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06626_Field_TCUM T191.txt
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1996-04-10
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in action. To act without reacting, without involvement, is the
peculiar advantage of Western literate man.
The story of The Ugly American describes the endless
succession of blunders achieved by visual and civilized
Americans when confronted with the tribal and auditory
cultures of the East. As a civilized UNESCO experiment, running
water—with its lineal organization of pipes—was installed
recently in some Indian villages. Soon the villagers requested
that the pipes be removed, for it seemed to them that the
whole social life of the village had been impoverished when it
was no longer necessary for all to visit the communal well. To
us the pipe is a convenience. We do not think of it as culture or
as a product of literacy, any more than we think of literacy as
changing our habits, our emotions, or our perceptions. To
nonliterate people, it is perfectly obvious that the most