The analysis of Somolia and Rawanda in Peterson were great. It was very informative and broke down this issues into easy to understand compartmentalized ideas. After reading that and doing my own little hind sight analysis I recognized a common theme in a lot of our discussions. We often find ourselves asking two basic questions "In light of what we know to have happened what should have we done?" and "In light of what we think will happen, what should we do?" As you can see these two broad questions can be applied to almost any situation that we have addressed so far.

I think it is important to illustrate our limited ability to be able to answer those questions for several reasons but mainly I think it will help us avoid any pitfalls in our analysis and thinking.

If we are going to put in place some type of development effort ideally we would want to "specify in advance the best solution to a problem"(Riddle's definition of wisdom)

British thinker Jeramey Bentham outlines 5 points that limit our ability to do so.

1.We must understand a given problem in all of its ramifications.

2. We must understand all possible solutions to the problem.

3. We must be able to foresee the long range consequences of the possible solutions.

4. We must select the solution that benefits the maximum number of people.

5. We must carry out the best solution, regardless of the obstacles which may be encountered while carrying out the solution.

1-4 require omniscience and number 5 requires omnipotence.


This is not to say that we cannot/should not find solutions to development issues. I think we just need to recognize our limitations. Then use them as a standard to compare against so that we don't fall into the trap of thinking that we can somehow be above these limitations.

Development efforts are asymptotic, we are only going to approach the ideal. As with looking back and deciding what we should have done in a situation we move closer to these limits (ie hindsight is 20/20) but this only serves as inperfect information to be used determining future solution selections. So we see that the Clinton administration were merely acting within their limitations, by relying on their analysis of what they should have done in Somolia, when deciding what they should do in Rwanda.

*The info about Bentham and the quote from Riddle come from "Think Independently" Chauncey C. Riddle. Interestingly enough the C. stands for Cazier. I think he's related to the library guy.