{"id":3012,"date":"2010-01-23T04:51:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T09:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=3012"},"modified":"2010-01-23T04:51:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T09:51:33","slug":"repostthe-un-of-today-is-not-the-un-i-entered-chris-blattman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/23\/repostthe-un-of-today-is-not-the-un-i-entered-chris-blattman\/","title":{"rendered":"rePost::\u201cThe UN of today is not the UN I entered\u201d \u2013 Chris Blattman"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>That is a slight understatement. Jonah cautioned against joining the UN, unless it\u2019s out in the field.<strong> Today people work for the UN because it\u2019s a job, not because it\u2019s a passion and vocation. The good work done nowadays, he said, is by NGOs.<\/strong><br \/>\nIn 1963, men and women of his generation looked ahead to a booming Africa, an effective and hopeful UN, and an international civil service to be proud of. One can see how he would be disappointed.<br \/>\n<strong>Rather than steer young people away from public service, he wanted them to see it unadorned. \u201cIt\u2019s a very brutal business being in politics,\u201d he said, \u201cYou have to persevere, and idealism doesn\u2019t take you anywhere.\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nHis mantra: <strong>Patience, thoughtfulness, and perseverence. \u201cThe world is a very difficult place,\u201d he ended, \u201cIf you are tending sheep, it is better to know where the wolves are.\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/chrisblattman.com\/2010\/01\/22\/the-un-of-today-is-not-the-un-i-entered\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chrisblattman+%28Chris+Blattman%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">\u201cThe UN of today is not the UN I entered\u201d \u2013 Chris Blattman<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That is a slight understatement. Jonah cautioned against joining the UN, unless it\u2019s out in the field. Today people work for the UN because it\u2019s a job, not because it\u2019s a passion and vocation. The good work done nowadays, he said, is by NGOs. In 1963, men and women of his generation looked ahead to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/23\/repostthe-un-of-today-is-not-the-un-i-entered-chris-blattman\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;rePost::\u201cThe UN of today is not the UN I entered\u201d \u2013 Chris Blattman&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-the-day","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}