Did William Kamkwamba Acheive Modernity for His Village?

William Kamkwamba did not achieve modernity for his village. Modernity is not an easy thing to achieve, especially in places like Malawi. Modernity is a complex word, but essentially means being on the same page with the rest of the world. In almost every aspect, Africa is behind the rest of the world despite the fact that the first hominids came from there. While William did give his village good insight into what modernity looks like and how others function in the western countries, he did not gain modernity for his village. Modernity is a comparison of two things. When speaking of modernity there is always a standard of what is considered modern, and you are comparing something to that. To figure out if something has reached modernity, you must first realize what is considered modern. In our current world, things that are modern include electricity, cars, and the internet. These are examples of technological advances which other places do not have, so they cannot be considered modern in that aspect. Some other aspects include things like culture. For example, a few hundred years ago, it was not uncommon for people to get married at the age of 15, but nowadays that is completely unheard of. We label countries which are not modern and are behind countries like the United States and China as third world countries. Did William achieve modernity for his village? Not really. William just gave his village a taste of what technology is out there. William showed them what they can do if they just put their minds to it. Just because someone shows you a computer for the first time doesn’t mean that you will know how to use the internet. The majority of the town did not help build the windmill and still don’t really know how it works, so they did not advance from having one person build it. The pump he made afterwards did help the village, but his village is still almost all subsistence farming. No one can become advanced when all they are