Thanks to the trend of globalization and the current issues on immigration, refugees, etc, I realize that the world is much larger than I thought it was. The phrase “around the globe” doesn’t just mean “US, Europe, China, Russia …” any more, but also many, many countries that also have great people and great ideas, but currently facing deep troubles. I am concerned, like everyone, on how to best solve the problems.
But then I saw that due to various reasons, e.g. fear of uncertainty, many people post insulting comments about several ethnical groups onsocial medias. And these comments (almost all of them) are among the most-liked ones, even though some don’t give any rational analysis at all. I am extremely shocked. This is not what I have learned for all these years in my life.
It’s a self-evident fact that feeling superior because of one’s own race is disgusting. It’s a pride that doesn’t require any effort, and is cheap at best, evil at worst. Similarly, it is totally strange to look down on someone simply because of their race.
I do have uneasiness when faced with a totally different culture. I do care whether statistics shows that the crime rate is higher among certain minorities, and I do care whether 50 years later, the demographic patterns will be altered significantly in many countries. But these are completely separate matters from the common sense that we should view people around us as individuals, and nobody should be discriminated for what they are born to be and what they can’t change. It’s not political correctness. It’s plain correctness. This is the most important lesson I’ve learned ever since I come to uni and its truth is no less than the First Law of Thermodynamics.
I am aware that practically, there are thousands of problems. “If we are nice to them but they turn out to hurt us and harm our safety, then how?” I have myself experienced some of these problems, e.g. mass-killing just 8 km from where I lived, harrassment on public transport, brain-washing, etc. They show there are nasty individuals, and some statistical evidences are true, but that’s all. It is still very far from allowing us to conclude that “all people of so-and-so race are bad”. Fights and strict regulations can be inevitable to solve the current problems, but we must first state that what we want is peace, understanding, and mutual respect. If we lose this goal, too bad. The lesson of WWII is forgotten amazingly quickly.
Others are racists doesn’t mean you have to be a racist.
The unfortunate thing is that all of us, including myself, have a tendency to discriminate people due to superficial reasons in one way or another. Our genes have a bit of patriotism incorporated in them. That’s why fighting stereotypes is a skill that one must put in some effort to learn: it’s just counterintuitive. Many of the stereotypes will automatically go once we get to know more people.
At this point I think of Dedekind and Hilbert intensively, who refused to sign on the Appeal An die Kulturwelt. When the world was divided by hatred and nationalism, there were scientists who voted for peace and unitedness.
They are what educated people should be like. I hope the same is true now. 🙂
Some thoughts on the US election…
Trump’s popularity shows that there is already a great gap between the elites and the non-elites in the US since the 2008 finantial crisis. Unless Hillary can narrow this gap or find some way to boost the economy significantly, which is highly unlikely, the problems are expected to be larger and the nationalism among the citizens will not extinguish at all. After 4 or 8 years there could well be another Trump-type politician (or Trump himself) running for president, who could be 10 times harsher to immigrants and minorities than Trump now. I do mean Nazi when I say this.
So it’s probably better that Trump wins this time to let the problems expose themselves as early as possible.