I want to recommend an article by Christopher Roach that gets into some similar issues that Techno Fog recently raised (hat tip to commenter ML for the TF substack re H-1B).
This current debate is just one small piece of what happens when Americans disparaged and then rejected the "Melting Pot" idea of assimilation.
Fools... what do we have now? How idiotic.... What? One cannot define what America is or what an American is? And if you cannot ,,,, We are lost and the game is over. We need to dial back to the 1950's or 1900s. They had a pretty good concept back then. (yes. change is good...but the people who came before us were not idiots either)
Without unifying principles and discipline in a society , diversity is not strength.....it is a weakness.
A fatal weakness for any society that embraces it. With out unifying principles or societal discipline you do not get Switzerland or Singapore. You eventually get Yugoslavia or Beirut of 1983.
The issue of assimilation is an old one. If you have not already, read Lee Kuan Yew and Theodore Roosevelt. They addressed these issues in their own times.
Over 100 years ago Roosevelt warned us against becoming
"Boarding house of Nations."
This visa issue is just a small chip of a much larger issue
Russian thinkers have been saying that since Liberalism came out of the Enlightenment. And they're right. An article I read today made the same point, and that's a viewpoint that Westerners can't understand, and yet the Russians can cite chapter and verse in support.
With a total population in excess of 3 billion (perhaps ten times the current population of the United States), I am not surprised that there are multiple scores of thousands of immigrant South- and East-Asian families with above-average intelligence and high ambition who are likely to succeed in 21st Century Casino America, where the children of 'tiger parents' who figure out how to game high academic test scores and Ivy League-type admissions into Wall Street and Silicon Valley employment are a good bet for above-average material success.
But as the title Mark has chosen for this post suggests, a country is more than an economy...or the economic success of a small proportion of its residents.
I disagree with Vivek and Elon that our national success depends upon the STEM credentials or work ethic of Asian immigrants. (Well, they didn't specify 'Asian', but I would bet that's what they meant.) I think the success of our national project depends far more on whether we can restore a true meritocracy to the American project, whether we can restore the health of the American nuclear family, whether we can restore meaningful and secure jobs to a much larger proportion of the workforce, whether we can address income inequality and work-life balance and the growing divisions of haves and have-nots in America. Whether we can find a foreign policy alternative to global hegemony and endless war. Whether we can restore respect for the unbiased rule of law. Whether we can restore respect for our national heritage. I'm sure there is much more.
And, yes, it would be nice if we could come together on a mutually-agreed definition of what it means to be American.
I was just informed that since January, 2000, Putin has built 30k new Orthodox churches. But in America that's simply not possible. The Ruling Class, for the most part, is at war with believers. The believers are fractured. Without a belief system, a religion, it's hard to see how a restoration can occur.
And I won't defend present American culture but the primary comparison to be made is to Indian culture which Vivek .. somehow forgets to talk up in comparsion. Here's an article from zerohedge by an Indian calling the culture of India truly terrible.
Yeah, I read that the other day. I can't speak for H-1B people, but generally speaking the Chinese and Indians who come here as students tend to be the elites. Their personal culture is probably not so representative.
Didn’t that have to do with job applicants having to pass a test to be hired, or current employees having to pass a test to be transferred? And it was claimed that having to take a test was discriminatory? So companies simply substituted a BS degree requirement as “proof” that the applicant was qualified? Hence, a backdoor way to achieve their desired results at the time without caring or considering the future ramifications?
This current debate is just one small piece of what happens when Americans disparaged and then rejected the "Melting Pot" idea of assimilation.
Fools... what do we have now? How idiotic.... What? One cannot define what America is or what an American is? And if you cannot ,,,, We are lost and the game is over. We need to dial back to the 1950's or 1900s. They had a pretty good concept back then. (yes. change is good...but the people who came before us were not idiots either)
Without unifying principles and discipline in a society , diversity is not strength.....it is a weakness.
A fatal weakness for any society that embraces it. With out unifying principles or societal discipline you do not get Switzerland or Singapore. You eventually get Yugoslavia or Beirut of 1983.
The issue of assimilation is an old one. If you have not already, read Lee Kuan Yew and Theodore Roosevelt. They addressed these issues in their own times.
Over 100 years ago Roosevelt warned us against becoming
"Boarding house of Nations."
This visa issue is just a small chip of a much larger issue
Have a happy and blessed New Year!!
Alexander Dugin's substack today saying that Liberalism is the enemy of Russia and must be rooted out.
Russian thinkers have been saying that since Liberalism came out of the Enlightenment. And they're right. An article I read today made the same point, and that's a viewpoint that Westerners can't understand, and yet the Russians can cite chapter and verse in support.
With a total population in excess of 3 billion (perhaps ten times the current population of the United States), I am not surprised that there are multiple scores of thousands of immigrant South- and East-Asian families with above-average intelligence and high ambition who are likely to succeed in 21st Century Casino America, where the children of 'tiger parents' who figure out how to game high academic test scores and Ivy League-type admissions into Wall Street and Silicon Valley employment are a good bet for above-average material success.
But as the title Mark has chosen for this post suggests, a country is more than an economy...or the economic success of a small proportion of its residents.
I disagree with Vivek and Elon that our national success depends upon the STEM credentials or work ethic of Asian immigrants. (Well, they didn't specify 'Asian', but I would bet that's what they meant.) I think the success of our national project depends far more on whether we can restore a true meritocracy to the American project, whether we can restore the health of the American nuclear family, whether we can restore meaningful and secure jobs to a much larger proportion of the workforce, whether we can address income inequality and work-life balance and the growing divisions of haves and have-nots in America. Whether we can find a foreign policy alternative to global hegemony and endless war. Whether we can restore respect for the unbiased rule of law. Whether we can restore respect for our national heritage. I'm sure there is much more.
And, yes, it would be nice if we could come together on a mutually-agreed definition of what it means to be American.
I was just informed that since January, 2000, Putin has built 30k new Orthodox churches. But in America that's simply not possible. The Ruling Class, for the most part, is at war with believers. The believers are fractured. Without a belief system, a religion, it's hard to see how a restoration can occur.
And I won't defend present American culture but the primary comparison to be made is to Indian culture which Vivek .. somehow forgets to talk up in comparsion. Here's an article from zerohedge by an Indian calling the culture of India truly terrible.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/india-its-worse-you-think
Yeah, I read that the other day. I can't speak for H-1B people, but generally speaking the Chinese and Indians who come here as students tend to be the elites. Their personal culture is probably not so representative.
Credentialism is the bane of our existence in the 21st century and for some time before.
Credentialism substitutes "trust me" for competence …
Thank you scotus for Griggs v. Duke Power Co that turbocharged credentialism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
Didn’t that have to do with job applicants having to pass a test to be hired, or current employees having to pass a test to be transferred? And it was claimed that having to take a test was discriminatory? So companies simply substituted a BS degree requirement as “proof” that the applicant was qualified? Hence, a backdoor way to achieve their desired results at the time without caring or considering the future ramifications?