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LettersIn China, boys learn to be men. In America, they are taught to whine
- American education has succumbed to the forces of cultural rot
- A society that encourages boys to be hypersensitive, whining ninnies more concerned about offending others than with truth, is preparing them to lose
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There is a telling contrast between two recent articles in the South China Morning Post, which speaks of an important difference between Chinese and American cultures in the 21st century.
First, we have Nicolas Groffman’s hit piece on “Why China no longer needs the wisdom of ‘Old White Guys’” (November 5), in which he resorts to argumentum ad hominem to reject common criticisms of Chinese culture and society. Clearly, China’s education system can’t have a problem with being too focused on rote-learning, because that’s something that Old White Guys say, and OWGs are just … yuck. This attitude is prevalent in a large part of American society.
Second, there is Zhuang Pinghui’s insightful article about the Chinese version of the American Boy Scouts (“Inside China’s training camps, where boys are learning how to be men”, November 4). Not the Boy Scouts of today, which will soon become “Scouts BSA” to be gender-neutral and all-inclusive, but the Boy Scouts of yesterday, which taught the same masculine values and skills that Tang Haiyan now teaches to Chinese boys at his Boys’ Club: confidence, discipline, cooperation, and competition.
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“Who is the best? I am the best!” Tang’s students are taught to shout. I am reminded of a line from Homer’s Iliad, which was hung in American and European classrooms for centuries: “Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above the others.” Such a prescription no longer has a place in American education, which has succumbed to the forces of cultural rot.
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