A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

For example, about a year and a half ago there was some kind of outbreak in the Congo. I was at work when I read it, and thought that it was rather astonishing. I mentioned this outbreak to some colleagues, and when I told them where it happened, I was immediately cut off with "WHO THE FUCK CARES?". His disregard was so thorough and complete that it felt like a slap in the face. The only good thing about that was that he was perfectly honest. I suspect that most of us feel this way to no small degree, much of the time. On the one hand, it's normal to feel this way. Africa truly might as well be Mordor as far as we are concerned, so why care? On the other hand, it's sad when those who use all the world's resources can't even be bothered to find out about those they take advantage of.

Another side to this is what Joi Ito calls the "caring problem". Chris Dahlen's interpretation of this problem is that "people won't follow the news in a foreign land just because they think it's important; they keep tabs on it because they have emotional investment in watching what comes next."

The media has no more incentive to improve the dissemination of information from elsewhere than people have to learn about it. Rebecca MacKinnon (who has a CV from hell, I must say) believes that the way that news organizations cover international stories is much to blame. This is probably true: it isn't surprising that pillars of society like the Fourth Estate would be slow to really adapt to rapidly changing realities. But I believe that if readers cared more, news organizations would as well. According to Christiane Amanpour, journastic integrity has waned to the point where news coverage is less about the truth and getting the real story than ratings and profits. It's an old complaint, but still relevant. If we act as consumers for news rather than intelligent and thoughful global citizens, we will get more of what we have, which are nuggets of information in consumable bite-size portions that the least smart among us can consume. This is our fault.

Lastly, there's the guilt factor, or rather, the rejection of guilt factor. [White] people no longer want to hear that they are, in part, responsible for anything bad that happens in other parts of the world. They are, in their view, sick of feeling guilty for being white, and are not taking it anymore. This is probably part of why you have things like the Hérouxville mess. (I can partly relate to this because I am sick of being bade to feel guilty for being male. I would not, however, enact laws requiring maleness, or prohibiting femaleness.) If we are no longer into seeing how our actions might negatively affect others abroad, then we sure as hell aren't actually going to know anything about, say, Africa. (As an aside, people have told me that I should be glad that I am here, and not languishing in the West Indies or Africa in order to make me see the benefits to me of certain barbaric European practices of past centuries. While this may be true, I do not see how this shrinks our responsibilities to those that were exploited in the pat, and who continue to be so exploited. It doesn't make it "all good". And yes, I include myself in both groups: the exploiters and the exploited.)

You know, it won't surprise me if you can get degrees in pop culture studies with specialization in Star Wars. But didn't McGill shut down its African Studies program a few years ago? It came back, but still.