Universities are drivers of what I call dolly-zoom diversity. A dolly zoom is what you get when a camera zooms out while moving towards an object, or zooms in while moving a way from an object; either way, the effect is to keep the object at the same size in the frame while altering the field of vision.
Dolly-zoom diversity likewise zooms in as it zooms out. It provides a platform on which drop-list differences (race, gender, sexuality, even language and religion) are raised up. But it ignores the fact that real difference is three-dimensional, that it involves different communities sinking different root systems into the soil, developing internal logics and priorities which by definition will not always jive with those of other communities. Instead, the university flattens these differences by teaching the same overarching framework of difference to members of all these communities, homogenizing their viewpoints in the very name of diversity. To the extent that universities sell their students a fool's-gold ticket while burdening them with a mountain of debt, they also homogenize these students' socioeconomic situations - this is especially true in the US, but it holds for many Canadians and Brits as well.
The usual counter to complaints about university "indoctrination" runs something like this: "Your kids aren't being indoctrinated. They're finally getting out into the world and meeting people from different backgrounds with different perspectives and leaving behind the two-bit dogmas you reared them on."
If this were the case, you'd expect university students to begin adopting a wide array of different and unexpected positions. Instead, the vast majority of them (certainly if they enter psychology and the humanities) come out with alarmingly uniform opinions. From what I've seen, many of these opinions are only vaguely held: one person may be vehemently in favour of prison abolition and pay dodgy lip service to the progressive line on gender issues, while for another it may be the other way around. This often speaks to people's masked, uneasy sense that they've adopted a particular set of stances less out of conviction than out of a socially-conditioned sense that these are the stances necessary to being a Halfway Decent Person who does the Bare Minimum.
The common thread here is that regardless of national or ethnic background, universities transform their students into homogenous zealots who adopt the prevailing moral and social beliefs of their overwhelmingly bigoted professors and administrators, and call this "education" where it should more properly be called religion.
Motivating young people into conflicts with their own parents is, ironically, deeply at odds with many Asian cultures, and is an extremely alarming power-grab by the statist machine that controls their minds and hearts.
This is exactly my experience! However, I came here at age 11 around the 80's. so my knowledge of American politics was only a little better than my 1st generation parents, but still very much limited. I raised my two children the same way as my parents did. focused on hard work and good education. Then the wave of social justices hit us like a brick two years ago. They were only in high school. Nowadays, you don't even need to go to college to get brainwashed. You just have to have a phone and play online games. Plenty of discord channels targeting young children and teach them how to a victim and be part of marginalized group. Our previous generations were lucky, the society values were pretty much in-line with most of our family values. So even when both parents worked, and did not spend much time with the kids. the kids turned out okay. However, this generation of online kids are the first generation where the society values does not align with our traditional society values. The only way to counter this is to go back to the basics of parenting and have a strong bond and talk to our kids about our own struggles and values. When our door bell rings, we would never let child abusers, criminals, strangers to come into our house. However, with the internet, we are letting those characters into our households 24x7. and that goes for online gaming too. minecraft is not as innocent as you think.
You wrote "Their children will never have to experience the struggles of learning English or hear native-born Americans snickering at thick accents and imported customs." Not sure about the crowd with whom you hang, but I'm an old white guy and most white and native born people I know think it's rude and uncool to make fun of people's accents. Especially when they can speak passable English and most of us can't even make a go at pronouncing Mandarin or Cantonese, let alone understand them. It's good to understand national origins and how experiences can shape people but let's turn down the race heat. Because, really, how many countries are as racially diverse as we are or have done as well as we have trying to make a fair and equitable homeland?
The last paragraph is spot on. Assimilating into baizuo elite leftist culture turns Asians into boba court eunuchs. We have come full circle with the cultural revolution: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/counter-the-cultural-revolution
Universities are drivers of what I call dolly-zoom diversity. A dolly zoom is what you get when a camera zooms out while moving towards an object, or zooms in while moving a way from an object; either way, the effect is to keep the object at the same size in the frame while altering the field of vision.
Dolly-zoom diversity likewise zooms in as it zooms out. It provides a platform on which drop-list differences (race, gender, sexuality, even language and religion) are raised up. But it ignores the fact that real difference is three-dimensional, that it involves different communities sinking different root systems into the soil, developing internal logics and priorities which by definition will not always jive with those of other communities. Instead, the university flattens these differences by teaching the same overarching framework of difference to members of all these communities, homogenizing their viewpoints in the very name of diversity. To the extent that universities sell their students a fool's-gold ticket while burdening them with a mountain of debt, they also homogenize these students' socioeconomic situations - this is especially true in the US, but it holds for many Canadians and Brits as well.
The usual counter to complaints about university "indoctrination" runs something like this: "Your kids aren't being indoctrinated. They're finally getting out into the world and meeting people from different backgrounds with different perspectives and leaving behind the two-bit dogmas you reared them on."
If this were the case, you'd expect university students to begin adopting a wide array of different and unexpected positions. Instead, the vast majority of them (certainly if they enter psychology and the humanities) come out with alarmingly uniform opinions. From what I've seen, many of these opinions are only vaguely held: one person may be vehemently in favour of prison abolition and pay dodgy lip service to the progressive line on gender issues, while for another it may be the other way around. This often speaks to people's masked, uneasy sense that they've adopted a particular set of stances less out of conviction than out of a socially-conditioned sense that these are the stances necessary to being a Halfway Decent Person who does the Bare Minimum.
The common thread here is that regardless of national or ethnic background, universities transform their students into homogenous zealots who adopt the prevailing moral and social beliefs of their overwhelmingly bigoted professors and administrators, and call this "education" where it should more properly be called religion.
Motivating young people into conflicts with their own parents is, ironically, deeply at odds with many Asian cultures, and is an extremely alarming power-grab by the statist machine that controls their minds and hearts.
Thank you so much for your writing
This is exactly my experience! However, I came here at age 11 around the 80's. so my knowledge of American politics was only a little better than my 1st generation parents, but still very much limited. I raised my two children the same way as my parents did. focused on hard work and good education. Then the wave of social justices hit us like a brick two years ago. They were only in high school. Nowadays, you don't even need to go to college to get brainwashed. You just have to have a phone and play online games. Plenty of discord channels targeting young children and teach them how to a victim and be part of marginalized group. Our previous generations were lucky, the society values were pretty much in-line with most of our family values. So even when both parents worked, and did not spend much time with the kids. the kids turned out okay. However, this generation of online kids are the first generation where the society values does not align with our traditional society values. The only way to counter this is to go back to the basics of parenting and have a strong bond and talk to our kids about our own struggles and values. When our door bell rings, we would never let child abusers, criminals, strangers to come into our house. However, with the internet, we are letting those characters into our households 24x7. and that goes for online gaming too. minecraft is not as innocent as you think.
I love your insights Peng.
But...
You wrote "Their children will never have to experience the struggles of learning English or hear native-born Americans snickering at thick accents and imported customs." Not sure about the crowd with whom you hang, but I'm an old white guy and most white and native born people I know think it's rude and uncool to make fun of people's accents. Especially when they can speak passable English and most of us can't even make a go at pronouncing Mandarin or Cantonese, let alone understand them. It's good to understand national origins and how experiences can shape people but let's turn down the race heat. Because, really, how many countries are as racially diverse as we are or have done as well as we have trying to make a fair and equitable homeland?
“We fought…”. If your family is mostly here after 1865, use different language. You weren’t here.