Cynicism and Graduation

Having just received my Master’s degree*, optimism still dominates my and my fellow graduates’ minds. But as I head into a career in development, cynicism will certainly rear its familiar head. One favorite moment from graduation weekend was a conversation with a professor, who himself has long experience in development. In the course of talking about my future I joked that “I’m a slowly-developing cynic.” He immediately responded, suddenly serious, “Oh – don’t ever become a cynic.” Just as he has been an inspiration to many of us, our freshly-graduated sense of idealism and possibility was inspiring to him, and he didn’t want to see that spoiled.

It reminded me of a recent op-ed in the New York Times from Nora Shenkel, a Master’s candidate in Scotland who recently worked briefly for an NGO in Haiti. She describes how she quickly was faced with a moral dilemma: her work appeared to be having little effect over the long term, and she wonders how she “earned” material comforts and career success in a place where so many people have incredibly immediate needs. Her solution to this dilemma was to leave Haiti early and leave a development career completely; this is, she says, “the most honest thing I could do for Haiti.”

Perhaps that is true for her situation. But I can’t let the implication that giving in to cynicism is the best possible solution to this dilemma go unchallenged. Browse through blogs of young aid workers, Peace Corps Volunteers, and graduate interns, and you’ll see a great variety of takes on this dilemma.** Aid workers – even PCVs – nearly all live in relative privilege in the middle of often desperate poverty, but with their responsibility to address immediate needs “purged” by the fact that their work is meant to help over the long run.

This does not make Nora’s experience invalid, and in fact I rather like the solution she finds for herself. She ends her piece by describing her return to Haiti – as a visitor. She’d come to celebrate the country and the friends she’d made there, and she did not have to feel dishonest about trying to fight poverty while living in luxury. Ivan Illich, in his insightful 1968 speech “To Hell With Good Intentions,” proposes the same solution: come to visit, not to help.

Still, there are other equally valid ways to deal with this dilemma, even if at the time they feel less of a strong, morally unambiguous statement. One fellow PCV in Niger had a policy I admired very much – she would help some of her neighbors with medical costs but always accompany them to the heath center. Personally, I would not pay for medicines (to keep from getting swamped with requests) but would participate in informal social safety nets in other ways, by sharing food and coins with beggars and buying extra milk powder and soap for a struggling neighbor. These strategies are attempts to find a balance between a) not being taken advantage of, and b) the desire to use your privilege to make an immediate positive change.

Beyond the material, there is also simply a matter of treating people with dignity and not letting yourself think of them as an “other.” Amid delightfully snarky development blogs, Aaron Ausland at Staying For Tea*** stands out as positively confronting this dilemma with five principles of community development work. Ausland’s principles focus on honesty, personal connections and process.

A theme of these strategies, of course, is that relationships with people offer a direction and a means to express empathy (whether materially or personally). I have previously posted on how I try to be “present” in the places I end up. Most aid workers, unlike PCVs, have cars, nice houses and other benefits that may make it more difficult to build relationships. I have not yet faced this situation, but while the dilemma may feel different it will still be there, and need to be confronted.

Alas, many in this field do seem to just accept the “purged responsibility” argument and move on. Nora noted this phenomenon in her op-ed too, colleagues who would even get angry at Haitians for asking for money, thinking incredulously, “Don’t they know we’re here to help?”  This, to me, is the essence of the Cynical Aid Worker – feeling toughened by living amid poverty yet not putting in the extra effort to maintain the dignity of poor people or to understand of how the aid worker him/herself is viewed.

The key, I believe, is continuous self-reflection.

This doesn’t mean having a few “fluffy” discussions, nor constant anxiety about the moral ambiguity of it all. It does mean  not simply accepting one solution and sticking with it. As we journey through life and through the world, new experiences should keep informing our values and our judgment, and the solution should  evolve with us. This is my graduation pledge to my professor: I’ll keep an aggressive, adaptable defense against threats to my optimism. I’ll do this through reflection on my role in a situation, critical analysis of moral ambiguities, and most importantly, empathy and relationships with people wherever I am in the world.

I’d be interested in others’ thoughts as well, especially as the ink on my diploma starts to dry. How have you or others you’ve seen dealt with this dilemma?

*Officially, in Law & Diplomacy, though in fact I studied neither of these. Congratulations to all in the Class of 2013! 

**My first recorded thoughts on the matter here, from a younger Nathan in Mali as a visitor. Disclaimer is that this blog was more about the wonder of the place, not so much critical reflection on moral ambiguities. 

***NOT the same as “Three Cups of Tea,” the book by the guy building schools in Afghanistan who turned out to be dishonest about his story and mismanaging donations.