Pico Iyer on the dangers of “politically correct” travel writing
“To this day, across the developing world, foreigners sacrifice their lives and energies, often heroically, in order to help the locals attain a better life. Yet frequently in the process they try to protect the places they visit from the very technology, freedom of movement, and material plenty that they have enjoyed in getting there. They want the local to honor the spiritual purity and postcard ancientness that they have gone to find — not Britney Spears, McDonald’s, and MTV. The travel writing of the American Empire may sometimes be possessed by feminist concerns or anti-capitalist impulses, seeking nature more than art, the jungle more than museums, the raw above the cooked, but that is still colonialism by a different name. However self-lacerating and respectful, its approach can be as hostile to real exchange as overweening arrogance and imperial condescension are. If the old form of travel writing said, ‘Look at these laughable people different from ourselves,’ the new one advises, ‘We should listen to and learn from the greatness of these people so other than ourselves.’ In both cases the final emphasis is on ‘ourselves.’ The idea that the traveler is always right is simply replaced by the idea that the traveler is always wrong. The song remains the same.”
–Pico Iyer, Travel Writing: Nowhere Need Be Foreign, Lapham’s Quarterly, Summer 2009
August 8th, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Whoever personally knows Mr. Pico Iyer, tell him that I’ve always had a fondness for his writings, thus, I imagine, also for him personally, (even though I do not know how he looks like, nor am I too curious to find out lest I should be disappointed in any way !), and also tell him I totally agree with him on this one ! Also, please tell him that I am sorry that I threw away once some of his books…it wasn’t because I was mad at what he wrote, it was because I literally had to travel light in a hurry someplace else and I had to leave nothing behind that could remind anyone who might come looking for me that I personally lived over there for a while. I promise that I will purchase again some of his books as soon as possible.
August 8th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
This reminds me of Craufurd Tait Ramage’s travel classic, The Nooks and By-Ways of Italy, an account of a walking trip through south Italy in 1828. Although the countryside was in ferment, with liberalism struggling against ancien regime repression, Ramage had this to say about politics:
“It would be absurd of me to inter-meddle with the internal affairs of a country of which I know so little . . .”
Would that all foreign visitors were so modest.