#4966: David Young on hope and hopelessness (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

   From: 
        david x young <frelgo@rcn.com>


re the hopelessness of Haiti to some extent I must agree, but only
insofar as to the general and generic approach to this marvelous culture
as voiced ever so relentlessly in all the years I have been receiving
this internet forum.

The whole damned approach is wrong---to try to place an elusive,
pliable. quixotic and imaginative culture in the stupidly stale form  of
do-goodism, Christian charity and Democracy to solve all ills. That will
never work, and never has. That way all you get is crooks and zozo
martinets such as Aristide et al. while spawning legions of petty crooks
and inviting the Sinister such as the drug trade--- all recent
phenomenons.

What is needed is an attempt to perceive its greater sense-- yes,
poetic-- measured against a remarkable history  of almost mythic
proportion, and note csrefully how it has produced-- for the most part
--- an incredibly decent and hard working people of marvelous
cheerfulness in the face of  incredibly lousy odds. Something very fine
is at work there that seems to be completely unnoticed. I am not going
to attmept to define it further because of my own book-in-progress  but
I would suggest you could all learn a great deal from sometimes
contributors Max Beauvoir and Wade Davis.

David X Young