When we turn away from others—other languages, other cultures, other ways of seeing—we don’t just close our borders; we close our minds. To educate without crossing cultures is to betray both the nature of learning and the nature of life. This is why the discouragement of “foreign students” from studying in America is so deeply disheartening. It is a march toward stupidity.
The MAGA-driven drumbeat of this march is the illusion that greatness lies in isolation and the echo chamber of a single story. Even American citizens who hold different values—who believe in diversity, generosity, and inclusion—are routinely denounced as “scum” by the American president. Such is the dumbing down of America.
There is hope. It is that the more generous voices speak out, loudly, against the dumbing down, not only for America's sake, but for life's sake. And that thoughtful people in positions of power, including Republicans, come to their senses and do the same. America is not "made great" by borders, but rather by bridges. And, equally important, it is that we in America might abdicate the illusions of dominating power, and learn to listen again.
The MAGA-driven drumbeat of this march is the illusion that greatness lies in isolation and the echo chamber of a single story. Even American citizens who hold different values—who believe in diversity, generosity, and inclusion—are routinely denounced as “scum” by the American president. Such is the dumbing down of America.
There is hope. It is that the more generous voices speak out, loudly, against the dumbing down, not only for America's sake, but for life's sake. And that thoughtful people in positions of power, including Republicans, come to their senses and do the same. America is not "made great" by borders, but rather by bridges. And, equally important, it is that we in America might abdicate the illusions of dominating power, and learn to listen again.
Cross-Cultural Education & its Many Benefits
Cross-cultural education refers to the intentional process of learning with and from people of different cultural backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. It fosters mutual understanding, respect, and collaboration among individuals from diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, and national communities. This form of education takes place in formal settings like classrooms, exchange programs, and study abroad opportunities, as well as informal spaces like shared community projects, intercultural dialogue, and daily social interactions.
At its heart, cross-cultural education is about relational learning—the cultivation of empathy, curiosity, and insight through meaningful engagement across cultural lines.
Benefits of Cross-Cultural Education:
- Expanded Worldview
Learners gain awareness of different belief systems, values, and life experiences, challenging narrow assumptions and expanding intellectual and moral horizons. - Enhanced Empathy and Compassion
Personal interaction with people from other cultures cultivates emotional intelligence and the ability to understand perspectives different from one’s own. - Improved Communication Skills
Exposure to cultural difference strengthens both verbal and nonverbal communication, including active listening, respect for context, and awareness of cultural nuance. - Critical Thinking and Intellectual Humility
Encountering diverse worldviews encourages students to question their inherited assumptions and recognize the partiality of any single perspective. - Preparation for a Global Society
In an interconnected world, cross-cultural competence is essential for effective leadership, collaboration, and problem-solving in international and multicultural contexts. - Fostering Peace and Conflict Resolution
By breaking down stereotypes and promoting understanding, cross-cultural education lays the groundwork for peaceful coexistence and cooperative action across differences. - Personal Growth and Identity Formation
Learning from cultural “others” can deepen self-awareness, helping individuals see themselves more clearly by contrast and resonance. - Academic and Professional Enrichment
Exposure to varied intellectual traditions and learning styles enhances creativity, adaptability, and success in diverse educational and workplace environments. - Strengthening Democracy
Democracies depend on dialogue and pluralism; cross-cultural education nurtures the civic virtues needed for democratic participation and mutual respect. - Spiritual and Existential Depth
For many, engaging with cultural diversity leads to a deeper appreciation for the mystery and complexity of the human experience—and of life itself.
A March Toward Stupidity
Discouraging "Foreign Students" from studying in America
In his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom warned that American universities were drifting toward relativism and intellectual shallowness. Nearly four decades later, the danger is not too much openness but too little—an erosion of curiosity, a disinterest in others, a quiet retreat into the comfort of the known.
On Thursday, May 22, the Trump administration announced it would bar international students from attending Harvard University—a move emblematic of a broader war on intellectual diversity and cross-cultural education. Meanwhile, students from around the world—many of whom once regarded the United States, and Harvard in particular, as the gold standard of higher education—are now looking elsewhere. They feel unwelcome in MAGA America.
There was a time—not so long ago—when many America aspired to be a nation of receptivity, of openness to people from other nations, of generosity of spirit. In its best moments, it welcomed difference, honored intellect, and cultivated a spirit of bold curiosity.
I’m reminded of my own small window into what is being lost. For several years, I had the privilege of serving as an advisor to Chinese exchange students at Hendrix College, a liberal arts institution in Arkansas. What began as a professional responsibility became a transformative experience—for me, for the visiting students, and for the American students who welcomed them. These young people arrived with a hunger for learning, a deep respect for education, and an eagerness to understand a culture not their own.
I was proud of all of us—including my college—for creating an environment where such exchange could thrive. Proud of the students who reached across cultural divides with openness and humility. Proud of the Chinese students who stepped courageously into unfamiliar territory and made it their own. And proud of the institution itself for embracing a vision of education grounded in encounter, empathy, and mutual transformation. Hendrix, in those years, embodied something rare and vital: a liberal arts education that was truly liberating, expansive, and relational.
But in MAGA America, the days of that pride are over. Perhaps, in time—when the Trump administration is replaced and the political winds shift—there will be the beginnings of a new commitment to openness, a renewed belief in the power of cross-cultural education, even at small colleges like Hendrix. But for now, and perhaps for decades to come, that vision has been eclipsed. From open horizons, we have turned to narrowed borders. From rigor and adventure, to suspicion and retreat. Cross-cultural curiosity has been replaced by small-mindedness. A march toward stupidity is well underway.
By stupidity, I don’t mean a lack of intelligence or even a moral lapse. I mean a closing of the mind—an erosion of curiosity, imagination, and the capacity to be surprised. It is what happens when a society stops being interested in others. Others in every sense of the word: other people, other cultures, other languages, other perspectives, other ways of being human. Stupidity, in this deeper sense, is a withdrawal into sameness. It is the desire to be surrounded only by what is familiar, predictable, and affirming. It resists complexity. It fears the unknown. It treats difference not as a gift, but as a threat.
When the Trump administration announced it would bar international students from institutions like Harvard, it was not just a policy change—it was a symptom. A symptom of a society turning inward, becoming incurious, uninterested in the relational dynamics of the world. These students were not enemies. They were seekers—of knowledge, of exchange, of shared meaning. To close the door on them was to close the door on our own future.
No democratic society can thrive without its others. No education can be complete without encounter. No democracy can be sustained without dialogue. When we lose interest in others, we do not merely become ignorant—we become insular. And in that insularity, we grow small.
I recall my own philosophy of education when I taught at Hendrix. I believed American higher education could be a meeting place. A site of intellectual hospitality. A space where minds from different corners of the globe could rub against each other, sometimes uncomfortably, and discover new ways of thinking, living, and being. That aspiration is what is at risk. That hunger for encounter.
To name this loss as stupidity is not to shame. It is to mourn. To recognize that when we stop being interested in others, we stop being interested in what we might yet become. And the only way forward is to remember: that the life of the mind is relational, that learning is always a crossing, and that to be fully human is to remain open—to others, to questions, to the world.
Is there hope? Maybe a little. Truth be told, not all Americans are marching toward this cultural and intellectual narrowing. Indeed, I suspect the majority are not. Across this country, millions still value openness, still hunger for connection, still welcome the gifts of other cultures and people. They work in schools and libraries, hospitals and nonprofits, small businesses and community centers—often quietly, without headlines. But the Trump administration, along with its allies in Congress and the MAGA movement within the Republican Party, has exerted an outsized influence on the cultural tone of the nation. Their rhetoric and policies have fostered a climate of suspicion and enclosure, making it harder for the deeper, more generous spirit of the American people to shine through.
Theoreticians among MAGA Americans often argue that what we now need in colleges and universities is "intellectual diversity"—a space where conservative views are not only tolerated but invited to the table of dialogue. I agree. Any honest pursuit of truth must be willing to engage a wide spectrum of ideas. But there is no need—and no justification—for removing other voices from that table in order for conservative perspectives to be heard. Intellectual diversity does not mean ideological cleansing. It means honest, generous engagement. A truly receptive academic culture invites voices from all directions—conservative, progressive, radical, traditional, and experimental—not to dominate one another, but to deepen the collective pursuit of wisdom and the flourishing of whole persons. That is the motto at Hendrix College: education unto the whole person. When one faction seeks to redefine diversity as exclusion, we are no longer talking about dialogue—we are talking about domination.
On Thursday, May 22, the Trump administration announced it would bar international students from attending Harvard University—a move emblematic of a broader war on intellectual diversity and cross-cultural education. Meanwhile, students from around the world—many of whom once regarded the United States, and Harvard in particular, as the gold standard of higher education—are now looking elsewhere. They feel unwelcome in MAGA America.
There was a time—not so long ago—when many America aspired to be a nation of receptivity, of openness to people from other nations, of generosity of spirit. In its best moments, it welcomed difference, honored intellect, and cultivated a spirit of bold curiosity.
I’m reminded of my own small window into what is being lost. For several years, I had the privilege of serving as an advisor to Chinese exchange students at Hendrix College, a liberal arts institution in Arkansas. What began as a professional responsibility became a transformative experience—for me, for the visiting students, and for the American students who welcomed them. These young people arrived with a hunger for learning, a deep respect for education, and an eagerness to understand a culture not their own.
I was proud of all of us—including my college—for creating an environment where such exchange could thrive. Proud of the students who reached across cultural divides with openness and humility. Proud of the Chinese students who stepped courageously into unfamiliar territory and made it their own. And proud of the institution itself for embracing a vision of education grounded in encounter, empathy, and mutual transformation. Hendrix, in those years, embodied something rare and vital: a liberal arts education that was truly liberating, expansive, and relational.
But in MAGA America, the days of that pride are over. Perhaps, in time—when the Trump administration is replaced and the political winds shift—there will be the beginnings of a new commitment to openness, a renewed belief in the power of cross-cultural education, even at small colleges like Hendrix. But for now, and perhaps for decades to come, that vision has been eclipsed. From open horizons, we have turned to narrowed borders. From rigor and adventure, to suspicion and retreat. Cross-cultural curiosity has been replaced by small-mindedness. A march toward stupidity is well underway.
By stupidity, I don’t mean a lack of intelligence or even a moral lapse. I mean a closing of the mind—an erosion of curiosity, imagination, and the capacity to be surprised. It is what happens when a society stops being interested in others. Others in every sense of the word: other people, other cultures, other languages, other perspectives, other ways of being human. Stupidity, in this deeper sense, is a withdrawal into sameness. It is the desire to be surrounded only by what is familiar, predictable, and affirming. It resists complexity. It fears the unknown. It treats difference not as a gift, but as a threat.
When the Trump administration announced it would bar international students from institutions like Harvard, it was not just a policy change—it was a symptom. A symptom of a society turning inward, becoming incurious, uninterested in the relational dynamics of the world. These students were not enemies. They were seekers—of knowledge, of exchange, of shared meaning. To close the door on them was to close the door on our own future.
No democratic society can thrive without its others. No education can be complete without encounter. No democracy can be sustained without dialogue. When we lose interest in others, we do not merely become ignorant—we become insular. And in that insularity, we grow small.
I recall my own philosophy of education when I taught at Hendrix. I believed American higher education could be a meeting place. A site of intellectual hospitality. A space where minds from different corners of the globe could rub against each other, sometimes uncomfortably, and discover new ways of thinking, living, and being. That aspiration is what is at risk. That hunger for encounter.
To name this loss as stupidity is not to shame. It is to mourn. To recognize that when we stop being interested in others, we stop being interested in what we might yet become. And the only way forward is to remember: that the life of the mind is relational, that learning is always a crossing, and that to be fully human is to remain open—to others, to questions, to the world.
Is there hope? Maybe a little. Truth be told, not all Americans are marching toward this cultural and intellectual narrowing. Indeed, I suspect the majority are not. Across this country, millions still value openness, still hunger for connection, still welcome the gifts of other cultures and people. They work in schools and libraries, hospitals and nonprofits, small businesses and community centers—often quietly, without headlines. But the Trump administration, along with its allies in Congress and the MAGA movement within the Republican Party, has exerted an outsized influence on the cultural tone of the nation. Their rhetoric and policies have fostered a climate of suspicion and enclosure, making it harder for the deeper, more generous spirit of the American people to shine through.
Theoreticians among MAGA Americans often argue that what we now need in colleges and universities is "intellectual diversity"—a space where conservative views are not only tolerated but invited to the table of dialogue. I agree. Any honest pursuit of truth must be willing to engage a wide spectrum of ideas. But there is no need—and no justification—for removing other voices from that table in order for conservative perspectives to be heard. Intellectual diversity does not mean ideological cleansing. It means honest, generous engagement. A truly receptive academic culture invites voices from all directions—conservative, progressive, radical, traditional, and experimental—not to dominate one another, but to deepen the collective pursuit of wisdom and the flourishing of whole persons. That is the motto at Hendrix College: education unto the whole person. When one faction seeks to redefine diversity as exclusion, we are no longer talking about dialogue—we are talking about domination.
A Cosmology for
Cross-Cultural Education
For my part, I subscribe to a philosophy called process-relational philosophy that offers a cosmology in support of cross-cultural education. At its heart is a vision of reality not as a collection of isolated substances, but as a web of unfolding relationships. Everything—people, cultures, ecosystems, even atoms—is in process, shaped by interaction, influenced by what has come before, and co-creating what comes next. To be is to be in relation.
This worldview, rooted in the thought of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, affirms that no moment is self-contained and no identity fully fixed. We are constantly becoming through our encounters with others. In this light, education is not about acquiring static knowledge or reinforcing fixed worldviews. It is about openness to novelty,
responsiveness to context, and the cultivation of empathy through shared experience.
Process philosophy values diversity not as a problem to be solved but as a creative resource. Every culture, every tradition, every perspective brings its own richness to the evolving tapestry of human understanding. Cross-cultural education, then, is not merely a pragmatic necessity in a globalized world—it is a moral and metaphysical imperative. It honors the process nature of truth itself, which is never final but always unfolding through encounter and dialogue.
In process thought, learning is a relational adventure. It is the art of weaving together different threads of experience into richer forms of understanding. The more diverse the threads, the more vibrant the tapestry. In turning away from the world, from others, from the complexity and beauty of difference, we impoverish ourselves—not just morally, but ontologically. We become less than we could be. Indeed, speaking as a Christian, we become less than the very heart of the universe - God - wants us to be. We lose our empathy.
This is why the closing of the American mind, and of American borders, is so tragic. It denies not only the dignity of others, but also the dynamism of truth. It substitutes certainty for curiosity, walls for bridges. Process philosophy invites us to choose otherwise—to live and learn with openness, responsiveness, and care. Cross-cultural education is not a luxury. It is the very means by which we learn what it means to be human, together.
This worldview, rooted in the thought of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, affirms that no moment is self-contained and no identity fully fixed. We are constantly becoming through our encounters with others. In this light, education is not about acquiring static knowledge or reinforcing fixed worldviews. It is about openness to novelty,
responsiveness to context, and the cultivation of empathy through shared experience.
Process philosophy values diversity not as a problem to be solved but as a creative resource. Every culture, every tradition, every perspective brings its own richness to the evolving tapestry of human understanding. Cross-cultural education, then, is not merely a pragmatic necessity in a globalized world—it is a moral and metaphysical imperative. It honors the process nature of truth itself, which is never final but always unfolding through encounter and dialogue.
In process thought, learning is a relational adventure. It is the art of weaving together different threads of experience into richer forms of understanding. The more diverse the threads, the more vibrant the tapestry. In turning away from the world, from others, from the complexity and beauty of difference, we impoverish ourselves—not just morally, but ontologically. We become less than we could be. Indeed, speaking as a Christian, we become less than the very heart of the universe - God - wants us to be. We lose our empathy.
This is why the closing of the American mind, and of American borders, is so tragic. It denies not only the dignity of others, but also the dynamism of truth. It substitutes certainty for curiosity, walls for bridges. Process philosophy invites us to choose otherwise—to live and learn with openness, responsiveness, and care. Cross-cultural education is not a luxury. It is the very means by which we learn what it means to be human, together.