I grew up in Cold War Austria, jammed between the two great blocs like the filling in a geopolitical sandwich. It made us feel a little special. It also kept a faint tremor of fear humming in the background. Our noses were pressed permanently against the Iron Curtain.
We didn’t know the full horror festering on the far side—but we had a damn good hunch. We saw the escapees streaming westward. Never the other way. We saw the border fortifications, designed not to repel outside invaders but to keep their own citizens from fleeing. We saw it all, every day, and we had enough evidence to form an opinion without needing a committee.
And yet, the universities still managed to produce a steady crop of polished idiots—people of every age, waving degrees, who sang the praises of the Soviet system like it was the lost symphony of civilization. When the Curtain fell and the misery spilled out in plain view, they merely took a breath… then came back louder.Higher education, I concluded, is a factory for morons. It was then. It will be forever.
https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-is-letting-china-win-on-energy-innovation-261109