Liberation

I wrote this last week but I forgot to publish it. It's a rant. (Don't say I didn't warn you). I laughed about how worked up I was about the issue at the time, so I'm posting it for your entertainment.

So I'm sitting in my nonprofit class listening to a presentation about social entrepreneurs. The semester is ending and it's glaringly apparent to me that my view of NGOs has become extraordinarily tarnished. I hate to admit it, but I'm a realist. I'm pragmatic. Okay, I'll say it. I'm a pessimist.

I want to believe in the goodness and altruism in the world. I want to believe that organizations are truly making the world a better place. But right now I don't. Sometimes I think they're making it worse. People go about changing the world in the wrong way...in my opinion.

The lady presenting works for an organization that invests money in social entrepreneurship ventures. She has a lovely British accent. It's so melodious that it keeps making me fall asleep. I'm sitting on the front row and I feel like a jerk for sleeping. So here I sit. Front row. Writing a rant about pessimism while everyone around me is excited and inspired by this lady's euphonious voice. They're all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about nonprofits. I envy them. Someday my hope in NGOs will be restored and I'll change the world.

This lady told us about an organization they fund. The organization is trying to outsource digital work to people who live in refugee camps in foreign lands. It's supposed to bring in income for these people so they can get out of poverty. They're teaching these simple rural dwellers how to use computers. She literally just said that their knowledge of computers and getting connected to this increasingly globalized world via facebook and such would liberate them.

Liberate them?! Bull shit. (Yes, I just wrote shit in a byu classroom. Cue the lightning bolt.) Ask anyone who has gone a day. a week. a month. years. without being connected to a computer which is more liberating: being wired or not. It's a no-brainer.

Life is richer without computers. Technology complicates things more and more as it tries to make life easier. So bull shit. I hope the organization fails (soon!) before it ruins cultures and lives based on simplistic joy.

Don't go in and tell people that a computer will lift them out of poverty. It will only cause their poverty to transform into something a little less tangible than living in a tent. Let them tell you how they want to escape poverty. Let them tell you their hopes and dreams. Don't destroy human dignity by telling them what to do and how to think and that facebook will liberate them.

Soap box.