John Tracy Kidder is an American non-fiction writer who was born in 1945 in New York City, New York, he is popularly known for books such as: The Soul of a New Machine (1982), which won a Pulitzer prize and a National Book award; House (1985); Among Schoolchildren (1989), which was described by the New York Book Times Review as “full of the author’s genuine love, delight and celebration of the human condition.”; and Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003), which will be the main focus of this essay. Kidder graduated from Phillips Academy Preparatory School in 1963, Harvard University in 1967 with a BA in English, after an encounter in a creative writing course taught by Robert Fitzgerald persuaded him to leave his pursuit of majoring in political
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Farmer's life did it truly take him to realize that his fight was a never ending one? I bet a lot longer than a child living under the military controlled Haiti, a control helped by the country that boasts about dreaming for freedom and the opportunity for success through hard work. If you spent all of your life in a specific level of society then got an education about society through real world experience then how dedicated would you be? Not very if you’re like me. I see Dr. Farmer as an exceptional individual who does deserve to have this book written about him but I also have seen through my education that in society social classes rarely have intergenerational mobility inside of a family. Which means my father, his father, my sons and his sons will all most likely end up in relatively the same area in society’s social structure. So if this is true for me, true for someone living in poverty in in Haiti (or at this point the whole country of Haiti), then it must be true for Dr. Farmer and his family. If Dr. Farmer grew up with benefits over others that helped him achieve his status because he didn’t screw a mass of student loan debt or at the time the amount of education he received and where he received it, guaranteed his security in his social status then maybe the humble nature that makes him seem so pure is just guilt. Not because Dr. Farmer had any control of where he was born in life, because through education and experience with others that share those benefits Farmer has seen the hopelessness in the mountains beyond mountains when he’s the only one with his benefits trying to climb that particular mountain. Imagine realizing that the real fight is changing the cultural and societal values of not just one city, town, or country but the entire world. As someone receiving those benefits from birth and through education you realize how truly screwed up our world is and then when you make it your mission to help others you realize you are just
Farmer's life did it truly take him to realize that his fight was a never ending one? I bet a lot longer than a child living under the military controlled Haiti, a control helped by the country that boasts about dreaming for freedom and the opportunity for success through hard work. If you spent all of your life in a specific level of society then got an education about society through real world experience then how dedicated would you be? Not very if you’re like me. I see Dr. Farmer as an exceptional individual who does deserve to have this book written about him but I also have seen through my education that in society social classes rarely have intergenerational mobility inside of a family. Which means my father, his father, my sons and his sons will all most likely end up in relatively the same area in society’s social structure. So if this is true for me, true for someone living in poverty in in Haiti (or at this point the whole country of Haiti), then it must be true for Dr. Farmer and his family. If Dr. Farmer grew up with benefits over others that helped him achieve his status because he didn’t screw a mass of student loan debt or at the time the amount of education he received and where he received it, guaranteed his security in his social status then maybe the humble nature that makes him seem so pure is just guilt. Not because Dr. Farmer had any control of where he was born in life, because through education and experience with others that share those benefits Farmer has seen the hopelessness in the mountains beyond mountains when he’s the only one with his benefits trying to climb that particular mountain. Imagine realizing that the real fight is changing the cultural and societal values of not just one city, town, or country but the entire world. As someone receiving those benefits from birth and through education you realize how truly screwed up our world is and then when you make it your mission to help others you realize you are just