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'.


Report: Ancient Yunnan rock art at risk
发布者Two thousand yuan. Huh.
Provincial authorities get serious about poverty
发布者Interesting article. My thought is that money might well work this way, but that perhaps a god way to handle the situation is to make such gifts dependent on the recipients' keeping their kids in school - after all, the kids don't deserve to be hampered by their unequal starts in life just because their parents do this or that with the money. Such an approach has been tried, on a very small scale and with small amounts of money, in Yunnan, and has been successful in keeping the kids in school.
Provincial authorities get serious about poverty
发布者@ Haali: I mean I don't necessarily buy the "and deserve to".
Provincial authorities get serious about poverty
发布者@ Haali: I'm suspicious of official money-handling in the name of the poor as well, but I think maybe you misunderstand the problems that the poor have in handling money in an exploitative society, and their unfamiliarity in doing so - so I don't buy "and deserve to". Seems to me that education is something that, if someone gets it, it can't be taken away or lost in unequal competition with those who have more in terms of cash, ownership or power.
Friction of terrain: Cycling through Zomia (part IV)
发布者@ Peter: US ordinance lying around in Southeast Asia - reminds me of an old Tom Lehrer song from around 1962:
'"Ven za rockets go up who cares where they come down,
That's not my department,"' says Wernher Von Braun.