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The "Triple Package" Explains Why Some Cultural Groups Are More Successful
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Yale Law School professors Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed 'Tiger Mom,' and her husband Jed Rubenfeld write in the NYT that it may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall and Chua and Rubenfeld claim to have identified the three factors that account some group's upward mobility. 'It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success,' write Chua and Rubenfeld. '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.' Ironically, each element of the Triple Package violates a core tenet of contemporary American thinking. For example, that insecurity should be a lever of success is anathema in American culture. Feelings of inadequacy are cause for concern or even therapy and parents deliberately instilling insecurity in their children is almost unthinkable. Yet insecurity runs deep in every one of America's rising groups; and consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children. Being an outsider in a society — and America's most successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another — is a source of insecurity in itself. Immigrants worry about whether they can survive in a strange land, often communicating a sense of life's precariousness to their children. Hence the common credo: They can take away your home or business, but never your education, so study harder. 'The United States itself was born a Triple Package nation, with an outsized belief in its own exceptionality, a goading desire to prove itself to aristocratic Europe and a Puritan inheritance of impulse control,' conclude Chua and Rubenfeld adding that prosperity and power had their predictable effect, eroding the insecurity and self-restraint that led to them. 'Thus the trials of recent years — the unwon wars, the financial collapse, the rise of China — have, perversely, had a beneficial effect: the return of insecurity...America has always been at its best when it has had to overcome adversity and prove its mettle on the world stage. For better and worse, it has that opportunity again today.'"
Makes us really nervous when people talk this way.
...in that some feeling of superiority or supremacy for either the group that one hails from, be it family, community, race, whatever, gives one the belief that one can achieve, or can achieve more than others.
Feeling of inadequacy guilts one into taking action, to actually attempt to strive to meet that perceived superiority.
Impulse control prevents one from going for instant short-term benefits when those benefits are small, when one can see longer-term benefits by being willing to settle for something lesser now.
I'm not going to get into the racism and other unfortunate points of the argument, but it's not that surprising to me that those that feel that they can achieve will achieve, while those that don't feel that they can achieve won't, by the averages.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This piece of "outrage journalism" was "news" two weeks ago. /. regurgitating it? And why after waiting two weeks?
Why is
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Native kids, born into the complacency that is life in a wealthy western nation, often lack the drive wielded by those not too far removed from the have-not lifestyle afforded by life with fewer resources.
First generation immigrants are generally more motivated and productive compared to those farmed locally.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
When I arrived on the shore of America I had nothing.
I didn't even speak English.
To make the long story short - two of the three factors were very vital for my survival, and ultimately put me to where I am - except for the "superiority" factor, because I was less than a nothing back then.
As I grow more accustomed to the American lives, I get to know people from different cultures - for one reason or another, I find one group very very interesting - the Jews.
They are in so many ways so similar to the Chinese - and yet, they are far superior to the Chinese (yes, insecurity complex at play here) in that the Jews have a purpose in their own private lives and also for their community lives - on the other hand, most Chinese do not.
At the end of the day, the success of the Jews is not a fluke - their culture is structured in such a way that death of one member is nothing - even a massacre of millions to the Jews is nothing - as long as their culture gets to live on.
BBC has a very interesting program on the revival of Jewish culture in Krakow, Poland -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
What the Chinese have is number. What the Jews have is determination.
But other than that, in many other aspect in lives, what the Jews are can very much be found in the Chinese.
And I am not the only one who is saying this - read the following article (written by a Jew) to find out what he says ---
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/C...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Would you rather be successful and miserable, or a happy failure?
I'm told that Hawaii, for example, has an odd vibe where a lot of people lead frugal lives with clapped out cars and McJobs, but they're there because it's a wonderful place to live. Do they deserve contempt for their lack of ambition? Praise for their ability to value the things that really matter? Respect despite having chosen a path we might not choose for ourselves?
Jewish people in the US have not received anything close to the oppression that black people have
I can pick up your keyword even with my eyes closed:
Oppression
Now, sir, lemme ask you this:
Who hasn't been oppressed before ?
The one difference between the Jews and the so-called "black people" is that the Jews do not dwell on how oppressed they were, in the hand of the others.
You know, if the Jews want to play this game, they could !
There was a ship load of Jewish refugees from Europe that arrived at an American port. That was during Hitler's extermination campaign against the Jews were in full force. That ship was turned back.
When the ship finally reached Europe, all the Jewish passengers ended up in the ovens.
How many times the Jews play that "oppression song" ? How many times the Jews had to remind the world that "you owe us and you must pay back what you owe us" ?
No doubt. There are some Jews (mostly the losers) who have a liking to that kind of tune, but the vast majority of the Jews - what happened, happened, and they took that as a valuable lessen to remind themselves that they will never let themselves to be in that kind of situation again.
On the other hand ... how long has slavery been ended in America ? Please tell us, how long,. Sir ?
I am not denying that many blacks are impoverished and disenfranchised. But before they continue their "I am dying because you ain't coming to help me" moaning, why don't they look at the "boat people" - the Vietnamese who arrived in the 1970's to the 1990's ?
Those Vietnamese arrived with practically _nothing_, and initially they were in a much dire strait than those blacks.
10, 20, 30, 40 years have passed, those Vietnamese climbed up the social ladder, while the blacks still remained at the bottom.
Why don't you ask yourself "Why ?" ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !