Message-ID: <970201071133_881550951@emout12.mail.aol.com> Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 07:11:34 -0500 From: mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM> Subject: Re: THEORY: Shall I accept this consulting assignment? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
In a message dated 97-01-31 14:45:23 EST, mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU (kerry miller) writes:<< f you say you are in the business of accepting contracts, then accept it and go on.>>
All "developers" who accept consideration for their work--all who work for VITA, let us say--accept contracts or their equivalent. The issue, of course, is whether my accepting pay for such work is moral and useful, or destructive of a culture and the environment. And this dilemma, of course, is not quite as easily resolved as you propose. It's more ambiguous.
<< To 'fully disclose' an assignment, and ask "What should I do?" suggests you thought there might be alternatives; if you don't really think so, then let's get back to real problems, that have real ambiguous answers...>>
Real problems with real ambiguous answers. Yes indeed.
Ah, Kerry, all situations are real to those in them and really ambiguous to those who look for the dark side, or black and white to those who don't recognize an ambiguity when they stumble on it. And, of course, black and white is also ambiguous when you think on it.
One always has alternatives, right? Like refusing or accepting the assignment? Like saying to the Minister I will accept under these conditions: I want to meet with the elders of the 4 villages; I want us to use local materials to construct our buildings; I want the teachers to be locals trained rather than expatriates. ..we developers have many ways to foist our convictions on the locals.
>
> The representatives of the local culture ... wants roads
> and busses. Do I listen to them, respect the?
>
<<You're a school contractor. Roads are some other equally sincere contractor's problem. That's the way the world works, right?>>No, Kerry,that's not the way the world always works: it's often more ambiguous than that. Often there's a general contractor who gets the master "RFP" and organizes the entire job. VITA, say, or AED, for examples. But you know about the ambiguities invovled in working with NGO's and agencies. .or any group of more than one person.
Do I detect irony in that "sincere", Kerry? Or is that my sense of ambiguity at work?
> Or do I tell them off, tell them what I believe?
<<Not always the same thing, you know; you may be jumping to conclusions.>>
Yes, they are not the same thing, which might explain why they are separated by a comma. I'll try to be clearer in the future.
> You might be right about education, and I might agree with you--but isn't
it > the right of the local authorities to decide how to improve education, not
> you or me?
>
<<Can you entertain the possibility that you will be asked to help on further plans, or to evaluate the consequences of the present one? One consolidated school more or less is not the end of anybodys life as they know it; - and the greatest beneficiaries of the project may be the Ministry bods who will learn to do better - with your help.>>You're absolutely right: my refusing the job might be good for the country and its indigenous.
But isn't there a complexity--what you call an ambiguity--here?
If I refuse to help, am I not one version of the Ugly American trying to tell the natives what to do with their country?
The legal representative of the nation asks for help in building schools of the kind he and his government think they need. Now I learn that you, Kerry, and others like you suggest that I refrain. A real ambiguity here. Do I listen to the locals or to Kerry?
> You've made clear once
> more what you believe, but haven't indicated whether you think I should
> accept the assignment
period. full stop. There's no need to confuse yourself (or us) with such > under the limits of its offering.
foolishness. >>
Sorry for the confusion, Kerry. I'll try to be less ambiguous in the future.Steve Eskow