Daniel Lerner begins his essay “The Grocer and the Chief” by recounting the interviews of the Balgati by Tosun B., a young scholar from Ankara. Lerner is critical of Tosun in many regards, including Tosun’s ideas of modernity. Lerner is critical of the fact that Tosun’s notion of the village “was clearly more sensitized to what he saw than what he heard,” going on the claim that the “import of what had been said to him, and duly recorded in his reports, had somehow escaped his attention.” Lerner is critical of the fact that Tosun is basing his opinion of Balgat simply on what he sees- the lack of roads and electricity, for example- rather than the mindsets of the villagers. Tosun even develops a dislike for The Grocer, because he does not conform to Tosun’s notion of what people from a village like Balgat should look like, specifically regarding The Grocer’s propensity for wearing a necktie.

Lerner himself is also slightly guilty of judging the modernity of Balgat. When he visits the village, he notes the road and bus from Balgat to Ankara, the apparent addition of an electrical grid, and the opening of six new grocery stores as evidence of the “modernization” of the village. However, unlike Tosun, Lerner also takes into account the mindsets of the people. Lerner sees significance in the addition of a bus line because, just as The Grocer wished for, “the villagers were getting out of their holes at last.” No longer are the villagers staying in their little bubble and shutting themselves off from the rest of the world. The bus line not only signifies the ability of the villages to venture out of Balgat and experience new things, but also represents the villagers newfound receptiveness to new ideas, to new cultures, to change. Lerner’s conversations with The Chief further display the changes in Balgat and its people. Lerner notes that The Chief, “of a lineage that had always been Muhtars and land- owners-was no longer a farmer.” In fact, there are only four farmers left in a village that was once comprised only of farmers. As Balgat modernizes, its people transition from the ways of the past and start to explore new and more bountiful opportunities, a scenario similar to the American “utopia” that The Grocer longs for. Lerner is completely convinced of the modernization of Balgat when a few of the local villagers as “a prophet.” The Grocer saw long before others that the modernization of Balgat would be for the betterment of the people. He had a vision of Balgat that he believed would improve the lives of its people, and while he was not alive to see it, his vision eventually became reality.

When reading this article, I often found myself thinking especially about Plato’s The Republic and Monica Ringer’s essay on modernity. The Republic came to mind particularly when, after being asked what he would do as president of Turkey, the Grocer answers that he would build roads so that the villagers would not “stay in their holes all their lives” (Lerner 24); for me, this comment evokes the image that Plato constructs of men in an underground cave, who know only shadows on the wall, being pulled above ground and  into the light, seeing the real world. This kind of process of enlightenment that Plato describes was somewhat underlined by the fact that the Balgati people originally marked the Grocer as an infidel and later, after being modernized, after being pulled up out of their holes, they refer to him as a prophet.

When reading about the modernizing process that Balgat experiences, I couldn’t help but thinking that the changes to the Balgati society followed stereotypical–possibly Western–definitions of modernity. This led me to think of Ringer’s idea of “translating foreign institutions” (Ringer 5) into the contexts of other places, an idea which is exemplified in Balgat by the introduction of basic “necessities” of modernization: roads, buses, water, and electricity (Lerner 33), but more so by the creation of a school and a police station (Lerner 30). In addition, the Grocer’s comment that, if given the chance to live anywhere else, he would move to America also made me think of Ringer’s comment on “the use of ‘the West’ as a yardstick” (Ringer 4) because the Grocer seems to see America, particularly the opportunity it affords, as an example of what he would want in Balgat.

Lerner’s story highlights the massive amount of change that occurred in Balgat in just four years. Not only did infrastructure change — like the village becoming a part of Ankarra, clean water, electricity — but the mindset of the people changed as well. All of this change occurred on the election of the Demokrat party. The new leaders turned the small farmer village into an up-and-coming town. Tosun’s account of Balgat in 1950 highlights the struggle between tradition and change. The Chief represents tradition while the Grocer represents change. Ringer mentions that to “define modernity is also to define tradition.” In this piece, we see the manifestation of that. Jobs and fashion trends changed in Balgat, but what remained give us a sense of Turkish tradition and culture — like how the Chief offered Lerner “the corners.” Sometimes we unknowingly resist change (or modernity). After finishing the piece, Tosun even comes across as a resister of change. He mocks the Grocer’s necktie and dislikes how he tries to be closer with him than the other villagers. Between the lines, Tosun is resisting a change of tradition. A dilemma of modernization lays in our ignorance of progress when it is occurring. We naturally resist change. At the end, Lerner quotes one of the villagers admitting to misjudging the Grocer, saying, in fact, that the Grocer was “a prophet.”

In this parable, an interesting aspect, as Lerner points out, is the discrepancy between reality and what Tosun originally depicts the village as.  It is almost ironic that despite trying to avoid a contrived interview by attempting to interview the poorest among them, Tosun still views the village with his own prejudices towards them.  Although Tosun’s mistakes may have made the conclusions that Lerner drew easier to come by. What Lerner is really getting at is the modernization of the village.  He studied how the village was shifting away from a traditional society towards the modern world.  He saw the grocer as an agent of this change, that was suppressed by the old, the chief.  The other villagers went along with this out of fear of the chief but deep down they understood that the grocer was the “clever” one by playing the change.  I found the final paragraph most interesting after the change had occurred Lerner no longer could find what he needed there, despite his previous obsession.  The time had passed for his “ancient” village, it no longer was any use to his studies but only a a point of propaganda for the new party in charge.

Daniel Lerner’s “The Grocer and the Chief” provides an interesting case of the perception of power and the process of change. Lerner portrays the Grocer as an unacknowledged prophet who was “the cleverest” of all the villagers because he was able to accurately forecast the future of Balgat while Tosun depicts the Grocer as “this fat and middle-aged man yearning to be comfortably rich in an interesting city.” In either case, the Grocer possessed no power to change his own situation or reputation and he could not speak against the traditions of the Chief, so rather than a cause of the modernizing changes that came later, perhaps the merchant was an example of the desire for change that grows with contact with the city and its economic opportunities. At the time, the Grocer was the only one of his kind, and his occupation required him to travel to Ankara often. However, the village of Balgat only collectively gains access to the city when the men of the Demokrat party build a road between the two. Perhaps the subconscious desire for change already existed within the village as Lerner suggests when he says that some Balgati spoke badly of the Grocer to “keep their own inner voices from being overheard by the Chief–or even by themselves.” Perhaps the transition was so smooth and fast because the Grocer’s ideas had already existed in the minds of these traditional men whether subconscious or not. The concept of a private exploration of the new before public evidence of it continues with the interview of the Chief’s younger son regarding neckties.