2 ms·

At first I felt personally attacked. But there is some truth to what you're saying. There is deeply rooted pragmatism among Indian immigrants, no denying that.

by screye 4y ago

At first I felt personally attacked. But there is some truth to what you're saying. There is deeply rooted pragmatism among Indian immigrants, no denying that. The reductionism is a necessary part of online forum based discourse. No one has the time to engage in hours long holistic discussions on a topic. A comment can at most aspire to capture 1 point well, and reductionism is the act of identifying the one act that has a disproportionate importance within the discussion. Speaking abstractly about an unquantifiable rights allows you to pat your own back, but such discussions turn into ingroup signaling and adhominems instead of leading to productive discussion. Most Indians come from a scarcity economy where bad decisions are catastrophic. This means that you must have skin in the game when championing an idea, because failure means starvation.(allow me some hyperbole). The society doesn't suffer delusion for too long. Abortion rights are good. Yes, I believe that too. Republicans are actively interfering with women's control over their own bodies and that bad. Yes, I agree there too. Throw in specific anecdotes to appear nuanced. Now what ? You still need to address the elephant in the room. Indians might point to it a little 'austistically', but it is an elephant, in your room. The nuance can wait.

usrn 4y ago
See, this is my point. The topic is fundamentally nuanced and heavily connected to tradition and religion. You can't just ram through this with reason alone. I don't want to personally attack anyone but I know a number of first generation Indian immigrants. They're great people but all of them seem to reject the conservative view of American politics (the one held overwhelmingly by the people who lived here before) as "backwards." It might be because of their experiences in India, I don't know. It's really frustrating though to have people come into your country and try to change things like that while calling you stupid for protesting it. Tradition often exists for a reason and it can take a lot of work and empathy to unwind that. If you're going to come into a new country and participate in their politics you should work hard to make sure you understand their tradition (and I recognize that's hard, I don't blame immigrants for not doing since I would probably do the same, but it's really frustrating to see it over and over again and that's why I call it out here occasionally.) EDIT: I can back up my personal experience with statistics [1] Although interestingly enough it says that later descendants tend to be even more left leaning. [1] https://carnegieendowment.org/files/IAAS_full_final.pdf https://carnegieendowment.org/files/IAAS_full_final.pdf
- mise_en_place 4y ago
  Strange, that hasn't been my experience at all. All the first generation Indian immigrants I know tend to be center-right, with a few who are libertarian in their thinking. My parents were registered Democrats but I would consider my father center-right still, he voted for Reagan as he had suffered under stagflation.

by screye 4y ago

usrn 4y ago

See, this is my point. The topic is fundamentally nuanced and heavily connected to tradition and religion. You can't just ram through this with reason alone. I don't want to personally attack anyone but I know a number of first generation Indian immigrants. They're great people but all of them seem to reject the conservative view of American politics (the one held overwhelmingly by the people who lived here before) as "backwards." It might be because of their experiences in India, I don't know. It's really frustrating though to have people come into your country and try to change things like that while calling you stupid for protesting it. Tradition often exists for a reason and it can take a lot of work and empathy to unwind that. If you're going to come into a new country and participate in their politics you should work hard to make sure you understand their tradition (and I recognize that's hard, I don't blame immigrants for not doing since I would probably do the same, but it's really frustrating to see it over and over again and that's why I call it out here occasionally.) EDIT: I can back up my personal experience with statistics [1] Although interestingly enough it says that later descendants tend to be even more left leaning. [1] https://carnegieendowment.org/files/IAAS_full_final.pdf https://carnegieendowment.org/files/IAAS_full_final.pdf

mise_en_place 4y ago
Strange, that hasn't been my experience at all. All the first generation Indian immigrants I know tend to be center-right, with a few who are libertarian in their thinking. My parents were registered Democrats but I would consider my father center-right still, he voted for Reagan as he had suffered under stagflation.