I think that is a very negative notion. It completely omits the part where people meet each other, talk and learn. It’s probably difficult to measure but I bet that tourism is making the world a more peaceful place.
I think the DFW quote is actively damaging because it paints a picture of certain places as belonging to a certain group of people by natural right rather than by a more contingent or accidental mechanism.
I think it's only a very short distance from that kind of argument to the argument that many use to suggest that immigrants fleeing dangerous and awful places are an infestation to be eliminated.
Both legally and practically speaking there are ample reasons both to limit tourism and to limit immigration in reasonable, fair, and thoughtful ways. Some resources are more limited than others. The fact that some groups of people find themselves in possession of a place or a resource that others appreciate or even covet does not convey on them some kind of moral superiority over the rest of humanity.
Having an intelligent conversation about the practical limits of tourism and immigration is important and welcome. Demonizing those who want to experience different cultures, different climates, and different geography is completely unhelpful.
I say this as someone who hates to travel and who cannot stand going to a tourist destination that's overflowing with people.
But I refuse to demonize people that like or tolerate that kind of experience the same way I refuse to demonize people who are seeking a better life for themselves more permanently.
It is a delicate and fragile thing to be sure. The culture of a place comes from the people born accidentally to it. The desire to see that culture drives people not of it to visit, and then maybe to relocate, but if they don't let go of their own cultures and assimilate, they will fundamentally change the culture that drew them there.
Is this bad? It just means something changes -- it's up to the maintainers of the existing culture to decide how they want that culture to change.
Free movement is beautiful, a border-less world idyllic, but it does mean abandoning regional differences as the world becomes one giant ice cream soup of Hard Rock Cafes and Le Pain Quotidien bakeries, Ei Group pubs and Wyndham hotels.
If my ancestors built a place, and raised their families there to continue taking care of it for generations, in what sense does it not belong to me and my extended family? Nothing about that process was "accidental", though it may have some factor of "randomness" about it depending on your personal epistemology.
> I think it's only a very short distance from that kind of argument to the argument that many use to suggest that immigrants fleeing dangerous and awful places are an infestation to be eliminated.
You've skipped a thousand steps. When the caretakers of a place welcome people in, and then discover they pose a problem, it's not unreasonable for them to wish to mitigate the issue. If this means that an unlimited number of refugees or immigrants cannot be accepted because maintaining the same standard of living would be impossible, it is not unreasonable to refuse new entrants. By no means are we beholden to support every other human being, even if we empathize for their plight.
> The fact that some groups of people find themselves in possession of a place or a resource that others appreciate or even covet does not convey on them some kind of moral superiority over the rest of humanity.
It's not moral superiority; it's moral duty, to understand and uphold the works of the past that have lead to greatness. Failure to do so could mean seeing beautiful things destroyed, replaced by the same chaos and fear that people are already fleeing.
> I say this as someone who hates to travel
Well, maybe if you saw more of the world, and saw what people are trying to protect (e.g. in Europe), and got a greater sense of what it means to be a people (as opposed to the atomized, decultured masses in North America)... maybe you might understand why someone would seek to preserve something.
It makes sense that you don't care about preserving your local strip mall / walmart / home depot. It's quite another thing to care about preserving Notre Dame and such.
I don't think it's about ownership of a place; it's that the wonder of the place is destroyed by observation; especially by bulk observation. The question becomes is it better for the wonderous place to exist for insiders only, or for everyone to be able to observe its destruction?
Some places have become so far gone, that tourists come solely to observe tourists.
Tourist destinations, though they're also full of people from around the world, make something less than the sum of its parts. Tourists in this mode don't bring their own culture to the place. I'm sure most of the tourists are interesting people back home, but for some reason they adopt a globalized extruded tourist persona on vacation.
For example, parts of Bali are full of Australian tourists. Bali is interesting, and Australians are interesting. But mobs of Australians picking over the gift shops in Bali are ghastly.
Well, arriving could be accidental, but living there generation after generation, building the local culture, building the buildings, cultivating the land, etc, made it yours in a non "continent" but very real way.
When you go to see e.g. Venice, you don't go to see some wildlife area that some people happened to arrive nearby recently and claim, but to experience the culture and building and legacy that people built (and built upon) over millennia. There's few things "contingent or accidental" about that.
Perhaps difficult to explain this to Americans that are e.g. children of first generation immigrants, that live in a culture/city that others have built, and thus it's all the same to them.
Though the Native Americans would beg to differ - but those were treated as an "infestation to be eliminated" by the new European arrivals at the time.
If people really wanted to "meet each other, talk and learn" they could do it in their towns. Heck, in their neighborhoods. There are tons of stories there, people of different races, perspective, different political views, social backgrounds, etc. Even from different countries (immigrants etc). But you need to care and engage to do that.
So instead, they "meet and talk" as tourists, ie. in some place they'll spend 10-20 days and seldom if ever go back, with people they'll never see, and don't really care about.
And usually for trivial matters (since they don't share common causes or engage in some shared project, like they could with people in their home towns, so they just go for trivial stuff, and "aren't we all the same", etc).
That is, if they even engage. Usually they'll just look for either the more exotic token people to photograph, or the more like-them people (e.g. young hobos) to hang around in some generic touristy-bar. Plus tons of photos and videos they "have to" take, that nobody looks again at or cares about.
Maybe, or maybe they'll just be as narrow-minded as before, judging the other place with preconceived notions, and thinking they now know it expertly too (just because they visited it as tourists).
If we insist on traveling, I'd say the "best way to break prejudices and stereotypes on certain country/people" is to work there for a year, in a low/median-end job along with the locals at that (not in some expat enclave for the privileged with echo-chamber friends).
Maybe, but less likely than those who stayed home...
It's not just about traveling, it applies to all aspects of our social interactions... in order to change your perspective on things you need to have your presumptions challenged, and that will not happen if you're always in the same social bubble that reinforces your existing beliefs...
They are there to see, and make a tick in their mind. They are not even interested in talking. Tourism is not a small industry - we are talking about hundreds of million people globally. A tiny fraction is actually deeply interested in the culture.
Its not that its uncommon, its just a tiny fraction of total tourism.
The visit some museums, take some pics, talk to some locals, have a couple of adventures, and then they feel deeply emerged in the culture they still know nothing about (and don't really care to learn).
Actual caring for another culture is not shown in some travel. It takes long (even life-long) devotion.
And if it's more than one-two cultures, it's more of a sampling at a buffet, than any deep connection...
And if they're really serious, then proving it by putting skin in the game, not just a 2 week retreat: moving there, for example.
Even the latter, hardcore thing, is not some elite suggestion. Millions have done it, including richer, middle class, and poor people, that were fascinated with another country / culture / lifestyle.
What you see as "superficial", I see as a starting place. Maybe you don't really get to know the locals, but maybe you do get to meet other tourists from other countries, and then maybe you feel more comfortable traveling to their countries.
On top of that, many people travel in groups and don't communicate with people outside of their group at all.
Want that authentic experience? Go solo to barely visited places. But that's not what 90% (if not 99%) of tourists do.
It says mass tourist, not tourist.
Mass tourism doesn't allow for meeting people and learning, expect maybe superficially with other mass tourists or wait staff.