8 ms·

The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on. Chinese universities as far

The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on. Chinese universities as far as I know don’t have things like institutionalized legacy admissions. I’d like people to reconsider the view that western societies are somehow inherently purer or less corrupt. Often it takes different forms. This can be seen in the way sanctions are imposed for companies using slave labor in Xinjiang but there is not nearly as much reflection on the vast amounts of prison labor in the US mostly of people unjustly given heavy sentences. In fact the number of people in American prisons rivals the number of people in Soviet gulags. Yet there is no shortage of sanctimony or moral rectitude. Anything wrong with western society is an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise just system but anything wrong outside the west is a civilizational failing that can only be fixed by adopting some theoretical enlightenment values which the west itself struggles to practice without hypocrisy. We can criticize others and ourselves without essentializing or casting ourselves as inherently moral.

8ytecoder 6y ago
The same universities that were affected by the scandal regularly give admissions for donors’ kin. It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases. Free market - not arguing the morality of it - allows for the person with the resources to get an edge on various things - from life saving medical treatment to life changing opportunities.
- creato 6y ago
  > It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases. That's a pretty huge difference. Letting someone donate money in exchange for admission smells bad, but if the donation is larger than the cost, they made more room for others than they occupied themselves. If a third party captures the "donation", that's just a roundabout form of theft/embezzlement.
  - KSteffensen 6y ago
    Well, ok I guess you can argue that, but can we then get rid of the notion that the US is a meritocracy?
    - ss2003 6y ago
      If you aren't one those that benefit from this you already know it is not.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - JoshuaDavid 6y ago
      I don't know of any people who say that the US is entirely a meritocracy. I have heard the argument that success in the US is _more_ based on merit than it is in certain other places, or that basing success on merit is good and is something we should strive to do more than we currently do, but "it is possible to get ahead in ways other than merit" does not disprove either of those.
andreilys 6y ago
Yep I’m sure that their universities have no concept of letting in children of a major donor or political figure with influence.
- strikelaserclaw 6y ago
  I'm sure Donald trump and George bush got in on merit!
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    Trump transferred to Wharton after two years at Fordham. Fred Trump was a NYC real estate developer with no connection to either school; successful in his world of outerborough residential developments, sure, but an utter nonentity outside it. George W. Bush was a longtime legacy at Yale, yes, but he performed about as well as Kerry did at Yale and Gore did at Harvard. With no family connections to Harvard he applied to HBS without telling his father, who had by then served as a one-term Texas congressman and UN ambassador, and was serving as the head of the Republican National Committee. To show how little "pull" the Bush name had despite all that, Bush was turned down by the University of Texas law school before getting in at HBS.
  - gersh 6y ago
    Trump's niece claims he cheated on the SAT.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Chinese universities do have this concept -- certain students are marked VIP, so that professors will know. But the concept of granting admission based on such status, as opposed to extending special treatment to an admitted student, is very much muted. There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required. But those generally involve receiving a point boost that the college has the official discretion to offer, or doing well on an alternative test -- someone scoring 303 out of 750 would obviously not pass a lower discretionary threshold either. Note that when "officials in Shandong say new processes are now in place to make sure such incidents will not happen again", they are correct -- it's already possible to look up both your gaokao score (this girl's score wasn't falsified; rather, her identity was stolen) and the 分数线 that applied to you when you applied to a school. The problem would be instantly detected[1] by anyone who felt bitter about what happened -- and this is quite likely, since you have a strong idea of what your gaokao score will be before you actually take the test. (You have to, because you apply to colleges before you get your official result.) [1] Well, detected with probably a one-year lag.
deleted 6y ago
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godelski 6y ago
While I think we should criticize others and call them out for their bad behavior I do want to stress that it is very important to hold ourselves to a high standard. This is an essential part of a democracy. There is always room to improve. We are trying to form a more perfect union. Criticize others to learn from their mistakes. Criticize ourselves so we fix ours. (I do think think self criticism is common in the west though often misunderstood, even amongst ourselves. Especially in the current political climate)
- randycupertino 6y ago
  I don't think it's just rampant in non-democratic vs democratic societies. A colleagues wife had him sit and take her entire online pharmacy class for her, sitting online as her for the entire course. He is a physician and had to actually take the classes themselves because when he tried to sit just for the exam for her he didn't get a high enough score. Other than checking IDs in person for exams, I'm not sure how to prevent someone else sitting behind the computer for you during an online course.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I don't think you meant to respond to me. I was talking about being critical of your state and others. I think you meant to respond to the more generalized discussion of cheating. This discussion diverted a little from that.
nouveaux 6y ago
Just as many Chinese citizens are proud of their country and culture, there are lots of people in the US who are proud of their country and culture. Are there lots of hypocrites in the United States? Yes. Are there lots of naive people? I mean people still love Trump now while the rest of the world laughs at us. The people in both societies are flawed so let's put that aside. If we look at both systems (and not as individuals), the US as a whole makes an attempt to do what's right and the system attempts to correct bad behavior. The original founders tried to prevent any one person from usurping power through checks and balances. As Trump tries to upend the country, the Supreme Court restricts what he can do but also tries to ensure the presidency retains power against the legislative branch. Trump has very little power against the Supreme Court and his Supreme Court appointees have voted against him several times already. Citizens in United States can take to the street to protest against change. Does it always work? Most of the time no. But occasionally, with George Floyd's case, some changes are happening. When individual citizens has their rights taken away, it is possible to sue the government. When this is taken to the Supreme Court and the citizen wins, change happens. These things will not necessarily get us to a better place but the mechanism for the people to make the change is enshrined in the constitution. Fortunately, this mechanism does eventually guide us to the right place. So far. As far as I can tell, this kind of corrective behavior does not work in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. It's citizens cannot demand change. What these countries do have is a level of efficiency that democracies will never match. I am envious of this. I am jealous of China's high speed rails and it's ability to erect large cities and hospitals in a matter of months and days. No doubt United States is in a bad place right now. It has lost its leadership status in the world, it's citizens are sick and dying with a virus that the rest of the world has controlled, and citizens are demanding to not be murdered by their police. However, Trump will most likely be voted out in the fall. Congress is slowly passing laws for better police reform. Counties and states who do not agree with the President covid policies can work against the President's demands to better protect their citizens. Yes there will be problems. Some bad actors will get away with unethical and immoral behaviors. However, the system will attempt to correct the problem. This is why Western democracy is regarded higher than dictatorships in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. The system in United States will give its citizens a better chance to weather the storm than a country with dictatorship.
yters 6y ago
I would say there are at least a few clear moral lines the CCP have crossed which Western democracies have not... cough strip mining organs from prisoners cough
jariel 6y ago
"I’d like people to reconsider the view that western societies are somehow inherently purer or less corrupt. " That's fine, we can be open to that perspective, but we should also try to be objective and accept that there are rough objective measures of 'corruption', upon some places are going to do better than others, and that arguments based on cultural relativism are usually not very strong. Transparency international has at least one take on it [1] [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2018/results https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2018/results
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nooneknowswhy 6y ago
When Google took $500M fine and $300M to share holders for Rogue Pharma Ads. While the counterpart in China --- Baidu, with rogue hospital ads which lead to the death of a young man. LOST NOTHING. Laws are enforced differently throughout the world. But it's not enforced in CCP controlled China for certain groups.
jackjeff 6y ago
Maybe that’s a bit grand to say “Western Society” where both examples would not apply to other non English speaking Western countries. The American high incarcerations rate is an exception in the western world. Legacy admissions simply do not exist in countries like France or Germany. Some elite engineering colleges in France have an exam based admission system very similar to the Chinese one but identity theft on this scale has never occurred.
Bayart 6y ago
>The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on. Chinese universities as far as I know don’t have things like institutionalized legacy admissions. As far as I'm aware, it's an American trope, not a « Western » one. But it makes sense that kind of practice would occur in the US where universities were founded by communities to educate their own people, rather than as extensions of the State.
zeristor 6y ago
I assume by western you mean american?

8ytecoder 6y ago

The same universities that were affected by the scandal regularly give admissions for donors’ kin. It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases. Free market - not arguing the morality of it - allows for the person with the resources to get an edge on various things - from life saving medical treatment to life changing opportunities.

creato 6y ago
> It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases. That's a pretty huge difference. Letting someone donate money in exchange for admission smells bad, but if the donation is larger than the cost, they made more room for others than they occupied themselves. If a third party captures the "donation", that's just a roundabout form of theft/embezzlement.
- KSteffensen 6y ago
  Well, ok I guess you can argue that, but can we then get rid of the notion that the US is a meritocracy?
  - ss2003 6y ago
    If you aren't one those that benefit from this you already know it is not.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - JoshuaDavid 6y ago
    I don't know of any people who say that the US is entirely a meritocracy. I have heard the argument that success in the US is _more_ based on merit than it is in certain other places, or that basing success on merit is good and is something we should strive to do more than we currently do, but "it is possible to get ahead in ways other than merit" does not disprove either of those.

andreilys 6y ago

Yep I’m sure that their universities have no concept of letting in children of a major donor or political figure with influence.

strikelaserclaw 6y ago
I'm sure Donald trump and George bush got in on merit!
- TMWNN 6y ago
  Trump transferred to Wharton after two years at Fordham. Fred Trump was a NYC real estate developer with no connection to either school; successful in his world of outerborough residential developments, sure, but an utter nonentity outside it. George W. Bush was a longtime legacy at Yale, yes, but he performed about as well as Kerry did at Yale and Gore did at Harvard. With no family connections to Harvard he applied to HBS without telling his father, who had by then served as a one-term Texas congressman and UN ambassador, and was serving as the head of the Republican National Committee. To show how little "pull" the Bush name had despite all that, Bush was turned down by the University of Texas law school before getting in at HBS.
- gersh 6y ago
  Trump's niece claims he cheated on the SAT.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
Chinese universities do have this concept -- certain students are marked VIP, so that professors will know. But the concept of granting admission based on such status, as opposed to extending special treatment to an admitted student, is very much muted. There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required. But those generally involve receiving a point boost that the college has the official discretion to offer, or doing well on an alternative test -- someone scoring 303 out of 750 would obviously not pass a lower discretionary threshold either. Note that when "officials in Shandong say new processes are now in place to make sure such incidents will not happen again", they are correct -- it's already possible to look up both your gaokao score (this girl's score wasn't falsified; rather, her identity was stolen) and the 分数线 that applied to you when you applied to a school. The problem would be instantly detected[1] by anyone who felt bitter about what happened -- and this is quite likely, since you have a strong idea of what your gaokao score will be before you actually take the test. (You have to, because you apply to colleges before you get your official result.) [1] Well, detected with probably a one-year lag.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

godelski 6y ago

While I think we should criticize others and call them out for their bad behavior I do want to stress that it is very important to hold ourselves to a high standard. This is an essential part of a democracy. There is always room to improve. We are trying to form a more perfect union. Criticize others to learn from their mistakes. Criticize ourselves so we fix ours. (I do think think self criticism is common in the west though often misunderstood, even amongst ourselves. Especially in the current political climate)

randycupertino 6y ago
I don't think it's just rampant in non-democratic vs democratic societies. A colleagues wife had him sit and take her entire online pharmacy class for her, sitting online as her for the entire course. He is a physician and had to actually take the classes themselves because when he tried to sit just for the exam for her he didn't get a high enough score. Other than checking IDs in person for exams, I'm not sure how to prevent someone else sitting behind the computer for you during an online course.
- godelski 6y ago
  I don't think you meant to respond to me. I was talking about being critical of your state and others. I think you meant to respond to the more generalized discussion of cheating. This discussion diverted a little from that.

nouveaux 6y ago

Just as many Chinese citizens are proud of their country and culture, there are lots of people in the US who are proud of their country and culture. Are there lots of hypocrites in the United States? Yes. Are there lots of naive people? I mean people still love Trump now while the rest of the world laughs at us. The people in both societies are flawed so let's put that aside. If we look at both systems (and not as individuals), the US as a whole makes an attempt to do what's right and the system attempts to correct bad behavior. The original founders tried to prevent any one person from usurping power through checks and balances. As Trump tries to upend the country, the Supreme Court restricts what he can do but also tries to ensure the presidency retains power against the legislative branch. Trump has very little power against the Supreme Court and his Supreme Court appointees have voted against him several times already. Citizens in United States can take to the street to protest against change. Does it always work? Most of the time no. But occasionally, with George Floyd's case, some changes are happening. When individual citizens has their rights taken away, it is possible to sue the government. When this is taken to the Supreme Court and the citizen wins, change happens. These things will not necessarily get us to a better place but the mechanism for the people to make the change is enshrined in the constitution. Fortunately, this mechanism does eventually guide us to the right place. So far. As far as I can tell, this kind of corrective behavior does not work in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. It's citizens cannot demand change. What these countries do have is a level of efficiency that democracies will never match. I am envious of this. I am jealous of China's high speed rails and it's ability to erect large cities and hospitals in a matter of months and days. No doubt United States is in a bad place right now. It has lost its leadership status in the world, it's citizens are sick and dying with a virus that the rest of the world has controlled, and citizens are demanding to not be murdered by their police. However, Trump will most likely be voted out in the fall. Congress is slowly passing laws for better police reform. Counties and states who do not agree with the President covid policies can work against the President's demands to better protect their citizens. Yes there will be problems. Some bad actors will get away with unethical and immoral behaviors. However, the system will attempt to correct the problem. This is why Western democracy is regarded higher than dictatorships in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. The system in United States will give its citizens a better chance to weather the storm than a country with dictatorship.

yters 6y ago

I would say there are at least a few clear moral lines the CCP have crossed which Western democracies have not... cough strip mining organs from prisoners cough

jariel 6y ago

"I’d like people to reconsider the view that western societies are somehow inherently purer or less corrupt. " That's fine, we can be open to that perspective, but we should also try to be objective and accept that there are rough objective measures of 'corruption', upon some places are going to do better than others, and that arguments based on cultural relativism are usually not very strong. Transparency international has at least one take on it [1] [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2018/results https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2018/results

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nooneknowswhy 6y ago

When Google took $500M fine and $300M to share holders for Rogue Pharma Ads. While the counterpart in China --- Baidu, with rogue hospital ads which lead to the death of a young man. LOST NOTHING. Laws are enforced differently throughout the world. But it's not enforced in CCP controlled China for certain groups.

jackjeff 6y ago

Maybe that’s a bit grand to say “Western Society” where both examples would not apply to other non English speaking Western countries. The American high incarcerations rate is an exception in the western world. Legacy admissions simply do not exist in countries like France or Germany. Some elite engineering colleges in France have an exam based admission system very similar to the Chinese one but identity theft on this scale has never occurred.

Bayart 6y ago

>The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on. Chinese universities as far as I know don’t have things like institutionalized legacy admissions. As far as I'm aware, it's an American trope, not a « Western » one. But it makes sense that kind of practice would occur in the US where universities were founded by communities to educate their own people, rather than as extensions of the State.

zeristor 6y ago

I assume by western you mean american?