Parts of a thread on US immigration reform (A Realistic Trump Immigration Policy - #30 by yyy) was merged with a thread on education reform. It’s not entirely in chronological order.
It all started with the following exchange:
Where do you think this culture in Latin American countries comes from though, and what role do people have in changing a culture that they supposedly dislike (if they truly dislike it at all)?
To compare things to East Asia, I would say two things. In some cases, East Asians have been able to move beyond the past and do new things, hence their rapid development. They’re not hamstrung by defining themselves as victims, despite having plenty in their history (either domestic or foreign) to which they could credibly cling to as victims if
they wanted.
In other cases, we see lots of examples of people complaining about a particular situation, but when you say that maybe they should change it, they turn around and say, “but this is how we’ve always done it”. The two are at odds with one another. I suspect that a lot of people just like to complain.
I could tell you that I want to accomplish X, but if you come back in a year and I tell you again that I want to accomplish X, then you kind of have to doubt if I really do because otherwise I would have already (or would be able to demonstrate progress, at least).
For some people it’s not a contradiction at all: “What really disappoints me about the system is my (or my family’s) position within it, not the system itself.”
Okay, I see what you’re getting at. You mean that if they were top dog, then they’d be all for a system that they complain about when they’re bottom dog?
It’s often interesting to see people do that in a working or business setting. They put up with lots of nonsense from others and complain about how unfair it is, but when the shoe is on the other foot they frequently treat service staff quite atrociously.