Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970201172140.3548A-100000@cbs.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 18:11:01 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Re: THEORY: Shall I accept this consulting assignment? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Steve, > I am suggesting that listening to the locals may conflict with other
> "imperatives" proposed here, like safeguarding the local culture against
> "modernization" and "capitalism".
>
Of course it _may_ - no action is unambiguous; whatever you do may be wrong, in international work or in your own life. But either you accept the 'local' Minister as a representative of the 'culture' or you don't - many would agree that you could - perhaps should - draw a line more finely than a mere national boundary. Your protest sounds like you're trying to have it both ways.> That is: refusing to serve as the indigenous propose is also a form of
> patronizing and thwarting the locals. It says, I the educated intellectual
> know better than you what's best for your country and authentic culture, and
> you've got it all wrong, so I won't go along with you.
>
There are a dozen or three reasons why you might not take the job - for instance, you might believe the local contractors can do things just as well. I don't believe the Minister or anyone else involved is going to hear what 'it says' in this one particularly convoluted way. The usual interpretation of 'ethics' is that one acts according to one's best beliefs, and let what others _may_ think go hang. I'm sorry if you have built yourself a more complicated box than that.As for > If the authorized and legal representatives of a nation and a culture ask for
> my help and I refuse it as you propose
I feel somewhat in the position of a local inhabitant, when despite my saying
> I was trying to suggest a way through your obvious
> reservations about the deal to where you *could* honorably take it!
you manage to conclude that I am against your taking the contract. Goodness knows now whether the Minister is asking you to build a school or to dismantle one!
> Is that interpretation too ambiguous?
>
I don't know, Steve, I guess you had better tell me. But i fear we're slipping away from Praxis, so let's give the public a rest.kerry