Which Should Come First, Pragmatism or the Respect of a Culture

Earlier this semester, I went to the Dominican Republic on a mission trip; it was not with one of the many Mercer on Mission trips, but lets just assume that it was. We were able to be apart of a church called The Church of the Reconciliation. This was an interesting experience for me both in experiencing a place where there was only one person who spoke both Spanish and English (and he had merely taken a few college courses; which made the language barrier extremely difficult to get through) and a culture that felt quite foreign from my own. It is the latter which still interests me long after I have returned. First, I need to briefly describe what occurred in order for my quandary to fully present itself.

While we we in the DR, we were not part of a large organization that goes their year after year. For, although we were apart of a mission sponsored by the Episcopal Church, it was not like Habitat or many of the other organizations where one would be apart of a group with a number that would be responsible for putting up the wooden planks around a room. We were there with a set amount of money, and helping people in mind. What was planned for the money and us then was entirely the doing of the locals. Keeping this in mind, what we did do was put up several walls on several houses and a bathroom, as well as fixing up the church, which was under construction. Rather than money and time and effort being put into one project, or one families home, it was spread across many projects and many homes. However, at the end of the time that we spent there, all our labor and funds had not completed a single roof or whole structure. This is the aspect that has bothered me ever since.

The philosophical school of pragmatism states (at least this is my interpretation of it) that the value of something is dependent on its practical use. The more that I think about it, the more I agree with this standpoint. It will come of no great surprise then that what frustrated me about my DR trip was that not one single family is now protected from the rain, even though we spent a great amount of time and money attempting to aid them. It was later pointed out to me that when in other countries, one should respect their culture and the way in which they do things; this, of course, means that one cannot always be a pragmatist. However, I wonder if it is better to “respect the culture” of a group of people to which you are attempting to provide aid, or to be pragmatic and help as many people as you can.