quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
You guys are trying to tell me the west IS a super happy paradise?
Right... and how many third world adolescant suicides, female anorexia/bullemic victims are there.
I shared a house with a Sri Lankan visitor for a couple of weeks, and I'm living with two Indonesians now. I have Malay, Taiwanese and Mongol students.
The Sri Lankan said and I quote:
"We don't understand the mental problems of women in the west. The have so much that we want, yet starve themselves."
My issue was not that the third world have it good, but it's quite possible that in many ways they have it better.
Was that what I said? I didn't mean to say that. I was referring to your comment that you saw a documentary showing that the third world is better off than we are. What I meant was, you can make anything seem postive, and anything seem negative if you show the right bits. I could make a documentary showing what a super happy paradise the west is if I wanted, making sure I didn't include any negative aspects, just as I could make a super postive documentary about developing countries as well. There are extended families, fresh air etc in the west just as there are in developing nations. And yes there might not be youth suicide and anorexia in developing nations, but how much female genital mutilation occurs in the west, how many people die of starvation and diseases caused by unfresh water? The show you saw showed some aspects of the west, and some aspects of the third world, as did the show I saw. But at least in the case of the show I saw, it was biased towards the aims of the producers.