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
发布者Geogramatt: Agreed.
Kunming police taking steps to tame traffic chaos
发布者About time. March of progress, etc. I'd still rather walk or take the bus, causes fewer problem.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
发布者And it should be obvious that there are other ways, practiced in other countries, to swamp public opinion - ways that do not permit what I've referred to as 'free speech' above - one might hmm think of China in this way. Oddly enough, in some such places people are smarter about reading between the lines in the press, and in what people say, than they are in places where a level playing field is imagined. But I still prefer the formal guarantees.
Like I said, propaganda exists in many forms, but it needs power behind it to be effective, and that power can be in terms of law, wealth, or (as is the usual case) a combination of the two. I can't at the moment think of any place where this is not the case.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
发布者@Geezer: When PC is used in nasty ways then I am against the nasty ways it is being used. But others use the same sorts of tactics, and the left in the US is not large, unless you are referring to US liberals, who aren't exactly a huge majority either.
Anyway, the problem with free speech in the US and many other places is not that speech is really restricted in any stringent terms, but that the mass of the media is controlled by huge corporate interests with fingers in many pies, dominated by advertising revenues, etc., and swamps public opinion with its points of view. Check out who owns major media outlets, and how articles are presented, buried, ignored or slanted by them. Many seem to think that papers such as the New York Times are somehow 'left', when in fact they generally merely present the views and promote the attitudes of sections of the owning class.
So when I speak of freedom of speech (and of the press), I don't by any means mean that it's all somehow open on a level playing field - I simply mean that there are plenty of formal, legal guarantees that say you can pretty much say what you want, even if you're not rich enough to be heard by many. This is indeed worth something, and it's important to make the most of it, no matter what your opinions, even though money and power weigh a hell of a lot more than your voice.
Yeah, as I've said, Yang seems naive to me too.
Chinese student apologizes after Maryland graduation speech sparks firestorm
发布者@Peter: My impression is that there are a lot of people spouting off freely in favor of Trump and for closed US borders as well - am I wrong?