Dumbassery

The Chinese teachers comment with amazement on the unruly behavior behavior of the British kids and blame — what else! — the “generous” benefits of the British social safety net. Having welfare available made kids rude and lazy, one Chinese teacher claimed, since they knew they had the dole to fall back on.

Hey, that’s precisely one of the bizarre – ass ideas in the book by that Indian journalist I’ve been telling you, folks, about.

It’s sad that spreading important, useful ideas is so hard while this kind of dumbassery catches on like fire.

11 thoughts on “Dumbassery

  1. Such dumbassery is much more prevalent in India than in the West because of the higher income inequality. The rich (who aren’t that rich, actually) must use such arguments to shield themselves from the guilt that comes with the sprawling inequality around them.

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    1. I don’t think income inequality has much to do with it.

      This author is turning out to be a bigger idiot than I thought she was. Social security has never been a topic of interest in India because it has never existed the way it has in the west. Social safety net is an alien concept in India.

      “The Chinese teachers comment with amazement on the unruly behavior behavior of the British kids and blame — what else! ”

      Indian schoolteachers and parents will comment with amazement on the ‘unruly behavior’ but for different reasons. It’s cultural, and largely borrowed from the patriarchal Hindu tradition of ‘guru’ (teacher) who must be held in the highest regard. Teachers are elevated to the level of parents (i.e. God). So any disruption in the classroom is treated almost as an affront to God, broadly speaking.

      I went to a good, ‘forward-looking’ school in my hometown and was still caned numerous times by my teachers and/or principal for minor transgressions like giggling in class.

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      1. “I don’t think income inequality has much to do with it.”

        Just to clarify, I meant income quality has nothing to do with people’s attitudes to children being disruptive in the classroom.

        Otherwise, yeah, of course rich people in India are like rich people everywhere else in that they tend to believe that poor people are poor because they’re lazy,

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        1. Yeah, I studied in a christian missionary school and always thought if they were trying to spread their religion by beating us up they were doing it wrong.

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  2. Nothing beats the Donald Trump candidacy and the “news” it generates for dumbassery! Myriad important issues stand silently by, while the media repeats and “analyzes” every rude and stupid comment that rolls off the Donald’s silver tongue.

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      1. So true. I have a feeling this is precisely the point of Trump’s antiques: to distract everybody from the really crucial issues of the day.

        Are you confusing ‘antiques’ with ‘antics’? If not, I do not understand this post at all.

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          1. Perhaps it’s a comment on his tired comments — they are so old and unoriginal that they might as well be dusty “antiques”.

            Or maybe we blame autocorrect. :p

            I think more than a few people are childishly excited by the idea they can report somebody’s mean and stupid comments over and over again without being called a tattletale or a snitch. Why it’s almost as good as saying it yourself but with none of the blowback!

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