Gustav Dore, Belling the Cat; 1868

S., a longtime reader from India, writes:

No doubt everyone is by now well informed about the on-going H1B visa issue. CBS 60 minutes recently aired a special featuring the Americans who lost their jobs to Indians. On this ground, I have no ethical or moral dilemma whatsoever. Indeed, I know of many such Indians, with questionable English and technology skills, who are displacing Americans using the H1B program. That is not right, but this is not what this email is about.

The majority of H1B visa hirees tend to be Indians, but no news report tells you how many of them are Indians who have used an American education to get here, who are in fact qualified and paid on par. Here’s a look at what a Columbia University Computer Science Engineering Class looks like:

Indians 50%
Chinese and other East Asian ethnicities 49%
Every other ethnic/national group including WASP 1%

Here is what a Masters in Economic Science class looks like in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs

South East Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) – 45%
East Asia (predominantly China, lesser extent Taiwan, S.Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Phillipnes) – 45%
Every other ethic/national group including WASP 10%

Most of these students do get hired using H1B eventually, not just in the United States but globally. And this is an Ivy school, one that is supposed to be elitist, a bastion of white supremacy. Yet I enter a university canteen and feel I am in New Delhi, and hate it. Is there a preferential admission of the brown student?

Of course not.

Is it then a shock that the H1B program is predominantly hiring Indians?

I am not done yet. Not only do I feel I am in New Delhi and not at an Ivy League school in Manhattan, I was until recently repressing my most strongest impression of the whites in my International Social Welfare class, aka the Dumbdashians. Having spent 10 years reading yourself and Lawrence Auster you cannot imagine how disappointing it is to be at an Ivy school and finding an intellectual wasteland. I judged myself and decided there was something wrong with me for thinking so. I decided the intelligent whites were in other departments.

Eventually, conversations with a French statistics exchange student, a Japanese oceanographer, a Dutch architectural student and two Spanish MBA students all led to the same conclusion: our American classmates struck ALL of us as dumb.

Whether this is a studied, decided display of mental and intellectual deficiency, none of us seem to understand. It is however a relief to know that my impressions were not wrong. Perhaps this is ten years of Kardashians and Modern Family, Facebook and Instagram, but if the whites at an elitist, Ivy school are superficial and intellectually anaemic what doomsday scenario are we looking at?

Where are the media reports about how the American public school students rank abysmally in mathematics and science, the very fields being usurped by Indians and Chinese and the reasons for it? (Affirmative action, desegregation.) Now, Indians also rank far worse if you judge them as a nation, the Indians who end up here, with the sky high math and science skills are the top 1 percent of that low performing statistic and there are one billion of them.

Through all of this, of course I am clear that Americans have the first rights to jobs they qualify for, but just how many of them do qualify for the jobs that are leading to a mass influx of Indians? What is the government’s plan to remedy this? How can American students be nurtured to have more of them in fields like math, science and economics?

Who is going to bell this cat?

— Comments —

Penelope writes:

I need the respond to this piece, because some very important facts are missing. The best and brightest are no longer attending Ivy League schools, because they can not get in. Affirmative action is set up so that white males compete against white males, black females against black females, Hispanics and so on.

As the minority population increases with Hispanics in particular, the Ivy political correct mafia demands that the ‘quotas’ rise for such unqualified demographic. Although this can negatively affect Indians and East Asians, it really hurts white students the most.

So you may get a small cadre of white students, however you are seeing a massive rise in unqualified minorities who are taking remedial math and English classes before school even begins.

How would you expect to ever compete with the best of other countries, if our own best are not even being allowed the opportunity for what is supposed to be the best education?

Since white males have the least amount of ‘privilege points’ they are being denied positions in all top university programs and then jobs. Showing how they are missing in this program just illustrates the point. We are not dumb Americans, we are just silenced and marginalized in our own homeland by our overlords, who would PREFER an all brown class of any kind over white men succeeding. We are at a serious race to the bottom.

Laura writes:

Affirmative action is destructive. There’s no doubt about that.

But it doesn’t explain why the whites who do get to the Ivy League seem stupid (to some observers) — when they are clearly not un-intelligent.

Laura writes:

Protestant societies are doomed to eventual stupidity.

That’s because Protestantism is shallow and illogical. There’s no way to escape its internal contradictions except by burying one’s head in the sand.

It began with a burst of energy, as all revolutions begin, and was immensely aided by the looting of Catholic institutions (Protestantism was a revolt of the rich against the poor), including monasteries which educated the poor for little or nothing and created great works of learning, laying the foundations of true philosophy.

And now it is ending — a dead dog — in mass stupidity and atheism. (Most Catholics are Protestants now too.) The mind needs the Sanctifying Graces.

Gail A. writes:

I had a question about one of your last statements in this piece: “(Most Catholics are Protestants now too.)”

Did you mean that most Catholics are of the Protestant mind-set, values and/or belief system or that most Catholics have now joined Protestant churches?

If it is the former, I tend to think that most American Christians of any stripe have become largely secularized. Of course, all my observations are anecdotal, but whatever their particular faith tradition is, I see Christians (Protestant or Catholic) ignoring any Church teaching that does not comport with the realities of life in 2017, e.g., being OK with, housing of, and overall celebrating the activities and “milestones” of children or family members living together outside of wedlock or living in same-sex relationships.

The coarseness of written or spoken social interactions and overall disrespect are other areas where there has been a falling away of Christian charity. There are other areas of un-fruitfulness, as well. The squandering of time and God-given gifts comes to mind.

Now, if you mean the latter, I want to tell you about an Easter service I attended a dozen years ago at a suburban non-denominational church, where it seemed that folks were still really trying to live out the faith. The pastor clad in business casual mentioned (betraying a wistfullness in his voice) how he remembered, as a child in the Roman Catholic church, everyone was dressed as well and fancy as they could be on Easter Sunday. Of course the new way was more friendly, though, I guess was the idea.

He also asked people to raise their hands if they had formerly been Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc. I would say the majority of people in that sanctuary were former Roman Catholics. I also remember reading a Catholic statistician’s statement that those who leave the Catholic church to join a Protestant one tend to be very involved and serious about their faith. That statement, however, was made 25 years ago, probably, as I fear that even these have become watered down. I would venture, however, that these were true seekers who wanted to make their faith more personal and involve themselves in more fellowship. Catholic worship has a certain anonymity to it, but I have come to appreciate it again.

I am a Catholic revert, that is, a cradle Catholic who left at 20 and spent 30 years in the Protestant churches and then came back a few years ago. I am very glad to be home again in the RC Church, although they seem to now be doing some renovations on the old place that are making me wonder. The fad of tearing down walls inside a venerable older home to create an open floor plan seems to appeal to the hierarchy of the Church, as well.

Laura writes:

Did you mean that most Catholics are of the Protestant mind-set, values and/or belief system or that most Catholics have now joined Protestant churches?

The modernists in the Church hierarchy are Protestants who call themselves Catholics. They have succeeded, through 50 years of indoctrination and deconstruction of Catholic worship, in making about 95 percent of Catholics reject Catholic dogma and even the concept of dogma.

I am not questioning the sincerity or good intentions of all Catholics or Protestants.

Laura adds:

The fact that smart Americans let so many foreigners take over their universities is proof that they are suffering from cultivated stupidity of some kind.

Paul A. writes:

Why aren’t the white guys smarter in the Ivy League? It is simple. One still has to be Ivy League to move in the right circles. So retards from powerful and connected families slip past both the affirmative action barrier and the actual admission requirements. Then they become president, just like their daddy did, to point to one example.

Laura writes:

I think it’s very hard to get past the admission requirements. That is a thing of the past, when WASP families were assured of getting in.

A reader writes:

This is a provocative comment. I have lived for long periods in Europe, South Korea, and the Arabian Peninsula, where I was interacting with the local people, as well as an assortment of Indians, Englishmen, Scots, French, Rwandans and Somalis. I also have a PhD and one of my Masters degrees is from a UK university. So I have some experience relevant to the comment. There are some layers to the answer.

First, no one likes Americans. No one. Anywhere. It is an important rule of thumb to live by. I would be shocked if your commenter’s informal survey produced any other result. Imagine the question: “Don’t you think these Americans are dumb and shallow?”

Second, there is well-documented animus against poor white Americans in college admission. Your commenter should ask the American students at Columbia whether or not they were in the boy scouts, girl scouts or 4H club members. Ask how many of them have ever shot a weapon or milked a cow. Ask them what their first job was. The commenter’s sample is biased. An Ivy League degree is a consumer good for wealthy parents, a status symbol like buying a Telsa. It is not primarily for mental stimulation.

Third, the commenter is justifying the ethnic racketeering that is so widespread. If Americans had indulged in that kind of thinking, it would have kept him out of the US. Many Americans adhere to principles that no one else does. While working in a local public works department, I noticed the shrine some Indian work study students had erected in the department to the God of Education. There were a lot of Indian students in the department because of an Indian professor at the local university who placed Indians into the work study program (and took a kick back from them). This was done in a way that prevented American students from getting the classes they needed.

Fourth, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has coined the term “Intelligent Yet Idiots.” We have developed a caste of people who are good at taking classes. Checking a box with a Master’s degree assumes more training equals better thinking. No so. Thinking so is self-deception. My son is about to enter college. We deliberately searched for a university with a predominantly American faculty in his major. I don’t think a university education is worth the money and there is a mismatch between the most talented kids and the schools they attend. I certainly wouldn’t go into a major that required a graduate degree. Once again, the commenter has a bad sample. There are plenty of qualified Americans.

Fifth, there is a great deal of truth in the observation. American students are marinated in Wi-Fi delivered media that erodes attention, disrupts thought and is hugely debilitating. I taught in a Title I school where most of the girls have their first child in middle school. The corrosive effects of technology and debased culture were evident. The school system doesn’t stand a chance against the nine hours of media daily consumed by American teens. I wonder what Indian and Chinese students will be like when a generation of them have been exposed to a similar mental diet of Wi-Fi enabled bewilderment. I have taken to reading my email in the morning and evening and completely separating myself from the internet during working hours.

While Protestantism may be to blame somehow, I think it is far, far down the list of reasons.

Laura writes:

I agree with your main points. There are many qualified Americans for tech jobs. The Ivy League is not the only source or even the best source of these people.

You’re entirely right when you say everyone hates Americans, even those benefiting from American largesse.

And there is indeed active discrimination against poorer whites in these extremely expensive schools.

You write:

Fourth, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has coined the term “Intelligent Yet Idiots.” We have developed a caste of people who are good at taking classes. Checking a box with a Master’s degree assumes more training equals better thinking. No so. Thinking so is self-deception.

That’s the Protestant work ethic in action. Education becomes utilitarian.

Anonymous writes:

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