mentioned that when surveyed, Chinese people rate the level of democracy in their country higher than Americans do for theirs, but with the caveat that they could be under "censorship"

The Parenti quote about an "unfalsifiable orthodoxy" is arguably being too charitable for this. In the scenarios outlined by Parenti, the western chauvinists took empirical facts and then find some mangled logic to make those facts an indictment on their enemies. In this scenario, the facts are simply discarded out of hand for being too inconvenient. Western polling shows just the same type of sentiment among PRC citizens! Does the CPC censorship extend to polls conducted by fucking Harvard? Are they under the thumb of Big Xi?

I've seen the chart you mean and it's honestly just embarrassing to imagine someone teaching a college course sharing what is literally a single rung higher than PragerU shit. It vastly downplays the people killed under Hitler while using fanciful nonsense to tar Mao. Like, there's uncritically regurgitating disgusting propagandists like Conquest, and then there's putting up low-effort, trash-tier slopaganda like it's useful for educating college students.

It wasn't the last straw but I dropped out of school shortly after my comparative politics professor handed out full page color prints of Winnie the Pooh to every student the day we were supposed to discuss China. I figured I wouldn't be learning anything in that program.

calling China a "closed autocracy" and "authoritarian"

All I need to hear that know that your professor is politically illiterate

but with the caveat that they could be under "censorship"

The professor could be under CIA death threats to say this. After all, there’s just as much evidence to support my caveat and I don’t like the CIA, so we just have to assume that I’m right.

I frequently travel to China, I have friends there and I speak mandarin. By this metric alone I know more about China than this soft genocide-denying nazi apologist professor ever will.

showed this chart that was literally like "Stalin and Mao killed more people than Hitler!!!"

Which people, teacher?

Which fucking people did they kill?

Explains why you shouldnt listen to someone with a political science degree

Dude I am taking a "europe after 1919" course taught but the libbest lib. Todays lecture was about how communism and fascism are basically the same and fascism came about because of communism and also fascism is right wing politics with leftwing characteristics. None of it makes any sense.

In undergrad I took a course on the USSR and simply didn't attend the lectures I knew would be cringe covering the 30s. The rest of it was really good, no lib stuff. The prof even said the CIA was on the ground during the hungarian revolution. The tests were all essay questions and my passive knowledge as a communist was enough to get an A+ lol

China as an AES state will never get this treatment in the west sadly

Unironically not too different to some classes I've had in China (okay that is an exaggeration but profs are libs here too—I guess it being an English language curriculum doesn't help)

when surveyed, Chinese people rate the level of democracy in their country higher than Americans do for theirs, but with the caveat that they could be under "censorship"

Unfalsifiable orthodoxy

And they say we are the ones who are "brainwashed"

Kind of funny, but mostly just sad, how these sorts of "education" systems literally just give the same amount of information as your average movie or tv show or news broadcast in the west, literally no information that people wouldn't already know growing up in the west, but they get a fancy degree at the end so while they are just as braindead as the average westerner when it comes to China, they will point to their degree in racist ignorance and declare themselves an expert.

Political science students have always been some of the dumbest, smuggest POS I've ever met. Even worse than economics students a lot of the time.

Repeat over and over: “Would you please cite your authority for “x” capitalist propaganda.”

“Yes but it is important to remember the humanitarian cost of all the progress made under Stalin and Mao. All the suffering and exploitation people endured.”

This is why I will never take a course about something I legit care about.

"The sovjet union"

That democracy map is insane lmao

showed this chart that was literally like "Stalin and Mao killed more people than Hitler!!!"

Nazi class, lmao.

I advise you to drop this course