{"id":218,"date":"2010-12-18T23:16:10","date_gmt":"2010-12-19T03:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber\/?p=218"},"modified":"2010-12-18T23:16:10","modified_gmt":"2010-12-19T03:16:10","slug":"those-who-cant-snark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/2010\/12\/18\/those-who-cant-snark\/","title":{"rendered":"Those who can't, snark"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a post or two referencing the role of celebrity in development recently, triggered by Bill Easterly’s recent Washington Post op-ed<\/a>. \u00a0I was surprised to see Easterly take such heat for pointing out that celebrity engagement with development can be problematic – most of the folks I know largely agree with the op-ed. \u00a0My only intervention<\/a> was to suggest that Easterly (and others who raise issues with celebrity and development) focus more on the people who feed the celebs their ideas and talking points. \u00a0Sometimes really well-meaning people can be led astray by one loud voice . . .
\nHaving watched\/been part of this conversation for a few days, though, I see the need for an intervention. \u00a0On his twitter feed, Bill Easterly has promoted a commenter who felt s\/he had to remove a post critical of Bono<\/a> because “Bono gives big money to my organization, and they thought that pissing off Bono could cause another Sunday Bloody Sunday.” \u00a0At first glance, this paints Bono as terribly thin-skinned, and suggests that he is unwilling to take on criticism of his efforts. \u00a0Perhaps this is true, but I see little evidence for it here – basically, you have an overly-cautious organization afraid of pissing off a celebrity, but no suggestion that Bono demanded its removal.
\nMore telling, though, is the URL the “censored” poster left at the end of their comment –\u00a0http:\/\/bonowithafricans.wordpress.com\/<\/a> Oh look, let’s take a bunch of random pictures of Bono in Africa, divorce them from all context, and then stick snarky comments after them. \u00a0How clever! \u00a0And juvenile, boring, etc. \u00a0All this does is suggest to me that the commenter has a larger issue with Bono, and has used Easterly’s blog as a platform to promote them.
\nI pride myself on taking my work very seriously, without taking myself very seriously. \u00a0I have my foibles (too numerous to list here), and I am well aware that at least some of my grad students can do a credible impression of me (which I actually take as something of a warped complement) – but I find this sort of thing funny. \u00a0Hell, we can play the snark game with any number of pictures of me:<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

“Community meetings would be easier without the community”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“This garland is way outside of my color wheel”<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“They told me there would be bourbon. \u00a0This . . . is not bourbon”<\/p>\n

\n

See, now wasn’t that fun?<\/p>\n

The point here is that criticism really needs to be constructive, and anchored in something. \u00a0I’ve been known to lose my temper – for example at the end of the post here<\/a> – but even my rants are anchored in solid analysis. \u00a0My extended frustration with Sachs is well-documented, even in the peer-reviewed literature. \u00a0I have substantive issues with his theories, and how they lead to inappropriate interventions. \u00a0I sat through what I can best describe as a horribly embarrassing lecture by Sachs at the 2008 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Boston, where he evoked a total lack of awareness of geography, the fact anyone else in the world addresses development issues, and revived the long-buried corpse of environmental determinism – all around me there were hundreds of geographers staring at him in open-mouthed shock. \u00a0The man is a disaster for development. \u00a0However, I can train a monkey to rip something down – as I tell my students, if you want to impress me, put it back together in an interesting way. \u00a0In my writing on the Millennium Village Project<\/a> I have offered alternatives and suggestions. \u00a0I do the same in my forthcoming book<\/a>. \u00a0Snark does nothing constructive, and makes it hard for the criticized to see through the personal attack to the useful ideas that might lead to more productive engagement.<\/p>\n

Focus on substance, and being constructive, people. \u00a0To modify the old adage about teaching . . . Those who can’t, snark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a post or two referencing the role of celebrity in development recently, triggered by Bill Easterly’s recent Washington Post op-ed. \u00a0I was surprised to see Easterly take such heat for pointing out that celebrity engagement with development can be problematic – most of the folks I know largely agree with the op-ed. \u00a0My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[155,5],"tags":[324,325,326,21],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-delivering-development-the-book","category-development","tag-bill-easterly","tag-bono","tag-celebrity-activism","tag-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edwardrcarr.com\/opentheechochamber2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}