Right, like American schools aren’t stuffed to the brim with pledging allegiance to the flag, worshipping Founding Fathers and presidents, worshipping the infallibility of “free market capitalism” and America as a hero nation that made a few mistakes here and there but overall is a shining beacon of light in a sea of wolves. Like every second of a kid’s life in America isn’t stuffed to the brim with propaganda from capitalist corporations, from social media, and from our peers who rep them, all teaching us wonderful things like racism and eating disorders and doomerism and consumerism and toxic masculinity and maybe a dash of jingoism when appropriate.
I’ll admit, some things about China sound mildly uncomfortable to me, such as in the article talking about the immense pressure placed on young students or what seems like excessive obedience or adherence to a strict set of values and ideas. In context I have learned that much of what China does that I instinctively feel iffy about makes great sense considering both their history and the constant war America wages on it on so many fronts. But even in a vacuum, it comes out so far ahead of the cesspool of American culture. I’d be mildly uncomfortable about a few things if I had kids and sent them to Chinese school, but I would be severely uncomfortable if I had to send them to an American school–forget what they’re taught by teachers and the general culture, even just imagining them interacting with someone their own age brings up a nausea that is an effective birth control for me.
Exactly, the US education system “propagandizes” its students just as much, if not more, than the Chinese one. As does every education system by necessity. Literally what does it even mean to teach someone without propagandizing them? Because you can spin anything, even incontrovertible stuff like atomic theory, as propaganda if you really wanted to. “Lucretian propaganda” you could call it haha
It’s such a reductive way of looking at things that completely glosses over what the supposed propaganda actually is. Because like you said, the stuff that’s taught in the US is fucked up and deserves much more criticism than China. Though this article notably did not use the p word against the states.
And since the author didn’t specify what “propaganda” their kids were repeating or what the “Communist Party propaganda” they were being exposed to in school was, we can only imagine that those ideas were so objectionable that they couldn’t be shared with us in print (I’m guessing they were taught the metric system lol)
Right, like American schools aren’t stuffed to the brim with pledging allegiance to the flag, worshipping Founding Fathers and presidents, worshipping the infallibility of “free market capitalism” and America as a hero nation that made a few mistakes here and there but overall is a shining beacon of light in a sea of wolves. Like every second of a kid’s life in America isn’t stuffed to the brim with propaganda from capitalist corporations, from social media, and from our peers who rep them, all teaching us wonderful things like racism and eating disorders and doomerism and consumerism and toxic masculinity and maybe a dash of jingoism when appropriate.
I’ll admit, some things about China sound mildly uncomfortable to me, such as in the article talking about the immense pressure placed on young students or what seems like excessive obedience or adherence to a strict set of values and ideas. In context I have learned that much of what China does that I instinctively feel iffy about makes great sense considering both their history and the constant war America wages on it on so many fronts. But even in a vacuum, it comes out so far ahead of the cesspool of American culture. I’d be mildly uncomfortable about a few things if I had kids and sent them to Chinese school, but I would be severely uncomfortable if I had to send them to an American school–forget what they’re taught by teachers and the general culture, even just imagining them interacting with someone their own age brings up a nausea that is an effective birth control for me.
Exactly, the US education system “propagandizes” its students just as much, if not more, than the Chinese one. As does every education system by necessity. Literally what does it even mean to teach someone without propagandizing them? Because you can spin anything, even incontrovertible stuff like atomic theory, as propaganda if you really wanted to. “Lucretian propaganda” you could call it haha
It’s such a reductive way of looking at things that completely glosses over what the supposed propaganda actually is. Because like you said, the stuff that’s taught in the US is fucked up and deserves much more criticism than China. Though this article notably did not use the p word against the states.
And since the author didn’t specify what “propaganda” their kids were repeating or what the “Communist Party propaganda” they were being exposed to in school was, we can only imagine that those ideas were so objectionable that they couldn’t be shared with us in print (I’m guessing they were taught the metric system lol)