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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.'"
...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?
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.
Holy crap! Its a part of their culture. Listen to a few of the last generation's Jewish comedians. Its true that many younger US Jews don't buy into the whole victim psychology like their elders did. But there is an active propaganda campaign generated in Israel to continually remind the diaspora of their past suffering and, oh yea, keep sending that money and voting the homeland's political interests. So you'll all have someplace to go when 'they' turn on us again.
Other nationalities and races don't have to put up with the same crap that blacks still do. Jim Crow laws were still in place within the lifetimes of many African Americans. And there is still a racist movement in this country that keeps the propaganda going. Jews, Vietnamese and others have an internal meme of their oppression. Blacks keep having it shoved on them from the outside. And that's the primary difference between the success/failure of their groups within this country.
Have gnu, will travel.
I explained why: White Americans organized systems to keep black people from achieving the same success available to other ethnic minorities. I described a bunch of the systems that black people were and still are on the receiving end of that Jewish people (and, for that matter, Vietnamese people) never experienced in remotely similar numbers.
When you're in a rigged game, the most moral and capable person imaginable will still lose. The game of life was and continues to be rigged against black people. Why should there be any surprise that they don't have the same successes experienced by people who got to play by the same rules as everyone else?
I am officially gone from