Comfort

I was sitting here, looking, looking, looking for a really great example of one of Robert’s critiques.  I actually thought that just maybe I had nothing, but while going through Sheep the second time, I saw an article I had missed before.  There it was!  My perfect example of colonialism!  So, here we go.

This week (for the first time ever!) my article hails from the Philippine Islands.  I’m all the way up to 1957 (far removed from formally acceptable colonialism), but the remnants of the thought patterns clearly still exist without a tint of shame. 

The first paragraph is a simple explanation of the stark contrast that exists between the wealthy and the impoverished.  Robert McCroskey, our missionary guide, sums it up with, “Here we saw the modern and the primitive side by side…”  Of course, maybe in the 1950’s, the language hadn’t exactly shifted into what is today politically correct, so we can excuse this loaded phrase for the time being.  It is really the next paragraph that brings the whole mindset into focus.

McCroskey asserts, “Some of the Filipinos are anxious to change for the better while many go on living as their ancestors did centuries ago. …A bit of rice, a little fish, and some vines seem like ample provisions for many.”  What was wrong with the way Filipinos lived centuries ago?  I try to be understanding of the face that this man feels that he has been charged with not only improving the spiritual lives of his field, but the physical wellbeing of those people as well.  I also try to nod when he says that telephones and cars and new tractors are important.  What I do not understand is how he can equate cars and telephones and tractors with the basic need that (as he does claim later) is so vital: food.  

It is difficult to put this entire story in context, but it struck me that this missionary was so concerned that the Filipinos he worked with were comfortable, but comfort for him was defined by material things, not by food or by spiritual matters.  It is a great example of how Western minds are so trained to skip over what we see as obviously ample (food) and go straight to the things we think make people happy (cars).