I got distracted by the Carolla book the last couple weeks, but I will stay on this one until I finish it. I read another chapter last night titled Poverty With Prestige Is Better Than Affluent Disgrace. The title of the blog is a quote from Claude Levi-Strauss. Claude was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, wrote a book whose central theme focused on his belief that the "savage" mind has the same structures as the "civilized" mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere. His book reached into many fields helping to define "structuralism" as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
Getting back to the latest chapter, it starts by laying down the fact that Americans in dealing with other countries have used every one of the old Chinese techniques to establish peace. Since the 1890s, we have toyed with disarmament, we have extolled the virtues of diplomacy, and we have also used the third arsenal of pacification- tribute. This is justified because we call it development funds, and the tribute itself is termed "foreign aid."
The first two techniques deal with "equals" reducing their armaments, or coming to a table for discussions and finding a middle ground. Foreign aid or tribute is seen as insulting in some cultures. It is akin to the baboon who has made a kill and having the other lesser baboons come and feed off his "kill." He may feed you, but you will accept in his eyes you are less than.
Although foreign aid may have started where there is real need just in basic essentials, such as food, clothing, and shelter, one's needs are not necessarily another cultures essentials. In South America, when women were given a minimum amount of funds, instead of using it for food or medicine, a lot of the women went off buying lipstick. Lipstick brings the admiring glances of men and the envy of women. The same evidence unfolded here in the United States, where instead of worrying about food, clothing, and shelter, adolescent boys feel compelled to wear designer jeans a couple times a week to "look fly" (dress up). Looking towards the wealthy folk downtown, the same thing happens with these people spending considerable sums of cash on "flimsy plastic luggage" because it has the Vuitton logo.
Claude Brown, author of a couple of books and a lifelong resident of Harlem, noted teenage Harlem's preoccupation with prestige is the fault of a society afflicted by materialism. Brown fails to realize that virtually every tribe or nation ever studied has been obsessed by some sort of status symbol. Even naked spear carrying Pacific Islanders wore "penis cones", whose decorations showed off their rank.
This all goes back to being counter to a larger source of power trying to "save" the people. Regardless of how Americans see other cultures, they don't need saving or to be brought up to our standard of living. Living in a vacuum, those women of South America know nothing of how people in other countries live. They have their own beliefs that sickness and disease are caused by things outside which they could control. Being hungry is just a state of being. Most animals, I would say, live in a state of hunger, the lion pride does not eat three square meals a day, they may go a couple days without success in the hunt. If we take it upon ourselves to feel sorry for the pride of lions and start feeding them regularly, we will disrupt their natural order. Who would eat the weaker gazelle, who would keep the other grazing animals in top shape by chasing them regularly.
There is a long description of what happened in Iran, but it follows the same path. We show up, try to tell people how to live, and then the people get offended. Why we haven't learned from that is beyond me. The examples are from the 70s and Ayatolla Khomeini and Ghaddafi. It is 40 years later, and we are still trying to force democracy into that region of the world, I don't believe the people want it there.
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