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'.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@Kate: Almost nothing is harmless - how harmful is khat?
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@faraday: seems to me the most important function of society is to allow & enable us to do so.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted byI feel better already.
Concerning the article: I'm glad that Yunnan authorities are perhaps a little more human than those in the rest of the country.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted byOK, now I see that you're putting us all on. Had me worried there for awhile.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted byThe Air America film is very heavy fictionalized. However, the book on which it was based does mention that the opium grown by the Hmong people in Laos (the Chinese call them Miao) who were corralled into being the CIA's 'secret army' in the 1960s, did indeed often go out in Air America planes. There are some who suggest that this means that the CIA was financing its 'secret' guerrilla war with Hmong opium. This doesn't necessarily follow and is far from proven,. At any rate it does not help your argument much one way or the other.