Utopia Is Only in Documentaries : Tourists’ desire for quaintness can clash with a primitive society’s need for modern conveniences.

I am frequently asked to give slide shows on my travels to undeveloped areas of Asia. An image of a Tibetan nomad flashes up on the screen, and someone in the audience invariably exclaims, “Oh, how healthy they look!” Yes, it’s true they have rosy cheeks and strong bodies, but their world is not really a paradise.

Take, for example, this typical family photo. At the right is an elderly woman. She looks about 80, but she’s only 50. Her teeth are almost gone and exposure to the sun has left her skin dark, dry and wrinkled. Life in this natural environment has taken a toll. And notice further that there’s only one of her. The others of her generation are already dead.

Look at the children. There are many little ones, but few older children. Why? Because many babies never make it to adulthood. Every mother can expect to lose children to disease or malnutrition, for some families go months without seeing any fruit or vegetables, and they are ignorant of ordinary hygiene.

Think of the last time you broke a bone or had a toothache or severe flu. You went right to the doctor, didn’t you? What would life be like if you could never do that? You might try eating unusual foods or herbs, and if you got well, you’d attribute it to their magical properties. But more probably, they wouldn’t work and you would simply suffer. Children in non-technological societies often have misshapen limbs. Elders have cataracts. Women die during childbirth. These are the inevitable consequences of living in a “healthy” natural environment.

Yes, the nomads in my photos have rosy cheeks and strong bodies. They have to, for they work hard all day. What you don’t see are the sunken cheeks and shrunken bodies of those who didn’t survive.

In television documentaries, non-technological societies are usually portrayed as somehow better than ours. It’s politically correct to praise what is the farthest from our own environmentally destructive urban lives. We are exhorted to protect natural ecosystems, to preserve endangered wildlife and to shelter Borneo’s headhunters and Amazonia’s Indians from the ravages of the white man’s civilization. So when I tell people about my friend Tsewang, a Tibetan who lives in Lhasa and who recently acquired a hookup to bring MTV into his home, they are horrified. “Contamination!” goes the cry all around.

I don’t know anyone in Borneo or Amazonia, but I do know Tsewang. He is not at all unbalanced by having MTV to watch. He thinks it’s interesting, yes, but also odd and rather incomprehensible. He has not taken to wearing baggy calf-length pants and huge black sneakers, but even if he had, what of it? Isn’t that his right? Certainly everyone who vacations in Tibet next year will be disappointed to find Tibetans looking just like us, but that doesn’t mean Tibetans should be imprisoned in the past for the sake of our entertainment.

Like many young Tibetans, who generally have no opportunity to travel outside their homeland, Tsewang is burning with curiosity about the outside world. How would you feel if someone put up a wall around your hometown, forbade you to leave, prohibited outsiders from coming in, took away your television and ordered you to forget how to read, all in the name of preserving your cultural purity? When you eat Chinese food or see a French film or admire Italian fashions, do you feel contaminated? Of course not; most of us are interested in foreign things. That we have opportunities to enjoy them we take as a sign of progress. So does Tsewang.

It’s time to recognize that people are not wildlife. They have ambitions and desires that are as legitimate as ours, despite our “superior” knowledge. People everywhere want to have longer, safer and more comfortable lives and education for their children. They want progress, but at their own pace, from their own labor (with some help from outside) and by their own choice. We are not less American because we have given up our six-shooters and ten-gallon hats. Will Tibetans be less Tibetan if they are stockbrokers and beauticians instead of farmers and herdsmen? Of course not. It is up to them, not us, to select which customs they will keep and how they will develop.

We who live in rich societies cannot and should not repudiate our accomplishments. Instead, we need to make them consistent with a healthy planet while allowing others, if they choose, to follow.