Tell it to Steven Hawking. A person's physical stature does not limit his/her potential for work that does not rely on his/her physical stature (e.g., English teaching, as well as physics). The cultural attitude that those who are discriminated against because they do not fit the culturally desired norm should be outcast or should be provided for by special environments that can be sold as entertainment venues to those who will not deal with their own prejudices is a cultural attitude that perpetuates discrimination against all who are 'different'. The problem here, as elsewhere, is a matter of dehumanizing those who are 'different' - prejudicial culture that regiments anything that deviates from its standards, rather than dealing with the prejudice itself. Why not have a theme park within which 'foreigners', with all their funny habits, can be kept, so that they do not disturb the 'normality' of cultural prejudices? Actually, there could be many: one for 'black people', one for Tibetans, one for Japanese, one for gay people, one for Han Chinese people who have given up their 'traditional' clothing for 'western-style' clothing (e.g., the great majority of Chinese, over the past century or so) - in fact we could subdivide and subdivide until nothing was left but mutual nonrecognition. All these would help to maintain the narrow identities of 'normality' that can be relied upon to advance support the cultural attitudes that promote the continuing inability of people to recognize each other as human, and to celebrate and accept their differences - not as entertainment items, no matter how 'cute', but as full human beings. How different is all this from apartheid?
This effort to maintain prejudice can, of course, be profitable to those who invest in it, and convenient for social engineers and political elites who want to maintain an elite power status by reliance on it.
The place is an insult to our common humanity and a spotlight on cultural attitudes of exclusion. Those who find that they enjoy such displays should take a good look at the nature of the culture that has formed them so narrowly. Cultures change; cultures have always changed; cultures are presently changing and will continue to do so; there is nothing sacred about cultural attitudes. Our common humanity is an ongoing project, and those who imagine they are not part of such a project are simply contributing their own blindness to it, and limiting themselves in the process. It's not the 'dwarves' who are the problem, its the people who will not accept them as within the boundaries of 'us'.
Getting Away: Heart 2 Heart Youth Hostel
Posted bySounds like a good place, but I doubt if the rice terraces can be compared to Yuanyang.
Government undertaking aims to flush Dianchi clean
Posted byNote the yahoo news that the Chinese government has decided to crack down on all the mixed toxic s*** sent from western countries to landfills in China - about time!
419 million year-old 'missing link' discovered in Yunnan
Posted byAll questions are still open.
Snapshot: Tuborg Greenfest Music Festival
Posted byDid any of the music or the musicians have anything to SAY?
419 million year-old 'missing link' discovered in Yunnan
Posted byblobbles has more or less got it, I think - the words 'proof' and 'fact' are all too often thrown around in a manner that suggests finality - and, perhaps, the end of thought. The problem with those who want to rely on 'faith' to show them 'truth' is that, if they let it in for creationism, then where does it stop? Are NO empirical evidence and NO logical analysis ever to be given any weight for anything? Such people should look at their own daily actions and realize that, in fact, they rely on empirical evidence and reasoning every day, and their basic religious faith does not get in the way - so why the big exception for evolutionism? And why can't they look at literature from the past (e.g., the Talmud/Old Testament) in the same light? I suggest the answer may have to do with fear, and I suggest they deal with it in the native human (perhaps God-given?) manner: by continuing to think.