Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970201115111.27101M-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 12:17:17 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Re: THEORY: Shall I accept this consulting assignment? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Steve, > <<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?
>
There certainly is - I was trying to suggest a way through your obvious reservations about the deal to where you *could* honorably take it!To elaborate: some of the responses to your outline were in the nature of 'backing up.' That is, in a classroom 'case study,' one might want to _hypothesise_ some unclear point (such as whether the Minsiter had already consulted with the tribe) in order to then argue the outcome one way or the other. Obviously, in a real situation, you take - or don't take - what's given. My argument is simply that life goes on - even if the antecedents for this particular case are not what you would wish, there is conceivable value in working to make the antecedents of the *next* case better. - one might even call this 'development.'
Whether the present moment is the one on which to make a stand is the only 'ambiguity.' If you were the only contractor available, for instance, you might very well be able to condition future terms of reference more persuasively by negotiating - or by declining.
> 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?
That's a pretty strange interpretation, if I may say so!
> Sorry for the confusion, Kerry. I'll try to be less ambiguous in the future.
>
It may be worth pointing out that the development process can occur even in e-mail, where it's called 'conversation.' ;-)
kerry