I’ll only add that there’s something kind of ugly and narcissistic in an old-fashioned colonial sense about this notion of “finding yourself” through travel; as if all those people on the other side of the world are just sitting around waiting for another white American who they can self-actualize. As if the value of visiting another place is not in seeing another side of history and human experience in all of its richness and inconceivable variety, but in catching a reflection of yourself from a different angle.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
No comments:
Post a Comment