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'.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
Posted by@Tom: My point is that it's all promoted in the name of nationalism, which is the smokescreen, and a necessary one, to cover the kind of unacceptable truth that you discuss.
As for conservative opposition in Europe, and the 'patriotic freedom loving revolutionary spirit' in the US (what might these words actually relate to - the US Democratic Party? Or the Republicans? I think they're all Republicrats), which seem pretty much the same to me, I pretty much see people, or at the very least, their governments, as operating behind the smokescreen too, although there are perhaps more people in Europe who can see a least a little bit through it.
The student who made the speech is deep behind the smokescreen as well. Obviously, no?
China to harmonize English nationwide
Posted by@Haali, I think that's weird too. Note that the English on the sign in the toilets of trains states: "Please flush closet pot" - train cars built & designed many years ago, yet nobody bothered to offer 100rmb or so to some average wandering native-English speaker before they put these signs in virtually every toilet in train car on one of the world's largest RR networks - wtf?
Same syndrome everywhere in China - yet, although I can read and write Chinese, I seriously doubt that I'd design any sign in Chinese characters for exhibition in another country without bothering to find a native Chinese speaker to advise me.
Self-reliance is wonderful.
China to harmonize English nationwide
Posted byNo particular historical justice that everybody's got to learn English these days, but that's the international language we have, and that's why foreigners can get teaching jobs here, as well as in so many other places.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
Posted by@Peter: All respects to Orwell. However, if you want to jump on somebody for not telling the truth, or what they believe to be the truth, there's no point in concentrating on universities when our entire media environment, from the advertising industry to government spin-PR to other, numerous types of insidious media, the goals of all of which are to bend what is believed to be truth when it is not a straightforward matter of lying, I think the universities come off well - in most places, for that matter - relative to the media environment around them, which is fueled primarily by the desire to gain or maintain wealth and/or power - and yes, academics are subject to this too, but most do not put themselves into the serious acquire-wealth/power professions, where deceit becomes not-yet-quite universal. Competitive-rational arguments in universities are more likely, I think, to expose deceit than asking questions at press conferences or complaining to people engaged heavily in economic competition.
But hey! no guarantees.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
Posted byMy comment above is on my previous comment, not on Peter's.