Litnet

Amy Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld at their apartment in New York

Hello, 

Ek is verbaas dat hierdie nog nie die forum gehaal het nie, maar Amy Chua is terug en wie kan “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” vergeet en die oproer wat dit veroorsaak het. 'n Studie in opvoeding en “Fear the Chinese/Be the Chinese.” In verlede week se New York Times, die aanlyn weergawe, beter as 'n gedrukte koerant, was daar 'n profiel oor die "power couple" en hulle nuwe boek, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.

Die profiel gee 'n wenk oor die plofbaarheid van die boek. 

Looking at minorities like Mormons, Nigerian immigrants, Asian-Americans and Jews, among others, Chua and Rubenfeld contend that successful groups share three traits: a superiority complex, feelings of insecurity and impulse control. America, they conclude, used to be a “triple-package culture” before it succumbed to “instant-gratification disorder.”

Hierdie is die gewone terrein van armoede en die gebrek aan sukses is die "altyd" die skuld van die persoon self, "slegte gewoontes" in plaas van die omstandighede van die persoon self. Hierdie die gebied van 'n Charles Murray en kan dit selfs so ver terug gevat word na 'n persoon soos Allan Bloom en kan dit selfs uitspeel op die gewone oorlogslyne van links versus regs. 

“Some groups are just superior to others, and everyone else is contributing to the downfall of America.” 

Volgens die profiel is dit nie die boodskap van die boek nie en verduidelik Amy Chua en Jed Rubenfeld hul argument soos volg in 'n redaksionele kommentaar wat die New York Times voor die publikasie van die profiel gepubliseer het. 

A SEEMINGLY un-American fact about America today is that for some groups, much more than others, upward mobility and the American dream are alive and well. It may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall.

Indian-Americans earn almost double the national figure (roughly $90,000 per year in median household income versus $50,000). Iranian-, Lebanese- and Chinese-Americans are also top-earners. In the last 30 years, Mormons have become leaders of corporate America, holding top positions in many of America’s most recognizable companies. 

These facts don’t make some groups “better” than others, and material success cannot be equated with a well-lived life. But willful blindness to facts is never a good policy.

Jewish success is the most historically fraught and the most broad-based. Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the United States’ adult population, they account for a third of the current Supreme Court; over two-thirds of Tony Award-winning lyricists and composers; and about a third of American Nobel laureates.

The most comforting explanation of these facts is that they are mere artifacts of class — rich parents passing on advantages to their children — or of immigrants arriving in this country with high skill and education levels. Important as these factors are, they explain only a small part of the picture.

Today’s wealthy Mormon businessmen often started from humble origins. Although India and China send the most immigrants to the United States through employment-based channels, almost half of all Indian immigrants and over half of Chinese immigrants do not enter the country under those criteria. Many are poor and poorly educated. 

Comprehensive data published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2013 showed that the children of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants experienced exceptional upward mobility regardless of their parents’ socioeconomic or educational background.

Merely stating the fact that certain groups do better than others — as measured by income, test scores and so on — is enough to provoke a firestorm in America today, and even charges of racism. The irony is that the facts actually debunk racial stereotypes.

There are some black and Hispanic groups in America that far outperform some white and Asian groups. Immigrants from many West Indian and African countries, such as Jamaica, Ghana, and Haiti, are climbing America’s higher education ladder, but perhaps the most prominent are Nigerians. Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry; over a fourth of Nigerian-Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with only about 11 percent of whites.

Cuban-Americans in Miami rose in one generation from widespread penury to relative affluence. By 1990, United States-born Cuban children — whose parents had arrived as exiles, many with practically nothing — were twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to earn over $50,000 a year. All three Hispanic United States senators are Cuban-Americans.

Meanwhile, some Asian-American groups — Cambodian- and Hmong-Americans, for example — are among the poorest in the country, as are some predominantly white communities in central Appalachia.

MOST fundamentally, groups rise and fall over time. The fortunes of WASP elites have been declining for decades. In 1960, second-generation Greek-Americans reportedly had the second-highest income of any census-tracked group. Group success in America often tends to dissipate after two generations. Thus while Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above average in 2012 — including a 63-point edge over whites — a 2005 study of over 20,000 adolescents found that third-generation 
Asian-American students performed no better academically than white students.

The fact that groups rise and fall this way punctures the whole idea of “model minorities” or that groups succeed because of innate, biological differences. Rather, there are cultural forces at work.

Nou wat is die redes vir hierdie sukses. 

It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. 

The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. 

The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. 

The third is impulse control.

Any individual, from any background, can have what we call this Triple Package of traits. But research shows that some groups are instilling them more frequently than others, and that they are enjoying greater success.

It’s odd to think of people feeling simultaneously superior and insecure. Yet it’s precisely this unstable combination that generates drive: a chip on the shoulder, a goading need to prove oneself. Add impulse control — the ability to resist temptation — and the result is people who systematically sacrifice present gratification in pursuit of future attainment.

But this success comes at a price. Each of the three traits has its own pathologies. 

Impulse control can undercut the ability to experience beauty, tranquility and spontaneous joy. 

Insecure people feel like they’re never good enough. 

A superiority complex can be even more invidious. Group supremacy claims have been a source of oppression, war and genocide throughout history. 

Daar dan 'n simplistiese vertelling van my kant af en is hierdie sekerlik 'n debat wat gevolg kan word. 

My argument is dat hierdie in die konteks gesien moet word van 'n aparte brief wat saam met hierdie brief ingestuur wat die mensdom se obsessie met klassifikasie in konteks plaas en dat hierdie slegs die nuutste is in 'n lang lys van soortgelyke pogings. 

Die wat soveel "beter" is volgens Chua (Sjinees) & Jed Rubenfeld (Joods)

Jewish
Indian
Chinese
Iranian
Lebanese-Americans
Nigerians
Cuban exiles
Mormons

Dit word aan die leser gelaat om te kyk of sy op die lys is. 

Ongelukkig is ek nie. 

Baie dankie

Wouter