
Trust, Slavery and the African School of Economics - gauravsc
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/05/21/trust-slavery-and-the-african-school-of-economics
======
noworriesnate
> A trip to Albania ended his blind affection for socialism.

Traveling the world is probably the best way of educating people about human
issues. I wonder if we replaced the first two years of college in America
(general education stuff) with a trip around the world, what would happen?

I was talking to a friend from a third world country about this and I
mentioned that VR has the potential to open people's eyes about human
conditions around the world. And he said, "Nope. That's a terrible idea." I
asked why and he said, "VR can't convey suffering."

Let's say, for sake of argument, that it costs $50,000 to send one student
around the world. That's within an order of magnitude for most colleges for
the first two years. Plus, it would drop due to economies of scale (also since
we're talking about huge numbers of students, we could use boats instead).

~~~
zozbot234
Yup, this is a very sensible guy. Another important point from the OP:

> His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African academy. Any
> student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues. The aim is to
> add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it.

Efforts to "decolonise" academia, particularly in the humanities and social
sciences where the "decolonisation" meme is most relevant, have backfired
horribly. And here we have a sensible scholar from Africa telling it like it
is and not mincing his words.

~~~
ccsnags
Decolonization seems to be a Trojan horse for a different type of Western
colonization. It’s one thing to take western ideas and make them your own
(Botswana). It’s another thing entirely when western influences try to attach
themselves to peoples history and culture in order to change them into
faithful subjects without a voice of their own.

~~~
zozbot234
Well, historically this whole "decolonisation" meme was pushed by non-Western
influences from the socialist and "non-aligned" bloc. But you're right that
nowadays it mostly survives in some parts of the West, such as elite academia.
A zombie revenant of dead influencers' propaganda from decades past.

------
AnthonBerg
_" The words struck a chord with Mr Wantchekon. Now a professor at Princeton
University, he was born in Zagnanado in central Benin. Some of the music he
listened to in his youth—such as that of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou—had
songs that warned against trusting those close to you."_

I checked; The music is ... astoundingly beautiful. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de
Cotonou:
[https://open.spotify.com/artist/2hzzC6W1jnkn6x6RyutlB3?si=Zd...](https://open.spotify.com/artist/2hzzC6W1jnkn6x6RyutlB3?si=ZduTuQsXTZuhrROsELqBNQ)

~~~
detritus
Thank you for this - my first music recommendation from HN!

Particularly of interest to me is the 'slightly slippery' beat it appears to
have. It seems slightly off in places, but pleasingly so.

~~~
AnthonBerg
Yes! I know next to nothing about African music - just starting to learn about
it - but I’m certain that these incredibly subtle wrinkles in time are on
purpose. Willful. Being celebrated. In some songs there are beautiful little
rhythmic foreshadowing events - the last note of a bassline let slip almost
imperceptibly two, three times, in preparation for hitting the listener with a
twist or impact. All on a barely noticeable level, interwoven.

I also feel an incredibly strong sense of collaboration in African music.
Which is - I guess ironic?, in the context of the article. Painfully and
poignantly. It’s interesting.

I’m going to mention Pamelo Mounk’a, M’Pongo Love, Franco, Coupé Cloué,
Docteur Nico, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Simba Wanyika/Les Wanyika, in case their
music brings as rich a reward to others as it has to me. From there it goes
all over the place – and Africa is big! And old! And beautiful and full of joy
and subtlety and craft.

~~~
tsco77
Thank you for sharing. I'd love to find more of this sort of thing through HN.

------
roenxi
Articles like this break my heart. The thing that stops ideas like the ones in
this article taking root are, ultimately, the beliefs of ordinary people.

The real secret of education is it is the only method humanity has discovered
to stop people making the same stupid mistakes every single generation like
all the other animals.

There is a remarkable strategy for being very successful: identify and stop
doing things that cause failure. It isn't the silver bullet but as strategies
go more people should try it. Instead, everyone goes along with joining
personality cults.

~~~
lazyjones
> _The real secret of education is it is the only method humanity has
> discovered to stop people making the same stupid mistakes every single
> generation like all the other animals._

Strongly disagree. There are plenty of educated people doing stupid, evil,
destructive things. What would have saved them is a proper upbringing in a
healthy community. Some colleges are now toxic institutions that achieve the
opposite.

------
neonate
[https://archive.vn/LefC3](https://archive.vn/LefC3)

------
rayiner
> Another result of Mr Wantchekon’s political past is a preference for
> empiricism over ideology. A trip to Albania ended his blind affection for
> socialism. His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African
> academy. Any student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues.
> The aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it. “Be
> angry but also be thoughtful,” he says.

This is something that should be impressed upon all the Americans who throw
around the term “decolonization.” What would “decolonizing” say Bangladesh
(where I am from) mean? Should we abandon the use of English? Dismantle our
Supreme Court, an institution we inherited from the British? Dismantle our
legal system built on British common law, or our constitution built on the
American constitution and the Magna Carta? Abandon capitalism and free markets
(which 80%+ of the population support because it has revolutionized the
country)? Abandon western ideas like religious freedom, secularism, feminism,
individualism, etc? What would we replace those things with?

~~~
UncleMeat
Have you had conversations with academics who are interested in decolonizing
their fields? People are interested in decolonizing history aren't saying that
we should throw away all study of european history. They are saying that we
should add more voices. This has been a project for decades, with more voices
of women and poc being represented in historical analysis.

Necessarily, this means reducing the amount of time spent on "traditional
western civilization" in the classroom, since there is only so much time. But
go check out a renaissance history course taught by a young faculty member.
White men continue to dominate the discourse. We've just added some more
voices alongside them.

~~~
marcosdumay
Brazilian here. Around here, it usually means adding low quality voices to the
discussion.

Although there are a few pushing for recognition of good local work, those few
tends to be attacked from both sides of the discussion.

~~~
UncleMeat
If your opinion is that female and poc voices are "low quality" then I don't
know what to say...

This isn't adding voices for the sake of it. This is adding voices because
those voices are an essential part of historical understanding and history
suffers if you exclude them.

~~~
marcosdumay
Bad authors are bad, and good authors are good whatever sex and skin color
they have. Individual author qualities are much more relevant than the social
context they are immersed; if somebody doesn't understand they society they
are talking about, reading them is worthless, it doesn't matter if it has an
incredibly different and interesting culture.

Around here there is plenty (but trending down) of pushing for authors on the
basis that they are local, or non-white, or not male, or poor. There is also a
lot (and trending up) of pushing for authors on the basis that they are from
some "world-class" place/culture. Both approaches are classist/racist/sexist
and plain stupid. Labels like "decolonizing" usually come from the first
group, and anybody trying to judge local authors based on their own merits is
quickly outed from that group with the argument that judging works done by
such class/race/sex is classist/racist/sexist, so people using that label are
almost never on the actually unprejudiced group.

Besides, forcefully changing authors based on prejudice has the double effect
of teaching locals that they aren't expected to create high quality work and
delegating competent locals to a life of obscurity, because if you can't judge
their work, you can't discover that it's any good either.

But anyway, that says nothing about the subjects of study. It is always worthy
to study the cultures that helped forming one's own.

~~~
UncleMeat
> Bad authors are bad, and good authors are good whatever sex and skin color
> they have.

Again, "voices" not "authors".

And this is the whole point! People aren't elevating worthless voices for
diversity sake. People are resolving a problem where valuable voices were
excluded because of their identity. We are getting closer to a fair analysis,
not further from it.

~~~
marcosdumay
By "voices" you mean diversity on the subject being studied? If so, I
completely agree.

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artsyca
Slavery and branding are two things which predate recorded history.

We pretend like anything has changed but in actual fact the same rules apply
as always.

Money alone is enough to set the world in motion. If you value peace prepare
for war. The only way to make any money is to sell the fruits of someone
else's labour. You can't buy loyalty.

------
edoo
This is very prescient as right now the radical leftists are busy destroying
the icons of anti-slavery and black success. Marxist's always destroy the good
history when they take control. If you don't know where you are from you can
be led anywhere. We'll see slavery again in this country if we forget our
past.

------
madballster
"data-mining skills" \-- I cringed at this phrase used by the journalist. Data
mining is not a worthwhile skill, in fact its more of an insult. It's a curse
any scientist worth his salt tries to avoid.

