We need new ideas to tackle old problems
Our notion of development has been too narrow and, for the most part, economic.
It should also mean enabling people to enhance their own capabilities. There is a need for a far greater understanding of development and how society works. I am interested in balanced development. Regional development is still a geographical illusion. We must release power to the regions and maximise the development of the country as a whole. The question is no longer local, it has become worldwide.
Paulo Freire suggests a study of themes such as underdevelopment, hunger, dependence and the culture of silence. The big issues must have a local habitation and the development of responses at local level.
There are the inadequacies of old forms of thought to deal with new experience. We need to offer new categories of thinking, of language, of mystery, of imagery. The imbalance between rich and poor was a feature of all ancient economies. This imbalance continues.
Why this is the case should be a common search for all of us. We should be enabling people to solve their own problems. Peter Berger, the sociologist, holds that we need mediating structures that are responsive to real needs, and these structures should mitigate dependency. After all, government which governs least is best.
Michael Ruane,
Upper Gardiner Street,
Dublin 13.
