I’m glad I now have evidence that even very excellent writers resist the idea that maybe there’s something underneath the surface of a written product that is worth investigating. I’ll refer back to this evidence when my “working-to-one-day-be-maybe-possibly-an-excellent-writer” student-writers resist returning to their texts.

I’m not disagreeing on your main point – and god knows I don’t have the first-person experience to argue some other model – but I am arguing that at least one reader (me!) is saying, “Hey this is a very cool idea, but, from my perspective, you might want to give more thought to X and Y.”

“Well self, those are two very good points. You should actually go have a conversation about this with someone who cares to listen. Why would I do that, self, when I could just have it with you, I mean me, I mean you, on Theresa’s blog?”

In an academic bubble it sounds nice to say that human rights shouldn’t cost anything, but that’s not the way the world works. Sure, people should have access to food, health care, shelter, etc. But none of that is free, and nor must it be free. It should be accessible and priced at a point that people can afford, but to say that it should be free is to deny the reality of the way the world works.

Anyhow, rhetoric doesn’t interest me the way it does you, so I’m done with semantics. I know that as the writer I mean much more than than economic value when I use the word value. The reader can read it however (s)he wishes.

My main point is that the current system of aid, primarily based around the giving away of money and things, does not work. What we have witnessed as working is aid in which the community is invested (either financially or through time and human interest) and in which recipients of aid are treated as people who have something to bring to the table, not simply people in need of help.

And I’m done.

There’s obviously issues of meaning transaction from writer to reader through a text complicating things here (such it goes with reading and writing), but my reading of your argument as being couched in economics comes from two points in your text. First, you spend considerable time explaining the dangers of “free” stuff. I would consider “free” to be defined as “free of economic charge.” Second, you do say, “That doesn’t mean it has to cost much, or even anything. But, those in want or need of the item should have to “pay” for it, whether with money or through barter of goods or services.”

I’m not sure what my argument is. I don’t even like the word argument. I don’t think we are having an argument here. I think my line of thinking has two points, and they might be complicating to each other. First, I think there’s a danger to viewing things primarily in economic terms. Second, it’s hard for all of us to not view the world in economic terms because that’s the current “currency” of most Western conversations. It seems to me that you are trying to complicate this idea of “value” as being defined economically, but you do that by returning to economic examples – such as the dangers of “free.”

I’ve actually been thinking about issues of “economic conversations” in regards to my dissertation and the compensating of research participants. I’m also teaching an article that looks at students choices to plagiarize as being motivated by their connection with an economic view of authorship and not an intellectual view of authorship. So, I’ve been thinking about this topic alot, and your post made me think about it more. But I don’t have my ideas all together. I’m just beginning to consider, though, how much we talk about value in economic terms and, more problematically, that the move to discuss them in any other way is complicated by the omnipresent nature of these “economic considerations” in our thinking.

So, how does one pay for something that does not cost anything? On the flip side, how do you provide value to an act without putting a price tag on it? How do those receiving the aid vocalize what is valuable to them? What happens when their value and our value do not match up, both in terms of content and form of “transaction”?

I think the point that is being missed here is that by value I don’t necessarily mean economic value. In fact, I hardly mean economic value; I’m pretty sure that I never defined it as such above. The problem with aid, as far as I witnessed it first hand in numerous situations, is that we don’t understand what other cultures value and then when we provide the items we think they need they are often not valued. I’m not arguing that people “owe” us in any way for the aid we provide, or that we should put a price on aid. I’m arguing that aid must have a value (to the receiver in particular) in order for it to be effective. We’ve built too many schools in communities that don’t have teachers, given away too many mosquito nets to people who don’t understand their benefits, and given too many fish to people who don’t know how to cast a line. Aid should empower, educate, and be of value to the recipient. Otherwise, we are just throwing money to the wind.

1. Isn’t your whole argument centered in a Western capitalistic view of “how things work?”. Couldn’t value be defined prior to or outside of economic systems, or, hopefully, as being of more importance to some economic system?

2. Wouldn’t it be better to prioritize an act of caring – a simple, human expression – before trying to establish what value that act has, or worse yet, expecting the “other” to understand and operate within our system.

3. Who are we to decide how people use the materials that are donated? There’s a danger here of us (as first-world, rationale Westerners) speaking “as” and/or “for” the people who are receiving the supplies. So what if they want to use the malaria net as a fishing net? Should we refuse their need to feed themselves and their families?

4. Isn’t there a whole danger to this argument that if you say substituted, “health care” for aid, you’d be making the basic argument that people should have to “pay” for heath care before they understand the value of it?

I don’t want you to say you are blaming the victim here, but it sure seems that the issue here is with how First-World, Western ideas have power and currency in this world. Whole conversations of “value,” undermine the very human, very ethical principle that basic human rights and acts of “care” should not be bartered on economic scales. Is the problem their dependency or our “guilt giving”?

It seems to me that the challenge of “aid” is negotiating cultural differences in regards to worldview and definitions of care and value. Asking “them” to operate through our worldview seems problematic, but also possibly effective.

I use the term “problem” sarcastically. I love that to hear this stuff from someone other than missionary who fully emerse themselves in a culture, fully investment themselves in a community and fully dedicate themselves to making a change for the better. It is great to see that someone who just loves people and has travelled so broadly understands that true change takes more than handouts.

Don’t blame Victoria for her stance or her response. She is the product of a society that has taught her that now is better, free is best and all giving is better than investing. She is the product of a society that excuses everything by blaming it on the system (please catch the satire). It i like the new Kaplan University commercials that has a professor apologizing for not adapting to the students, instead of expecting the student to adapt to the professor. After all, those who have been through it and experienced it, should bend for and coddle those who haven’t. That is the real world works, after all.

I think most people understand that cost doesn’t always mean dollars. Things cost time. Things cost effort. Something can cost you without you losing a single cent. And, as for why other types of aid can’t work, I don’t believe I ever said they can’t. I said that in most cases handouts don’t work. But I also I explicitly said that what works in one place doesn’t work in another.

Do you have any experience with aid that has helped you form your judgments? If so, maybe you should share your experience so people can understand where you are coming from rather than calling the insights of those who do have firsthand observations that they’re willing to share “lame”. Just a thought.