Activists becoming 'true believers'

By Mark Loiseau

Activism is a funny thing. In his most celebrated book, "The True Believer," Eric Hoffer posits that activist movements universally draw membership from the same general subset of the population: frustrated idealists who believe that universal happiness can only be achieved by changing the world to meet their ideal specifications.

A more extreme example of this idealistic activism is Pamela Anderson's push to improve the lives of dogs in India.

Never mind the suffering and hardship that India's impoverished humans experience, the former Baywatch star's campaign is instead focused on promoting sterilization of the country's entire feral canine population.

To justify her belief that dogs should be sterilized individually, the actress reminded Mumbai's municipal commissioner that "Dogs can't use condoms." How very true. Unfortunately, Anderson has failed to propose a way to pay for her noble pet cause.

As naïve as Anderson's 'activism' may be, it seems a fitting microcosm of the type of delusion that many people in our country experience. When difficult issues crop up, many Americans are content to throw some tax dollars around and consider the problem sufficiently addressed.

While one might think that excessive spending coupled with naïve activism could at worst be ineffective, it may actually be causing harm to those it intends to help.

Take the example of development aid being sent to Africa. In her book, "Dead Aid," Dambisa Moyo estimates that over $1 trillion of the aid spent on Africa has not only failed to help African nations, but has actually caused harm.

Aside from staving off the likelihood that African nations will develop their own sustainable economic development, in many cases the aid money is laundered into armed conflicts and corrupt, ineffective governments.

This is not to say that all aid money is bad, because it clearly isn't. Critics of Moyo's book point out that millions of Africans with AIDS depend on foreign aid, mostly from charity organizations. Moyo addresses this in her book.

However, the effectiveness of such indiscriminate spending may be all but negated in areas like rural Namibia, where AIDS is commonly attributed to witchcraft.

In such places, an ounce of prevention in the form of basic education, may be worth thousands of dollars worth of antiretroviral drugs.

The problem is not that Westerners don't care about the impoverished world's problems. On the contrary, many compassionate citizens seem compelled by personal guilt to work toward ending human suffering. The problem is that our good intentions and our desire to be helpful are sometimes dwarfed by our naiveté.

Although we and our representative governments care a great deal about helping the world, we often don't consider the real results of our efforts.

Returning to the example of Anderson's crusade for the rights of stray dogs in a city where people frequently starve to death, do we espouse causes because they are actually helpful, or because they allow us to feel like we're doing something helpful?

Are the wealthiest nations on earth simply throwing money at the developing world's problems in an effort to salve our affluent consciences?

Mark Loiseau is a sophomore electrical engineering major.