Dartmouth students are committed to community service. More than 60 percent of students participate in volunteer programs through campus organizations, service grants and Alternative Spring Break programs. "Aspire to change the world" is the charge College President Jim Yong Kim has delivered time and time again. Every week, Novack is filled with bake sales for charitable causes. We are expected to be the "vox clamantis" of the poor and downtrodden, but are we even hearing them correctly?
The co-author and primary subject of "Three Cups of Tea," Greg Mortenson, a nurse-and-rock-climber-turned-humanitarian, recently came under fire from CBS News' "60 Minutes" for fabricating the details of his acclaimed autobiographies, exaggerating the success of the Central Asian Institute a non-profit organization co-founded by Mortenson to promote and provide community-based education programs in remote villages of Central Asia and improperly using his organization's funds for his book tours. Before these allegations, "Three Cups of Tea" enjoyed a spot in The New York Times' Bestseller List for three years after its release in 2006. Mortenson was awarded with numerous accolades and no fewer than 17 honorary college degrees.
Yet according to Jon Krakauer's "Three Cups of Deceit," an eBook released by an accomplished author and a former supporter of CAI, not only did Mortenson exaggerate the extent of CAI's successes, but he also distorted the presentation of the people with whom he came in contact. The hospitality Mortenson experienced in one village was turned into a Taliban kidnapping, and a brief, casual encounter was depicted as a soulful reunion. According to Krakauer, the denizens of these remote villages were "spoken for" by Mortenson, distorting reality and depicting the underlying power structure in which the voices of benefiters are effectively silenced. While scanning through these troubling allegations in "Three Cups of Deceit," I found myself wondering, "What took so long?"
Ted Callahan, an American anthropologist and mountaineer that Mortenson hired to gauge the feasibility of building a school in northeastern Afghanistan, posited in Krakauer's book that the endurance of Mortenson's ruse was "a symptom of Afghanistan." Mortenson's stories of hope and progress provided a salve for America's national consciousness, which now carries the moral and ethical burdens of two ongoing wars in the Middle East. As such, the nationwide appeal of the story carries on a nationalistic echo of Rudyard Kipling's "white man's burden." Time and time again, we have demonstrated that we believe ourselves to know what is best for the rest of the developing world, despite anthropological evidence that points to the contrary.
Western anthropologists, in fact, have struggled for decades to break the grip ethnocentricism holds over their views in order to better grasp and convey the culture of focus. Two terms have been used to describe this struggle. The first, historical particularism, is the concept that each culture is an offshoot of their respective histories, and as such, many of the social and cultural problems are deep-rooted, complicated and localized. A one-size-fits-all approach is misguided. A deep understanding of the cultural and historical context of the locality is essential if we seek to tackle the problems in foreign areas, a feat that will take a monumental amount of both institutional and individual time, patience and determination.
Another essential ingredient in making sure we leave a lasting and effective good is our ability to recognize cultural relativism, the principle that certain cultural beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that culture alone. I do not mean, however, that we should accept some of the most flagrant acts of human rights violations such as gender inequality as offshoots of certain cultures. Yet we must also understand that the West does not have an exclusive claim over morality, which is often a construct of the specific cultural context. As such, we need to take into account the opinions of the locals before making our own judgments.
The two above-mentioned terms are particularly important for creating productive initiatives in the developing world. Both form the basic cornerstone of modern anthropology. The problem, however, is how to put them into action. Americans have the power and the resources to right many wrongs in the world, yet material superiority is distinct from moral superiority. Until we realize this, our egocentric perception of "right" will cloud reality. Despite our persistent efforts, more people will be left behind.
