http://www.help-education.org/blog/to-modernise-or-not/ This blog provides news and views about HELP and its activities. Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:51:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://www.help-education.org/blog/to-modernise-or-not/#comment-76 admin Fri, 09 May 2008 07:44:39 +0000 http://www.help-education.org/blog/?p=20#comment-76 Of course, change is inevitable, but the villagers decided that they would postpone it, so you could say that they were controlling the pace of change. They had perfectly rational and unsentimental reasons for so deciding. I did come across a village where they were feeding wheat into a threshing machine. They were wearing protective goggles and gloves, and, because of the noise of the machine, they had to do their work in silence. Another household was still using traditional methods, which no doubt took longer, but gave them the tranquillity and time for chatting, and singing. I can't help feeling that the modernisers had lost a critical way in which their community socialises and preserves its culture. That is not entirely a sentimental tourist's view. There will be villagers who will see the downside of introducing new technologies, but I have no doubt that, in the end, the economic arguments will win out. Encouragingly, in the case of the village debating whether to get a tractor or not, the economics seemed to favour the continued use of cattle rather than the purchase of a tractor. Of course, change is inevitable, but the villagers decided that they would postpone it, so you could say that they were controlling the pace of change. They had perfectly rational and unsentimental reasons for so deciding. I did come across a village where they were feeding wheat into a threshing machine. They were wearing protective goggles and gloves, and, because of the noise of the machine, they had to do their work in silence. Another household was still using traditional methods, which no doubt took longer, but gave them the tranquillity and time for chatting, and singing. I can’t help feeling that the modernisers had lost a critical way in which their community socialises and preserves its culture. That is not entirely a sentimental tourist’s view. There will be villagers who will see the downside of introducing new technologies, but I have no doubt that, in the end, the economic arguments will win out. Encouragingly, in the case of the village debating whether to get a tractor or not, the economics seemed to favour the continued use of cattle rather than the purchase of a tractor.

]]> http://www.help-education.org/blog/to-modernise-or-not/#comment-75 Ben Fri, 09 May 2008 01:28:31 +0000 http://www.help-education.org/blog/?p=20#comment-75 I don't think there is any choice whether to modernize or not. It's inevitable, as all change is. What can be done is to try and control what aspects of modernization are introduced... I don’t think there is any choice whether to modernize or not. It’s inevitable, as all change is. What can be done is to try and control what aspects of modernization are introduced…

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