Trained to be a (white) Saviour

Have you ever noticed how our Australian education system teaches us that there is always an answer to every question? 

But what if there isn’t?

The importance of education

I’m a big fan of education. I personally love reading and learning new ideas and seeing how the things we know about the “real world” and the things we create in our fictional worlds shape us as humans. I love hearing stories from others and learning about people’s lives. 

I also like the satisfaction of getting numbers to add up properly and I love hearing scientific explanations. Though I have to admit, I do get distracted from these things more easily, and normally need them explained more than once. 

I like religious education and seeing how we are shaped by our interactions with and our understanding of God and those we share spiritual journeys with.

And of course there are the social impacts of education - as increases in education levels lead to decreased poverty, less childhood marriages and pregnancies, protection against domestic violence, greater job opportunities, increased health benefits and greater engagement in societal and political issues.

Photo by Jackson Simmer https://unsplash.com/@simmerdownjpg

Always finding solutions

Yet one of the things that I noticed quite early on in my time in Cambodia, is that our education system has taught us that there is always a solution to everything. We are taught that with enough effort and resources, we can change anything.

Don’t know when the bus is coming? Look up the timetable. 

Want to know what vegetables to plant this season? Google it. 

Have a headache? Ask the pharmacist which medicine to take.

Need to build a table? Use these formulas. 

Want to get to space? Start a space program. (well, maybe only if you are a billionaire). 

These are all really great skills and really good outcomes. But never once at school was I taught, there are some things you may not be able to figure out. We hear more stories of how Einstein is right, than we do of the questions that scientists haven’t figured out yet. Unsolved maths problems aren’t shown in class lest students get discouraged.

Which is fine. We should all be inspired to try our best and to take on new challenges. But for those of us who have spent 13 years (or more) in this system, it does mean that we have very rarely been told to stop. To wait. To let someone else go first. We have been told that we can always fix the problem.

And so we set about fixing the problem. 

Someone is hungry. Feed them. 

Someone needs a house. Build it for them.

Someone has a medical diagnosis. Give them the right medicine. 

Someone has a long-term disability. Find a “cure” for it. 

Someone is in a domestic violence situation. Tell them how to leave it. 

And somehow our good intentions and our good knowledge shift from tackling a perceived problem - To fixing the person.  We see someone who doesn’t have the same experience of the world as we do. We assume that’s a problem. We set about trying to fix the problem. We don’t see the people experiencing the problem. We don’t acknowledge that other experiences are just as valid.

We become the saviours of people’s situations.

And when you add cross-cultural experiences, education inequality, wealth-inequality, and the emotional heart strings attached to this, many of us become saviours. Add in our own lack of awareness of the ways that our culture has shaped us, and those of us who come from Caucasian backgrounds, often become “white saviours”. Societal concepts of inspiration, of sacrifice, alternative views of productivity, identity, belief, ableism and cultural understanding add layers and layers and layers to a situation.  When you add religious understandings of service, love, calling, helping “the poor” into the mix, it gets even more complicated (but that’s a post for another time).

The White Saviour Complex is complex. In fact, as much as we might try to find life hacks (which are really just more fixes to ‘problems’), life is complex.  People are complex. 

Cobra Lily by Chris Ellinger.

The beauty of complexity

And I don’t know about you, but I find complexity difficult. It’s hard. It means I don’t know all the answers. It means the story is always bigger than I think it is. It means that my part of the story has more flow on effects than I think it does

Complexity can be overwhelming. Complexity makes it seem confusing. Complexity makes it easier to just ignore it and walk away. 

So this is your invitation. To come and sit within the complex. To take the step to say that you don’t know. And to start asking questions. 

There are probably a range of answers. There are (hopefully) even more questions. 

This is your invitation to stop. To wait. To sit. To listen. To allow others to educate you. And to allow your complexities to educate others. Complexity doesn’t need to intimidate us. It doesn’t need quick fixes. It’s not actually broken. 

Beauty is complex. Truth is complex. Emotions are complex. Story is complex. Relationships are complex. 

Yet it is these things that grow us, shape us, and form us into the complex beings that we are. Beings so complex, that we might, together, even be able to learn to change the world. 

Your turn:

What from this blog post resonates with you?

What is the most challenging thing about this idea to you?

What do you think about the idea that as a culture we have been trained to fix problems and people?

Cover Photo by Karla Hernandez