Response to Frances Berenson's "Hegel on Others and the Self"
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I'd like to start off by saying that this was the most difficult to understand reading I've probably ever done. Or at least, in a while. On the first read-through, it was mostly at the end that I drew the biggest connection (at the time) to the University, when Berenson describes Hegel's consideration of the Master-Slave relationship. "...each person only fully recognizes his own conscious being and belittles any claim to other self-consciousnesses...each self seeks to assert his own claim to other self-consciousness even at he price of destroying the life and self-consciousness of others..." While this does not tie directly into our discussions of humanitarian aid, it does tie into the lack of empathy and appropriate aid-like action toward those on the receiving end. For example, in some of the other articles and podcast such as NPR's Fresh Air with Farmer, where he mentions a general "lack of will" by community leaders and those with influence to provide much-needed [HIV/AIDS] aid, Hegel's idea relates in such a way that describes those people's perceived selfishness and priority of self-preservation. Hegel also speaks about another idea that ties in with an idea important when working with humanitarian aid; empathy. Empathy is essentially the full understanding of another being's way of life and emotions, which differs from sympathy in the level of depth. Hegel says that self knowledge can't only be reached by concentrating on oneself; rather, it must take into account "examination of [one's] relationships with others". In this case, personal interaction with those who need the help versus those who have all the resources to help but choose not to (or in some cases, do).
Honest note: I have no idea whether this reading is supposed to tie into the previous articles, but the ideas within are interested nevertheless (when I can understand the language). And it is much easier to understand some ideas in context with other, "related" ideas.
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Thursday, August 28, 2014
Response to Stupart's "7 Worst International Aid Ideas"
Response to Stupart's "7 Worst International Aid Ideas"
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This article seems to be geared towards the goal of eliciting strong reactions from the public - the general audience toward which it is aimed. You can tell this by its simplistic formatting, easy to read language, and understandable references. So by no means is this a scholarly article; however, that doesn't mean that it is necessary to subject this information to close scrutiny. Reading this article, one cannot help forming negative opinions of the individuals that Stupart throws under the bus - in necessity, you could argue, considering the apparent absolute naivety and ignorance of those mentioned - among many others. Stupart brings in a bit of a shock factor, turning the audience against certain stereotypes or cliches of humanitarian aid. Educating the readers into not supporting these certain actions and their relative political, economic, and social consequences has a positive effect of making the general population more aware and willing to support the more "legitimate" and effective organizations, but more importantly, making them think before they throw money at what initially would seem like "A Great Idea!". The idea that ties in this article to the previous two articles is the last of the Worst International Aid Ideas: Using USAID as a foreign policy tool. To the policymakers, this may be a brilliant idea to easily get what the US wants, with little to no effort. In reality, what needs to happen is effective foreign aid with no strings attached - except perhaps emphasis on proper use and whatnot. But to do that, they cannot endorse any of the other six "bad ideas" (or similar) that this article addresses.
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This article seems to be geared towards the goal of eliciting strong reactions from the public - the general audience toward which it is aimed. You can tell this by its simplistic formatting, easy to read language, and understandable references. So by no means is this a scholarly article; however, that doesn't mean that it is necessary to subject this information to close scrutiny. Reading this article, one cannot help forming negative opinions of the individuals that Stupart throws under the bus - in necessity, you could argue, considering the apparent absolute naivety and ignorance of those mentioned - among many others. Stupart brings in a bit of a shock factor, turning the audience against certain stereotypes or cliches of humanitarian aid. Educating the readers into not supporting these certain actions and their relative political, economic, and social consequences has a positive effect of making the general population more aware and willing to support the more "legitimate" and effective organizations, but more importantly, making them think before they throw money at what initially would seem like "A Great Idea!". The idea that ties in this article to the previous two articles is the last of the Worst International Aid Ideas: Using USAID as a foreign policy tool. To the policymakers, this may be a brilliant idea to easily get what the US wants, with little to no effort. In reality, what needs to happen is effective foreign aid with no strings attached - except perhaps emphasis on proper use and whatnot. But to do that, they cannot endorse any of the other six "bad ideas" (or similar) that this article addresses.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Response to Farmer NPR Fresh Air podcast
Response to Farmer's NPR Fresh Air podcast
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Having established and run a hospital/clinic in the middle of a squatter settlement in Haiti, where infectious diseases and health problems are rampant, a gives Farmer a unique perspective of humanitarian aid. Where the majority are involved at most with giving money and donations far from the areas in need, he - among many others - have a first-hand experience of the issues that need to be addressed. And in doing so, he describes the idea that much of the monetary aid is ineffective - or rather, much less effective than it could be due to the existence of other issues at the same time which are not being addressed to the fullest extent. In addition, he mentions that the role of corporations and manufacturers make it difficult for any real progress to be made. And knowing that giants such as Target, Walmart, Apple, and etc use cheap and dangerous labor elsewhere to make huge profits, I sympathize with his frustration that some medicines and medical supplies can have their prices lowered by ~8 times for those in need (only sometimes, however; I also am frustrated that many companies and community leaders refuse to prioritize helping areas in dire need over maintaining their own gigantic profit. In the normal market, they are also rarely affordable to the middle class, and even less so to the poor. He says that in Africa, there is no political will to pay health workers in order to start effectively treating AIDS in Africa. At the same time, there are other factors involved, such as education and whatnot.
It strikes me that since he started working in Haiti and providing free care to his clients, he hasn't lost a patient to tuberculosis. At the same time, he brings up how it is only when we (activists, those who care) stop talking about the money issue and stop being selfish can we finally can look at the root causes and other symptoms, and achieve real progress.
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Having established and run a hospital/clinic in the middle of a squatter settlement in Haiti, where infectious diseases and health problems are rampant, a gives Farmer a unique perspective of humanitarian aid. Where the majority are involved at most with giving money and donations far from the areas in need, he - among many others - have a first-hand experience of the issues that need to be addressed. And in doing so, he describes the idea that much of the monetary aid is ineffective - or rather, much less effective than it could be due to the existence of other issues at the same time which are not being addressed to the fullest extent. In addition, he mentions that the role of corporations and manufacturers make it difficult for any real progress to be made. And knowing that giants such as Target, Walmart, Apple, and etc use cheap and dangerous labor elsewhere to make huge profits, I sympathize with his frustration that some medicines and medical supplies can have their prices lowered by ~8 times for those in need (only sometimes, however; I also am frustrated that many companies and community leaders refuse to prioritize helping areas in dire need over maintaining their own gigantic profit. In the normal market, they are also rarely affordable to the middle class, and even less so to the poor. He says that in Africa, there is no political will to pay health workers in order to start effectively treating AIDS in Africa. At the same time, there are other factors involved, such as education and whatnot.
It strikes me that since he started working in Haiti and providing free care to his clients, he hasn't lost a patient to tuberculosis. At the same time, he brings up how it is only when we (activists, those who care) stop talking about the money issue and stop being selfish can we finally can look at the root causes and other symptoms, and achieve real progress.
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Monday, August 25, 2014
Response to the Atwood article
Response to "Arrested Development: Making Foreign Aid a More Effective Tool" by J. Brian Atwood, M. Peter McPherson, and Andrew Natsios.
(When referring to the authors of the article or the article itself, I will just use "Atwood" from here on out.)
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While Atwood is a big proponent of USAID and its goals, the article suggests many criticisms of the current program(s). Most specifically, Atwood strongly condemns the takeover of USAID by the State department, citing ineffectiveness in organization and policy regarding USAID action in countries that need such aid. In addition, after the Cold War, foreign aid from USAID was substantially decreased as a result of its "merging" with the State Department, which drastically changed the way it carried out operations and organization. What I get from the third and fourth paragraph in the Downsizing Development section is that because of the increasing ineffectiveness of USAID under its new management, other organizations began involvement with foreign assistance which, overall, because of their relative lack of resources, experience, and etc compared to the main USAID department, and lack of coherence, ultimately created chaos and a complete decline in productivity. Although some aspects of the agreement may be politically balanced, ultimately it is at the sacrifice of the program's effectiveness.
Honestly, Atwood spends so much time talking about how USAID would be so much better off on its own and how being absorbed and controlled by the State Department really screwed up its activities, and it's repeated quite a bit. I understand that the authors want to reiterate and really hammer in the points, but it's just as effective to summarize and condense the main reasons rather than continuing to say essentially the same thing over and over again, even if there is occasional variation.
It is a good and interesting article, however, especially when it talks about the allocation of funds and focus on issues such as HIV/AIDS, education, and etc rather than anticorruption, agricultural development and management, and other, often core problems that if alleviated, might snowball into other positive benefits.
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(When referring to the authors of the article or the article itself, I will just use "Atwood" from here on out.)
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While Atwood is a big proponent of USAID and its goals, the article suggests many criticisms of the current program(s). Most specifically, Atwood strongly condemns the takeover of USAID by the State department, citing ineffectiveness in organization and policy regarding USAID action in countries that need such aid. In addition, after the Cold War, foreign aid from USAID was substantially decreased as a result of its "merging" with the State Department, which drastically changed the way it carried out operations and organization. What I get from the third and fourth paragraph in the Downsizing Development section is that because of the increasing ineffectiveness of USAID under its new management, other organizations began involvement with foreign assistance which, overall, because of their relative lack of resources, experience, and etc compared to the main USAID department, and lack of coherence, ultimately created chaos and a complete decline in productivity. Although some aspects of the agreement may be politically balanced, ultimately it is at the sacrifice of the program's effectiveness.
Honestly, Atwood spends so much time talking about how USAID would be so much better off on its own and how being absorbed and controlled by the State Department really screwed up its activities, and it's repeated quite a bit. I understand that the authors want to reiterate and really hammer in the points, but it's just as effective to summarize and condense the main reasons rather than continuing to say essentially the same thing over and over again, even if there is occasional variation.
It is a good and interesting article, however, especially when it talks about the allocation of funds and focus on issues such as HIV/AIDS, education, and etc rather than anticorruption, agricultural development and management, and other, often core problems that if alleviated, might snowball into other positive benefits.
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