What's the Difference?

In today’s class discussion there was much talk surrounding the attitudes displayed by Mr. Brown and Rev. Smith. Due to poor planning on my part I hadn't completed “Things Fall Apart” before class so some of the context of the discussion was lost on me. However, I was able to establish some opinions about the two that seemed to hold up after I finished the last few chapters. A lot of what was discussed focused on who was the nicer guy, but the more I heard the more it seemed  that it wasn’t so much a matter of one being nice and the other being mean, it was just a case of differing philosophies. They shared the same ultimate goal and were both equally detrimental to the continued existence of the tribe as a unit. The ideas of good and bad are relative and when I compared these two characters in the context of their mission, neither seemed particularly good to me. Was Mr. Brown as aggressive and immediately destructive as Rev. Smith? No. However, in the long run, I think that Mr. Brown’s tack was more shrewd and insidious.

Rev. Smith was concerned about establishing a tradition of strength in the congregation. As a result, he considered driving the less faithful from the church, took an aggressive stance toward the villagers, and let the zealots among his group run unchecked. While this approach did allow him to strengthen the faith of the church in Umuofia, it also resulted in increased hostility with the villagers. As we can see in chapter 24 of “Things Fall Apart,” this approach wasn’t going to be sustainable without serious conflict and, likely, notable losses for both parties. While brute force can pay off in the long run, the run is much longer and more painful than the “good cop” approach Mr. Brown employed.

Mr. Brown was interested in ensuring that the church appealed to as many tribesmen as possible. He seemed to do this by learning about the native culture, without adopting these concepts himself, and looking for ways to make the church an integral, and ultimately dominant, part of the community. (As an aside, this scenario, as lopsided as it is, seems to go toward the concept of exchange to be covered in our first essay.) Mr. Brown’s process of examination can be seen on pages 101 and 102, Achebe writes that Mr. Brown even took the time to learn about the clan’s beliefs and looked for ways to “attack” those ideas.  Ideally, establishing mass appeal would lead to a situation where everyone would have a close friend/family member who was in the church and that would ultimately bring the rest of the tribe along.

To answer the question presented in the title of this post, I don't think there's a difference. In the end the two men could have been swapped out for anybody or any personality as long as they had the same goal in mind. While I'd prefer a Mr. Brown style regime, Mr. Brown seems like a more dangerous influence, in regard to the local culture, than Rev. Smith. Mr. Brown displayed a gentleness and understanding that made him appear non-threatening. This lulled the people of Umuofia into a false sense of security and before they knew it their community was being pulled apart by Mr. Brown's involvement in their lives. At least those who were loyal to Umuofia’s traditions could readily see the cultural/societal threat posed by Rev. Smith and try to do something to change things.