Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Appropriate Technology, Narcissism and the Savior Complex
Over the last year or so, I've been discussing the narcissism of First World culture, and especially of Anglo-American culture. I've noted how that narcissism drives many members of this dominant culture to cast themselves as the saviors of the world, and to cast the rest of the world as either unredeemable villains or unteachable idiots. (It also hinders that culture from accepting the reality of a world of limits.) But this week I realized that I had touched on these themes nearly seven years ago, in a series of posts I wrote on the topic of "appropriate technology." Here is a link to one of those posts, titled, "The Distasteful Truth." Some of the links in that post no longer work, so here, here, and here are links to the story of Mr. Mohammed Bah-Abba and his original invention of the zeer, or pot-in-pot refrigerator. And here is a link to the story of a British "savior of the world" who "invented" Mr. Bah Abba's invention ten years after he invented it. Aren't we so blessed that Emily Cummins arose as a savior of Africa?
If you think about it the whole neo-con quest to import Americanism all over the world, with its patronizing view of other countries and third world people's has been a disaster for this country and the entire world. We are paying the price today for those Plan for a New American Century plans. Of course the church system is yoked into the conquer the globe for America quest and many religio-vacations for people to feel superior to and pat the heads of many other human beings who happen to live in other countries. Maybe some of those shouting about imperialism had a point. More and more I became an isolationist, figuring the best bet was to stay out of everyone's business.
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