on this issue, but still not the one that I remember. Conrad noted Ian Mote’s insights about North Korea:
It was nice to see no Starbucks there, no advertising, no branding…. They were completely shut out and were self-reliant, and I have certain respect of their determination of their ideology.
Check out some of the comments that follow:
“Yes, brand names, marketing, etc. represent a certain amount of wasted effort in an economy. The North Koreans are much more efficient; if you’re hungry, just peel some bark off the nearest tree (unless you’re in the good graces of the party).”
“But wait; it’s sustainable starvation! Wonder how many readers of the article will figure out that there are no brands because…..There’s nothing to put brands on.“
Once again Conrad mines this rich vein, but much closer to home with this report: (Here’s the original post – this is a rant that you’ve got to read to believe, and the comments are something else too.)
This left me deeply moved, and in love with Cambodia. Completely different from Thailand where, as in Europe, everyone is too rich , too congested with people, and ignores you.
[. . . .]
They live more in communities, and haven’t had their soul sucked away by television, and by more wealth than they know how to organise as a society in a sensible way. All the travellers seem to like the countries which aren’t developed more than those that are, because of this warmth and friendliness. What are we developing?
Godless’ comment at the end of the post captures this type of thinking spot-on:
““Too rich” – that says it all. This is the actual position of many “environmentalists” and self-proclaimed connoisseurs of “indigenous” cultures. It’s a thinly veiled racism – I’ve got my air-conditioner, but you’re so *cute* in your pre-modern village that you don’t need to have one…”
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Reminds me of the people who thought the beach looked better after the tsunami got rid of all the “clutter“.
Don’t forget about ‘Trippin’ (what ARE these Hollywood celebs trippin’ on anyway?!) >>
A new MTV series features Hollywood celebrities praising the developing world’s primitive lifestyles as earth-friendly — despite those poor nations’ high infant mortality rates and short life expectancies.
The eco-tourism show, called “Trippin’,” premiered on March 28 and was heavily promoted in the runup to Earth Day. The show encourages environmental awareness and lauds traditional tribal lifestyles, which lack running water, electricity and other basic infrastructure.
The MTV series features actress Cameron Diaz and a rotating crew of “her close, personal friends [who] think globally and act globally.” They tour developing nations, including Nepal, Bhutan, Tanzania, Honduras and visit remote villages in Chile….
Despite the celebrities’ praise for the primitive life, “Trippin’” shows them flying on multiple airplanes and chartering at least two helicopters and one boat to reach remote locations over the course of the first four episodes.
The series also showed the celebrities being chauffeured to the airport in a full-size Chevy SUV — despite several on-screen, anti-SUV factoids noting how environmentally unfriendly SUVs are.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200504/NAT20050422a.html
It almost goes without saying that, given a choice, virtually all of these noble natives would opt for mobile phones and SUV’s.
Living here in beautiful, exotic Thailand, I can say that a difference between a well-to-do Thai and a well-to-do American is this: there’s not a chance in hell that the Thai would give a second’s thought to the environment when purchasing a vehicle.
Ah, celebrities. Their insights know few bounds. Such as
Actress Drew Barrymore, who reportedly earns $15 million a film, told MTV viewers in one episode that after spending time in a primitive, electricity-free Chilean village, “I aspire to be like them more.”
Barrymore, apparently enthralled by the lack of a modern sanitary facilities, gleefully bragged, “I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome.”
Edited By Siteowner
Well, you have to understand those American barbarians, it’s their culture.
It’s fun poking fun at fools, but I suspect there’s a real point being made by some of these quoted comments. We’ve probably lost a lot of good things that abound in third-world village life in the rush to get away from the obviously horrible stuff like starvation, high infant mortality, constant disease, etc. It’s not crazy to try to figure out how to recapture some of those good things, having gotten to the point where we’re not having to struggle to stay away from the starvation/infant mortality/disease stuff.
I’ll meet you at Starbucks to talk it over. Bring a laptop with a WAN card, so we can Google for any answers we need….
albatross: I agree.
“Technology: albatross or millstone?”
Tell Drew, she didnt have to go to Chile to poo in the woods.
I would bet that there are still wood pooers living in Oregon or Washington mountains.
But of course, she cant do that, she cant show that there are still poverty in other parts of America, it would hurt the “First World” image of America. Can you imagine that? Here we have people who mouth “Third World” 20 times a second in a day just because they think the whole America is California and New York. We cannot wake them up, self esteem is a must for Americans, at the expense of “third world” countries.
Here’s another third world country.
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http://www.mises.org/fullstory.as
I, myself, once lived among the natives in the mountains of Oregon, pooing in the woods everyone of us. No power, no running water, we had to haul water uphill from the stream below. Such poverty. And every one of us children of middle class doctors, lawyers, executives, professors, and civil servants. Such poverty. All gone, now, as we all, individually, or in pairs, however, decided we had better things to do.
Dr. Mahahier (former Malaysian PM) has made some very acerbic comments about the “green” westerners who think that people in developing countries should remain poor as to remain more “native” and traditional. Some of his comments are not fit for print, but I agree with them totally.
I have spent alot of time living and working in Asia and I think the parts that are developing economically are more interesting to hang out in, in terms of people, than the places that are still “traditional”.
“And every one of us children of middle class doctors, lawyers, executives, professors, and civil servants.”
Really, the wood pooers of Oregon are actually children of doctors, lawyers, etc?
How did I know there are wood pooers in Oregon? A co-employee of mine said, he never saw an in-house toilet until he was 8 years old. He was a farm boy, child of another farmer. I ask him, your toilet is out in the open, no walls? No he said, (actually, there’s “dumbass” added, since he was a marine guy who never mix his words with tact), our toilet is a hole on ground. Blank stare from me and I was from a “third world” country and he’s of the same age as I am.
“All gone, now, as we all, individually, or in pairs, however, decided we had better things to do.”
Did you stay and build gold plated buildings in Oregon or did you move to the big cities, where the best and the brightest of the world congregate to join the rat race? :)
Hey, look at Zimbabwe! It was once civilized and now is suitable for pooping in the streets again. Send the celebrities to Zimbabwe!
Here’s Angelina Jolie persuading the Cambodian government to not pursue a hydroelectric project: http://entertainment.iafrica.com/news/333558.htm
No, something genuinely is lost in the transition to industrialization: a sense of community, closeness to family, etc.
Of course for most people this is vastly outweighed by the enormous improvement in living standards, and naturally most of the world’s poor people would love to have running water and cellphones. It’s similar to the reason rich white kids like to listen to rap: safe white suburban life lacks a certain vitality, a way for young males to prove themselves in violence. (Something poor people flee as soon as possible!)
From the Angelina Jolie link:
“We agreed to give up electricity investment plans, even though we have a shortage, and will instead plan for the protection of trees and wildlife, which is better,” he added.
Yep, those trees sure are pretty to look at, but it would have been nice to have a lightbulb somewhere in my hut, or to refrigerate some food so that we didn’t have to go out to the fields every single day to get our food.
But at least Bambi can have a nice forest to live in. That’s what counts.
Barrymore, apparently enthralled by the lack of a modern sanitary facilities, gleefully bragged, “I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome.”
Which reminds me vividly of our travelling in France in 1980 with few units of foreign currency allowed by our Commie government. We didn’t have enough for camping places so we had to sleep in our car in the woods or fields. We ate canned food brought from home. And we just hoped that this or that museum or castle we planned to visit would be blessed by a free sanitary facility, as each franc of our meagre funds was alotted to culture or gasoline only.
Somehow we didn’t feel that “hunching in the woods” was awesome. Three weeks of this definitely wasn’t.
Intuition tells me there’s a high correlation of pathology and liberalism.
I should add that the question here isn’t about whether there’s merit in the Drew Barrymores of the world learning the merits of pooing in the woods; there is, but that isn’t what these amoral liberalist bloggers are on about.
“No, something genuinely is lost in the transition to industrialization: a sense of community, closeness to family, etc.”
Yeah, it’s lost because as travel costs go down, lots of young adults scramble to get as far away as they can from the sense of community, closeness to family, etc.
Ponder the reasons for that and you’ll see even more downsides to traditional culture.
SciFiGeek: “It’s similar to the reason rich white kids like to listen to rap: safe white suburban life lacks a certain vitality, a way for young males to prove themselves in violence”
The truth of the matter is probably more likely to be that the overwhelming majority of “rich white kids” do not listen to rap, admire rappers, or respect the lifestyle. The ones who do, however, may be casually discounted as waywards, and very likely not too bright, either[Those of superior IQ aren't likely to be intellectually fed by mainstream pop-trash, most especially rap.] The young males having fantasies of being able to prove themselves in violence i’d hastily add to that same wayward rubbish bin. Likely, young males taking an admiration to violence and bloodshed in ghettos are the ones who just might end up there – low IQ sons descend the social ladder where their fathers had ascended. Ease into some Herrnstein for something magical:-) .