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'.
China hands out happy city awards, Kunming sad
Posted bySocial cooperation is also hard-wired into the individuals of an innately social species such as ourselves, without which the individuals of our species would not have survived to pass on any genes..Rouseau's 'noble savage' never existed, both he and Hobbes were wrong.
China hands out happy city awards, Kunming sad
Posted bySubjective reports of happiness mean something, but I'm not sure what.
Kunming smells part II: The good, the bad and the ugly
Posted byYou get used to it all after awhile, as most of Kunming's 7 million inhabitants surely have.
Government sues parents to get kids back to school
Posted by@nnoble: don't follow - who or what is rotting? I can think of various candidates, but I'm not sure which one you're talking about.
Government sues parents to get kids back to school
Posted byThere are economic issues concerning education in China for very poor communities, which obviously need a bigger share of the economic pie than they are getting. Yet China's 'socialist market economy' is increasing the overall level of economic resources within China.
What's wrong with this picture?