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Claims about Africa
The conversation confirmed an opinion that has crystallised over the past few years: if, as a westerner, you are going to visit Africa, the earlier in your life you do it, the better. By the time you are in your twenties, your head is so stuffed with preconceived opinions, mostly of the ethically self-flagellating variety, you can barely see, let alone interpret, what is going on outside you.
Here is the link, courtesy of www.bookforum.com. I am interested in the claim that there is an optimal time in one's life to travel. Many people do not get to travel much until their children leave the house. But when are the cognitive returns to travel the highest? I believe one must first know some theory before travelling -- perhaps even some false theory -- otherwise the travel does not come as a sufficient shock. In other words, the more you read and ponder social reality, the lower is your optimal cognitive age for travel.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 16, 2008 at 06:44 AM in Travels | Permalink
Comments
As someone who has traveled to Africa on three separate occasions I have to agree with this idea. My first trip was when I was 18 and even though I'd read a lot about Africa and really wanted to go, my first trip (when I was staying in the absolute bush) was quite the eye opener. I had reverse culture shock coming back to the US and seeing what an opulent society I live in.
On my first trip I learned a lot of language and culture. I went every two years during college and in retrospect is seems that I became more set in my ways and less open to learning and absorbing what was around me. Of course, that could also be because the first time is always the most exciting.
Posted by: Rosie at Nov 16, 2008 7:12:23 AM
I also don't agree that the best time to travel is when you're essentially a blank slate, you need to know the context and background to be able to interpret what you see and experience properly, otherwise you'd just take everything at face value.
Travel might help people realise that their viewpoints are based more on political correctness than reality, which can only be a good thing. It seems though that many people are very adept at ignoring whatever parts of reality don't justify their pre-existing worldview so it might not have much of an impact.
It always amazes me the impressions people that have never left e.g. the US have of foreign countries, particularly Africa, any travel then is likely to be informative.
Then again as a Westerner living in South Africa I'm probably biased.
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 16, 2008 7:27:09 AM
What's the optimal noncognitive age for travel? -- cognition not being the only thing in life.
Posted by: RM at Nov 16, 2008 7:43:08 AM
on the other hand, when people are young, especially in their twenties, they can have very nimble memory and this memory can get in the way of cognition. if you already "know" the answer you will not be as able to "see" the answer using your senses.
Posted by: babar at Nov 16, 2008 8:20:22 AM
My first travels abroad - like most Americans who do - were to Europe. It helped me in later years in more "challenging" destinations as by that point I was used to being in airports, hopping from city to city and country to country, a set of routines and experiences that in themselves can overwhelm a new traveler.
By the time I reached India I was already a seasoned traveler. I cannot imagine trying to navigate let alone digest/process those experiences without having had a bunch of stamps in my passport already.
I haven't yet had the time to visit sub-Saharan Africa, but if it is anything approaching India or the Middle East in terms of amount of energy and open mind required, I would agree that it's best to visit when you're on the right side of 30(ish).
Posted by: meter at Nov 16, 2008 8:39:50 AM
Sorry to be slightly off-topic but the following article on Iceland shows how difficult it is to judge foreign countries, let alone continents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/iceland
In it John Carlin (the author of the article) explains one of the reasons why Iceland has the happiest people in the world: "the fastest-expanding banking system in the world".
If you meet this guy and if he starts paying you compliments, you should be very,very afraid.
Posted by: Attila Smith at Nov 16, 2008 8:50:02 AM
As a South African born, White African who has travelled a fair amount of South Africa and Southern Africa (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Nambibia, etc) I always find it odd a) when people use the continental aggregator 'Africa', b) that they often regard African countries as more foreign and 'other' prior to their arrival than after, and c) how they feel the urgent need to 'experience the local culture' as if it was uniform and, again, aggregated.
I took my undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town where, every year, many North American exchange students would come to do courses on 'Africa'. For example, the second year (sophomore) African Literature course was approximately half-filled with North Americans travelling to Africa for the first time and intending to access 'genuine African' academic and cultural experiences. They were often amazed as much by the similarities as they were by the differences and the diversity of cultural experiences (generalizing grossly).
Anyway, the point of this is that to enter in a naive state, say as a child, where you are unaware of post-colonial theory and imperialism may allow a more genuine experience of the various cultures with which you come into contact. Being aware of these factors though does not make it impossible to associate, but it may mean that you need to break down preconceptions to let yourself have a good time, to enjoy those things you can and to marvel at those things you can't or don't enjoy.
Posted by: Simon Halliday at Nov 16, 2008 9:24:06 AM
The tension is clear. As you grow older you strengthen certain view --a model-- of the world. Travel as a young person and you will be able to interpret and consume the travel experience without the impediment of the preconceived model. Travel as an older person, and you will confront your experience and the existing model of the world. The question is, perhaps, which models of the world prevent gains from traveling and which ones enable gains from traveling. The former will only allow us to interpret the new in terms of the old, while the latter allows us to bring the new and the old into a more general, enhanced view of the world.
Another aspect is also relevant: traveling affects our view of the world, but it also affects the view of ourselves (a particular subset of the world). I presume these two processes work in different ways. But not sure how.
Posted by: londenio at Nov 16, 2008 10:11:36 AM
Simon, don't you think that Cape Town isn't representative of what most Americans think of when they say they want to visit Africa?
Regarding your point b), that's nearly universally true of any travel experience, isn't it? (Though traveling in the American South made me feel the opposite.)
Posted by: meter at Nov 16, 2008 10:24:06 AM
I don't travel much as an adult, by modern standards, but I did as a kid. We did a 60 day VW camper trip around Europe when I was 10 years old, and a long Mexico trip the year or two after.
What I notice now is that when I travel shift gears more easily than people who didn't start until adults ... it's like they walk off the plane and start cataloging differences between X and America. I'm like "of course it's different" and then I try to keep my eyes open for how.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 16, 2008 10:37:11 AM
Maybe what I have is a prejudice ... that people who don't travel until later have a stronger opinion of how things "should be."
Posted by: odograph at Nov 16, 2008 10:38:49 AM
I first traveled to Africa with my family when I was 4, and it was the most important trip of my life. At that age everything is amazing, though we don't know why yet.
Travel should open our eyes, but I disagree it should come as a shock. Because of my young experiences, everything still fascinates me in Africa, but I'm not so busy being confused about it, so much as enjoying the differences and learning from them.
Posted by: Nathan Fiala at Nov 16, 2008 11:32:03 AM
I had the great fortune to stumble into worldwide travel at the age of 24. I left my grad school program (political science) and used my savings to travel for six months in Sweden, Turkey, Greece, India, Nepal, Thailand and Korea. I finally ended up in Taiwan, where I learned Chinese and started my first company.
Now that I am at the stage of raising kids and supporting a family, I realize what a great thing early, extensive travel is. It formed the foundation of my worldview and is a central part of who I am (note my chosen pseudonym).
Posted by: Peripetatic Entrepreneur at Nov 16, 2008 11:58:55 AM
early travel is absolutely better, not for the reasons above, but because of the risk that illness, parenthood, and careers will limit your ability to travel later. Carpe diem, time's winged chariot is hurrying near, etc.
oth, i'm suspicious of anyone who recommends cognitive results from your travel, because too often that means 'travel when I did, with the knowledge I had, so you'll come out agreeing with me.' Please, instead, follow your own passions, but do it early when your freedom is maximal.
Posted by: DK at Nov 16, 2008 12:41:45 PM
Travel as a naive child, and you will be most likely to assimilate into the culture while you are there; afterward, you will grow into a more mature person.
Travel as a learned adult, and you will have a "culture shock", which will make it harder to "see what is going on around you". It will be much harder to assimilate while you are there, and when you return, you will feel the "reverse culture shock", which will help you mature; however, I would expect most adults to refuse to admit they were wrong, and take the experience as a "fun trip" to never be pondered except as an adventure.
Duration of the trip should be considered, as I expect the longer the trip for a learned adult, the more likely it will have a lasting effect.
Posted by: brainwarped at Nov 16, 2008 12:44:49 PM
I'm with G.B. Shaw on this one: when asked by a young person whether they should travel or go to university, he replied that it's important to get an education first - you can always go to university later. So definitely around the age of 18-20. I also his statement on traveling: that the hotel is an important refuge from home. I think this is an under appreciated comment. It's important to "throw yourself out there" and lose your home; too many Americans travel only to Europe, and even there they carry their homes to their hotels.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Nov 16, 2008 4:26:56 PM
The funny thing about the article is that the author's 16-year old niece doesn't demonstrate any particularly keen insight. I know plenty of 60 year olds who could go to Africa and come up with "Gosh, if you're white here you really can't blend in!" or "Are all Kenyan policemen corrupt?". If anything her impressions of Africa seem simply naive and shallow. Europeans may carry a lot of guilt with them when they visit Africa, and maybe that does skew how they understand the country. Most white Americans don't carry that baggage and doesn't know much about Africa to start with (not saying they shouldn't, but they just don't) so 15 or 65 probably doesn't matter that much.
Posted by: vanya at Nov 16, 2008 5:00:49 PM
Speaking of age and travel, here's an interesting quote from Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father" about how much the President Elect hated his three week trip to Europe in 1988, which he took around his 27th birthday just before entering Harvard Law School:
"I’d been feeling this way all through my stay in Europe--edgy, defensive, hesitant with strangers. I hadn’t planned it
that way. I had thought of the layover there as nothing more than a whimsical detour, an opportunity to visit places I
had never been before. For three weeks I had traveled alone, down one side of the continent and up the other, by bus
and by train mostly, a guidebook in hand. I took tea by the Thames and watched children chase each other through the
chestnut groves of Luxembourg Garden. I crossed the Plaza Mejor at high noon, with its De Chirico shadows and
sparrows swirling across cobalt skies; and watched night fall over the Palatine, waiting for the first stars to appear,
listening to the wind and its whispers of mortality.
"And by the end of the first week or so, I realized that I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t that Europe wasn’t beautiful;
everything was just as I’d imagined it. It just wasn’t mine. I felt as if I were living out someone else’s romance; the
incompleteness of my own history stood between me and the sites I saw like a hard pane of glass. I began to suspect
that my European stop was just one more means of delay, one more attempt to avoid coming to terms with the Old
Man. Stripped of language, stripped of work and routine-stripped even of the racial obsessions to which I’d become so
accustomed and which I had taken (perversely) as a sign of my own maturation-I had been forced to look inside myself
and had found only a great emptiness there." [p. 301-302]
At age 26-27, Obama in Europe was like a Boston Red Sox fan being given a tour of Yankee Stadium. That it was huge and filled with a history of glorious accomplishment just made it more hateful to him.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Nov 16, 2008 7:56:33 PM
The older I get the fewer "preconceived notions" I have, and every year I'm better at interpreting things (but much worse at remembering things...)
Posted by: Paul N at Nov 16, 2008 8:31:45 PM
"I believe one must first know some theory before travelling -- perhaps even some false theory -- otherwise the travel does not come as a sufficient shock."
^^completely. I don't buy the 'old age ossification' theory. I was too immature out of highschool to travel immediately; I could've done it, but I wouldn't have appreciated the differences I encountered as deeply as after I had a few more years to develop a more substantive world view. Learn a little before you go, you'll be the richer for it.
Posted by: at Nov 16, 2008 9:11:10 PM
I also take some exception to idea that traveling while your young is more cognitively useful. It seems to me this would only apply if you're someone who is going to become cognitively inflexible. As others above have noted, I've lost more preconceived notions than I've gained, and have learned (as best I can) simply not to have them, or to not be shocked when they are challenged.
I'll admit, however, one tremendous impact I took from travel to SE Asia and Europe in my 20's: For all the world opines on provincial Americans, and for all Americans and the rest of the world seem to believe foreign (non-American) press is head-and-shoulders above our own in telling "the truth" and printing facts that Americans don't know, the views and beliefs held about America by non-Americans - even very well-educated ones - are often *astoundingly* ill-informed, even on simple day-to-day topics.
Posted by: MM at Nov 16, 2008 10:02:20 PM
You know, most at 18-20 year old people do not have the option of waltzing around the planet. Those who do are privileged (in the sense of having a shot at a rare opportunity, not just having access to lots of money). So while these concerns may be valid for a lot of people, they are nowhere near as general as the quote and a lot of the comments imply.
The optimal cognitive age for travel is any and every time you can arrange it.
Posted by: agm at Nov 16, 2008 10:46:09 PM
I'll just chime in to ditto MM and agm. I've spent most my life in various parts of Southeast Asia, but I've traveled quite a bit (I once managed to set foot on three continents in less than a week). My family currently lives in New Zealand and I am studying in an American university. I'm always somewhat surprised by peers (from home and from college) who think of traveling as something you just have to do. I am the type who does not like to travel very much (although I'm probably just as well-traveled as those in my peer group) so I suppose that contributes, but I also think of traveling as something you can't really afford to do - that it's a really luxurious thing to do.
And switching gears, MM is completely right - people almost everywhere are pretty much the same. Americans often have a silly perception of the rest of the world, and vice-versa. I'm not really surprised by it anymore.
Posted by: johnleemk at Nov 16, 2008 11:57:21 PM
I disagree with the whole idea that there is an optimum age to travel. Is there an optimum age to read literature too? If you're interested in the world, shouldn't both last your whole life?
Buying a ticket to India at 18 or whenever is a great idea. So is jumping at the opportunity to live in another country for a few years. So is making friends in faraway places, and visiting them. Drag the kids along too, they'll remember lots of cool things. Make the silly generalisations, everyone does, and then go home and think about them.
Going to places you're particularly interested in is a good idea (be it language, architecture, food, or development) in which case you can be an expert traveller. But don't only do that, take the stopover and have a clueless weekend trying to figure it out. Don't only seek out the pure, untainted, but embrace the real world in all its contradictions.
Posted by: improbable at Nov 17, 2008 12:21:14 AM
Word to improbable! Ages 18-38, I have been to foreign places for times short and long, where I spoke the languaage and where I didn't, and I always learned a lot.
Posted by: David Wright at Nov 17, 2008 4:04:53 AM
