I subscribed to Gary North’s Reality Check a week or two ago, but only got a chance to read it today.
Here is a selection from today’s issue, a bit of advice to a young person from South Africa currently teaching in Taiwan:
[quote]
Age: 24; occupation: BSocSci degree. Unqualified
teacher. Location: Taiwan. I speak a little Mandarin
and learning more. Occupation: Teaching in Taiwan. Net
worth 7000 US dollars; Salary: $2,000 US a month for
remainder of 2006/contract
Should I return to South Africa (family pressure)
for a teaching qualification or remain in Taiwan,
learning Chinese? Teaching career's financial
prospects?
This is the most interesting question that I have been
sent. It involves politics, race, education, cultures, and
money.
I assume that you are male, although the concern --
family pressure – is more of a female concern. If you are
a female, the correct answer is: “Stay in Taiwan until you
are sure your marriage prospects are doomed. Then decide
what to do.” Actually, that’s not bad advice for you if
you are a male.
Your question raises the question of the future of
South Africa. This is a question that white, middle-class
professionals in South Africa have answered for a decade by
emigrating. There is no nation on earth that has suffered
a greater brain drain than South Africa, except possibly
Zimbabwe, which is the IQ replacement pool for South
Africa. This brain drain has crippled the future prospects
of South Africa.
There is a relationship between IQ and the wealth of
nations. There is even a book on this. I don’t care how
high the price of strategic minerals goes; the IQ brain
drain will cripple South Africa. So will the socialist
policies of the government, which build on the socialist
policies of the Afrikaner government that preceded it.
To tell anyone except a missionary to return to South
Africa would be irresponsible on my part. Ignore your
family’s pleas. Do not go back. Don’t put your heirs back
into that environment.
Learning Chinese is a positive thing to do, no matter
where you are. That is the second language of the twenty-
first century. English is the first. You will speak both.
Plan to get out of teaching. There is no future in
teaching. You are young. You can make contacts. Move
into business. Use your income and position as a teacher
to establish more contacts. Systematically compile the
equivalent of a Rolodex.
Start a Web site or blog site. It can be on anything.
But your goal is to establish your reputation as a well-
read person living at the intersection of two
civilizations. Actually, in your case, three
civilizations: European, Chinese, and sub-Sahara African.
Set dates for milestones: mastering a speaking
(dreaming) knowledge of Mandarin, then a reading knowledge,
then a new job in industry.
Of course, the smartest thing you could do would be to
marry the daughter of a Chinese industrialist with several
factories on the mainland.[/quote]
So, if I understand Mr. North correctly:
- Marriage is to be avoided, unless it is to a rich person.
- One day, the only people left in South Africa will be people with lower IQs (apparently, because all of the smarter, white people will have left).
- There is no future in teaching. You should get into a career that makes you money. That career is business.
- Learning Chinese is a good thing, although it’s unclear as to why it’s a good thing.
What a load of hooey. I’ve unsubscribed to his poorly written, condescending, and hokum-ridden “advice” newsletter. When did “contrarian” become a euphemism for “dickhead?”
Before anyone makes any assumptions, I don’t feel personally attacked, I feel intellectually assualted by someone who masks his ignorance in blunt and marginally entertaining prose.
