The Bigotry of Low Expectations

Is caring enough? Does feeling deeply about the plight of others absolve you of the responsibility of having to act? Having acted with noble intentions, do those intentions shield you from the results of your actions? Africa long suffered from the worst of our intentions now suffers from the best of them. We throw money at corrupt governments and expect them to change. We hold huge rock concerts and stun the world with our self-congradulatory arrogance. Our NGO's crusade into barely functional nations and with their good will eviscerate the fledgling hope for functional, native institutions. Latest in this litany of failures is World AIDS Day highlighting the West's dismal failure in stemming this epidemic.

Let me be clear, we cannot control the spread of HIV in Africa unless the nations in question can develop a functional, native medical institutional system. This won't happen unless education is sorted out. And that's not a possibility until we in the West stop catering to failed regimes. It's not a question of just giving them free medications. What good does that do when many of those infected are operationally incapable of taking that medication on time. We might as well flush it down the toilet for all the good it would do. Unless... we are just doing the minimum to make ourselves feel better. Then yeah, it makes sense to pack those life saving drugs up and send them to those in need. And never worry our pretty little heads about it again.

Now I don't know whether or not we should try to tackle this problem. One of the clearest lessons of International Relations is never to let your reach exceed your grasp. But I do think we should stop being hypocritical. We enjoy a high standard of living in the West because we adhere to certain cultural standards. Unless we hold others to the same standard- accounting for the time necessary to reach those standards- we cannot expect them to realistically create the future every mother and father want for their children. In most cases, cultural relativism is just soft bigotry. And it's at its most destructive when we convince the other culture that they themselves deserve less.