> A trip to Albania ended his blind affection for socialism.
Traveling the world is probably the best way of educating people about human issues. I wonder if we replaced the first two years of college in America (general education stuff) with a trip around the world, what would happen?
I was talking to a friend from a third world country about this and I mentioned that VR has the potential to open people's eyes about human conditions around the world. And he said, "Nope. That's a terrible idea." I asked why and he said, "VR can't convey suffering."
Let's say, for sake of argument, that it costs $50,000 to send one student around the world. That's within an order of magnitude for most colleges for the first two years. Plus, it would drop due to economies of scale (also since we're talking about huge numbers of students, we could use boats instead).
Yup, this is a very sensible guy. Another important point from the OP:
> His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African academy. Any student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues. The aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it.
Efforts to "decolonise" academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences where the "decolonisation" meme is most relevant, have backfired horribly. And here we have a sensible scholar from Africa telling it like it is and not mincing his words.
Meta: I don't know why you're getting downvoted. You're clearly thinking out loud; just because an idea may not be 100% "practical" doesn't mean it's not worth discussing, and it should not be downvoted. It's impoverishing discussion on HN.
I moved from Brazil to Canada 2 years ago. It was kind of interesting to see what their perception of 'dangerous place', and other stuff was.
Not saying that we should send students to bad places. But going to any other country would teach them that the world is bigger than the place they were born, and different cultures are... well... different. Even if someone travels to a place that's more developed than where they live, that could also help, teaching them what they can do better.
To go on a freighter from the US to mainland Europe takes about 18 days and costs $100/day including meals. $3600 two-way. To make the same trip in an airplane if booked in advance is around $600 (can be just $300 at times, though).
Yes and no. It's definitely beneficial to travel, and the more different the place you're going to is and the more "embedded" you are there the better (e.g. staying with a host family). But you can only lead the horse to water, you can't make them drink. If you're not careful they'll just produce a little "expat" cluster of Westerners passing through without really looking at the unfamiliar.
This often shows up as "voluntourism", or things like the Peace Corps.
I agree that a trip to Eastern Europe would be hugely valuable for any actual communists, especially actual "tankies", but for fairness you should also include a western european "social democrat" country which is not at all the same thing.
This seems to assume there is no suffering in the US, so we have to import our suffering from elsewhere by going on a fancy suffering safaris. How decadent and gaudy.
Where exactly would they go that would dissuade them of socialist ideals? Maybe some sweatshops run by multinationals? Some cobalt mines? Non-fair-trade coffee farms? Countries harassed by aerial drones?
"The words struck a chord with Mr Wantchekon. Now a professor at Princeton University, he was born in Zagnanado in central Benin. Some of the music he listened to in his youth—such as that of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou—had songs that warned against trusting those close to you."
Articles like this break my heart. The thing that stops ideas like the ones in this article taking root are, ultimately, the beliefs of ordinary people.
The real secret of education is it is the only method humanity has discovered to stop people making the same stupid mistakes every single generation like all the other animals.
There is a remarkable strategy for being very successful: identify and stop doing things that cause failure. It isn't the silver bullet but as strategies go more people should try it. Instead, everyone goes along with joining personality cults.
> The real secret of education is it is the only method humanity has discovered to stop people making the same stupid mistakes every single generation like all the other animals.
Strongly disagree. There are plenty of educated people doing stupid, evil, destructive things. What would have saved them is a proper upbringing in a healthy community. Some colleges are now toxic institutions that achieve the opposite.
It's not only personality cults. There are all sorts of false cultures. The only one that works is the family model but that one is widely misunderstood and in practice it is hardly ever done right except perhaps by a professional military or sports team.
> Another result of Mr Wantchekon’s political past is a preference for empiricism over ideology. A trip to Albania ended his blind affection for socialism. His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African academy. Any student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues. The aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it. “Be angry but also be thoughtful,” he says.
This is something that should be impressed upon all the Americans who throw around the term “decolonization.” What would “decolonizing” say Bangladesh (where I am from) mean? Should we abandon the use of English? Dismantle our Supreme Court, an institution we inherited from the British? Dismantle our legal system built on British common law, or our constitution built on the American constitution and the Magna Carta? Abandon capitalism and free markets (which 80%+ of the population support because it has revolutionized the country)? Abandon western ideas like religious freedom, secularism, feminism, individualism, etc? What would we replace those things with?
Have you had conversations with academics who are interested in decolonizing their fields? People are interested in decolonizing history aren't saying that we should throw away all study of european history. They are saying that we should add more voices. This has been a project for decades, with more voices of women and poc being represented in historical analysis.
Necessarily, this means reducing the amount of time spent on "traditional western civilization" in the classroom, since there is only so much time. But go check out a renaissance history course taught by a young faculty member. White men continue to dominate the discourse. We've just added some more voices alongside them.
Religious freedom is also an Indian idea, not just a Western one. And Indians are also exporting new progressive ideas to the West, such as the animal rights activism struggle of India's cow protection movement.
Escaping (neo)colonialism generally means focusing on domestic ownership of domestic infrastructure, labor, markets, and supply chains, and untangling oneself from debt traps like the IMF.
It's not some crazy, scary ideological idea, unlike what elite Western propagandists have been saying.
Just don't advocate it too strongly or you might get got by paid goons, like Sankara and many other victims of foreign-influenced regime change.
This is a straw man with an easy answer: you've made up lots of things and called them "decolonization", but you've not actually asked what the people in the countries calling for decolonization want.
Why not look at decolonization as a step forward instead? Why not collect restitution from the colonial/imperial powers that have been extracting wealth from South Asia for centuries? Why not use natural resources for the local population?
Slavery and branding are two things which predate recorded history.
We pretend like anything has changed but in actual fact the same rules apply as always.
Money alone is enough to set the world in motion. If you value peace prepare for war. The only way to make any money is to sell the fruits of someone else's labour. You can't buy loyalty.
This is very prescient as right now the radical leftists are busy destroying the icons of anti-slavery and black success. Marxist's always destroy the good history when they take control. If you don't know where you are from you can be led anywhere. We'll see slavery again in this country if we forget our past.
The article attacked the World Bank’s recommendation basically on the grounds that it encouraged westernization:
> In the words of Rahman, who co-authored the Bank report, Bangladeshis are now at a “survival” stage and need to make a “quantum leap” to some higher level of development, a leap that inevitably leads to urbanization, an export-oriented economy, more fertilizer, big electric power plants.
Mother Jones' pitch was, basically, stay poor but try to address factors like infant mortality and malnutrition through other means, like organic farming and indigenous medicine:
> Kerala, perhaps, the state of 30 million people in the south of India that has achieved Western levels of life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality, and fertility on an average income per capita of $300 per year. But the World Bank and Monsanto don’t talk about Kerala; they talk about Thailand and Singapore.
The article has not aged well. Look at the article's baseline statistics from 2000:
> The average person dies at 60, and the infant mortality rate is 10 times that of the United States.
After leaning into capitalization and technological development over the last 20 years, life expectancy is up 12 years, to 72. Infant mortality rate has been cut by 60%, reducing the gap with the USA from a factor of 10 to a factor of 4. Listening to Mother Jones and “decolonizing” Bangladesh would have led to millions of dead children and sustained poverty.
Kerala didn't listen to Mother Jones either. Over the last 20 years, it developed a modern services economy, and now has a purchasing-power adjusted GDP per capita of $11,000, 60% higher than the rest of India.
"data-mining skills" -- I cringed at this phrase used by the journalist. Data mining is not a worthwhile skill, in fact its more of an insult. It's a curse any scientist worth his salt tries to avoid.
[+] [-] noworriesnate|5 years ago|reply
Traveling the world is probably the best way of educating people about human issues. I wonder if we replaced the first two years of college in America (general education stuff) with a trip around the world, what would happen?
I was talking to a friend from a third world country about this and I mentioned that VR has the potential to open people's eyes about human conditions around the world. And he said, "Nope. That's a terrible idea." I asked why and he said, "VR can't convey suffering."
Let's say, for sake of argument, that it costs $50,000 to send one student around the world. That's within an order of magnitude for most colleges for the first two years. Plus, it would drop due to economies of scale (also since we're talking about huge numbers of students, we could use boats instead).
[+] [-] zozbot234|5 years ago|reply
> His school is not part of efforts to “decolonise” the African academy. Any student of politics must read Rousseau and Madison, he argues. The aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge, not subtract from it.
Efforts to "decolonise" academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences where the "decolonisation" meme is most relevant, have backfired horribly. And here we have a sensible scholar from Africa telling it like it is and not mincing his words.
[+] [-] simias|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme
[+] [-] pradn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FalconSensei|5 years ago|reply
Not saying that we should send students to bad places. But going to any other country would teach them that the world is bigger than the place they were born, and different cultures are... well... different. Even if someone travels to a place that's more developed than where they live, that could also help, teaching them what they can do better.
[+] [-] Robotbeat|5 years ago|reply
To go on a freighter from the US to mainland Europe takes about 18 days and costs $100/day including meals. $3600 two-way. To make the same trip in an airplane if booked in advance is around $600 (can be just $300 at times, though).
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
This often shows up as "voluntourism", or things like the Peace Corps.
I agree that a trip to Eastern Europe would be hugely valuable for any actual communists, especially actual "tankies", but for fairness you should also include a western european "social democrat" country which is not at all the same thing.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] steve76|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] z3ncyberpunk|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Klinky|5 years ago|reply
Where exactly would they go that would dissuade them of socialist ideals? Maybe some sweatshops run by multinationals? Some cobalt mines? Non-fair-trade coffee farms? Countries harassed by aerial drones?
[+] [-] AnthonBerg|5 years ago|reply
I checked; The music is ... astoundingly beautiful. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2hzzC6W1jnkn6x6RyutlB3?si=Zd...
[+] [-] detritus|5 years ago|reply
Particularly of interest to me is the 'slightly slippery' beat it appears to have. It seems slightly off in places, but pleasingly so.
[+] [-] roenxi|5 years ago|reply
The real secret of education is it is the only method humanity has discovered to stop people making the same stupid mistakes every single generation like all the other animals.
There is a remarkable strategy for being very successful: identify and stop doing things that cause failure. It isn't the silver bullet but as strategies go more people should try it. Instead, everyone goes along with joining personality cults.
[+] [-] lazyjones|5 years ago|reply
Strongly disagree. There are plenty of educated people doing stupid, evil, destructive things. What would have saved them is a proper upbringing in a healthy community. Some colleges are now toxic institutions that achieve the opposite.
[+] [-] artsyca|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|5 years ago|reply
This is something that should be impressed upon all the Americans who throw around the term “decolonization.” What would “decolonizing” say Bangladesh (where I am from) mean? Should we abandon the use of English? Dismantle our Supreme Court, an institution we inherited from the British? Dismantle our legal system built on British common law, or our constitution built on the American constitution and the Magna Carta? Abandon capitalism and free markets (which 80%+ of the population support because it has revolutionized the country)? Abandon western ideas like religious freedom, secularism, feminism, individualism, etc? What would we replace those things with?
[+] [-] UncleMeat|5 years ago|reply
Necessarily, this means reducing the amount of time spent on "traditional western civilization" in the classroom, since there is only so much time. But go check out a renaissance history course taught by a young faculty member. White men continue to dominate the discourse. We've just added some more voices alongside them.
[+] [-] zozbot234|5 years ago|reply
Religious freedom is also an Indian idea, not just a Western one. And Indians are also exporting new progressive ideas to the West, such as the animal rights activism struggle of India's cow protection movement.
[+] [-] pphysch|5 years ago|reply
It's not some crazy, scary ideological idea, unlike what elite Western propagandists have been saying.
Just don't advocate it too strongly or you might get got by paid goons, like Sankara and many other victims of foreign-influenced regime change.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dundarious|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelzilla|5 years ago|reply
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00472336.2018.15...
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/contemporary-bangladeshi-law...
[+] [-] artsyca|5 years ago|reply
We pretend like anything has changed but in actual fact the same rules apply as always.
Money alone is enough to set the world in motion. If you value peace prepare for war. The only way to make any money is to sell the fruits of someone else's labour. You can't buy loyalty.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dundarious|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] steve76|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] edoo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelzilla|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rayiner|5 years ago|reply
The article attacked the World Bank’s recommendation basically on the grounds that it encouraged westernization:
> In the words of Rahman, who co-authored the Bank report, Bangladeshis are now at a “survival” stage and need to make a “quantum leap” to some higher level of development, a leap that inevitably leads to urbanization, an export-oriented economy, more fertilizer, big electric power plants.
Mother Jones' pitch was, basically, stay poor but try to address factors like infant mortality and malnutrition through other means, like organic farming and indigenous medicine:
> Kerala, perhaps, the state of 30 million people in the south of India that has achieved Western levels of life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality, and fertility on an average income per capita of $300 per year. But the World Bank and Monsanto don’t talk about Kerala; they talk about Thailand and Singapore.
The article has not aged well. Look at the article's baseline statistics from 2000:
> The average person dies at 60, and the infant mortality rate is 10 times that of the United States.
After leaning into capitalization and technological development over the last 20 years, life expectancy is up 12 years, to 72. Infant mortality rate has been cut by 60%, reducing the gap with the USA from a factor of 10 to a factor of 4. Listening to Mother Jones and “decolonizing” Bangladesh would have led to millions of dead children and sustained poverty.
Kerala didn't listen to Mother Jones either. Over the last 20 years, it developed a modern services economy, and now has a purchasing-power adjusted GDP per capita of $11,000, 60% higher than the rest of India.
[+] [-] madballster|5 years ago|reply