January 5, 2014

Everybody Hates Amy, Part I

The New York Post is mad at Amy Chua
Tiger Mom: Some cultural groups are superior 
By Maureen Callahan January 4, 2014 | 3:17pm

"Tiger Mom" Amy Chua is known for claiming that Chinese women make the best mothers, but now she and her husband say that some groups are just plain better than others.

She’s doubling down. 
Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” who, in 2011, published a book arguing that Chinese women are superior mothers — thus their offspring superior children — has even more to say. 
In “The Triple Package,” Chua and her husband, co-author Jed Rubenfeld, gather some specious stats and anecdotal evidence to argue that some groups are just superior to others and everyone else is contributing to the downfall of America.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Chua and the Jewish Rubenfeld belong to two of the eight groups they deem exceptional. In no seeming order of importance, they are: 
Jewish
Indian
Chinese
Iranian
Lebanese-Americans
Nigerians
Cuban exiles
Mormons

How about Armenians? Koreans? Barbadians (Bajans)?

What about certain Protestant groups like Episcopalians?

And what about looking back in time? Christian Scientists are fading, but they did extremely well for themselves for a long time.

If you go back to 1900, Scots dominated much of business in the U.S. and Canada. Mark Twain's long 1898 article praising Jewish business acumen mentions that of course the one place Jews can't compete is Scotland: "There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that is because they can't earn enough to get away."
These groups — “cultural,” mind you, never “ethnic” or “racial” or “religious” — all possess, in the authors’ estimation, three qualities that they’ve identified as guarantors of wealth and power: superiority, insecurity and impulse control.
“That certain groups do much better in America than others — as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on — is difficult to talk about,” the authors write. “In large part, this is because the topic feels so racially charged.” 
And so begins their cat-and-mouse polemic, in which they claim they’re courageously agitating for a greater good: the revival of America itself as a “Triple Package Culture.” It’s a series of shock-arguments wrapped in self-help tropes, and it’s meant to do what racist arguments do: scare people. 
Chua, a law professor at Yale, became a media sensation in 2011, when The Wall Street Journal published an extract from her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” She herself is an American, raised in the Midwest, but she used her heritage and all the worst stereotypes of Chinese women — cold, rigid Dragon Ladies, hostile towards their own children — to criticize the Western way of parenting, which she also said would be the downfall of America. 
Chua made waves with “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” but she makes even more outrageous claims in her new book. 
... Her book really can be reduced to a simple argument: Chinese mothers are better than those of any other race, and these parenting methods are going to result in the West’s big fear — the continued rise and ultimate supremacy of China. Chua’s book was a best-seller, so it’s little surprise she’s back with an even more incendiary thesis, one so well timed to deep economic anxiety, to the collective fear that the American middle class is about to disappear, for good, and the misguided belief that immigration reform will result in even less opportunity for Americans than there is now.

You mean, some people suspect Schumer-Rubio isn't the cure for whatever ails us?
She and Rubenfeld stoke those fears. “Although rarely mentioned in media reports,” they write, “the studies said to show the demise in upward mobility largely exclude immigrants and their children.” 
Yet the authors do not mention whether these immigrants are low-wage workers who have a greater chance at upward mobility, and the Pew study they cite is from 2007 — one year before the global financial collapse, resulting in an American economy that may be structurally altered for decades to come.

Uh ...
All of the groups profiled by Chua and Rubenfeld are done so only as American immigrants, with the exceptions of Mormons and Jews, who are superior to Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, atheists and Muslims — the latter group, it seems, too controversial to warrant a mention. 
On to the distinguishing factors that make these eight groups the best in America: 
1. A superiority complex 
Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other, say the authors, has an advantage. They do not note that this is perhaps humanity’s oldest and ugliest flaw, the bottom-line cause of wars and genocide. In their estimation, it’s not nearly common enough in America, where “the Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking . . . the stuff of racism, colonialism, imperialism, Nazism.” This way of thinking, they write, has been a big boon to Mormons and Jews, though they also fail to note that believing in the superiority of a belief system is the driving force behind almost all organized religion. (Except the Amish. The authors freely note that the Amish are losers for this very reason.)

I was surprised to see driving through Amish country last summer that the Amish aren't anywhere near as poor as I expected.
2. Insecurity ...
3. Impulse Control 
Yet another hallmark of self-help, impulse control is considered to be a key factor in personal success — the ability to delay instant gratification in the service of a greater goal. But this isn’t really what the authors have in mind: “As we’ll use the term,” they write, “impulse control refers to the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.” 
You know who’s bad at this? Americans not among their eight groups. “Because all three elements of the Triple Package run so counter to modern American culture, it makes sense that America’s successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another,” they write. “Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if it doesn’t buy into — or hasn’t yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.” 
As curious as the groups that Chua and Rubenfeld elevate are the absence of ones they denigrate. Aside from the Amish (not big book-buyers), the only other group the authors take aim at are the Appalachian poor, noting, without irony, that “it’s far more socially acceptable today to insult and look down on ‘white trash’ than the poor of any other racial group.’” 
As for why African-Americans don’t make the list, the authors believe that the Civil Rights Movement took away any hope for a superiority narrative, and so the black community is screwed — even as they cite Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama as evidence of Mormon ascendancy. 
“In this paradoxical sense, equality isn’t fair to African-Americans,” they write. “Superiority is the one narrative that America has relentlessly denied or ground out of its black population.” 
Nigerian immigrants, they argue, are bolstered by the belief that they are better than other West Africans

West African immigrants feel superior to African Americans, that's for sure.
— much as the Lebanese believe, as descendants of Phoenicians, that they are superior, or that the Chinese believe that their 5,000-year-old civilization makes them superior. But feeling superior to other nations, races or religions is nothing more than that — a feeling.

Uh ... no, that's what they have wars for.
The authors have such dubious data — “getting a statistical fix on Mormon income and wealth is notoriously difficult”; “hard numbers, however, are surprisingly hard to come by” — that they undermine every assertion of so-called “cultural” supremacy. 
The real story here — the less controversial one, the more interesting and possibly instructive one — is that historically, immigrant groups tend to experience upward mobility in America until the third generation, and then, for reasons unknown, tend to level off. It’s interesting, too, that the authors either dismiss or outright ignore the large swaths of immigrant groups who built up this country — the English, Irish, Italians, Germans, Eastern Europeans. They ignore two very basic explanations for the success of immigrant groups in America: Anyone who leaves their homeland for parts unknown, no matter how desperate, is, by definition, bold; America’s uniqueness as a nation founded by immigrants.

Or maybe having a whole bunch of nice land with only some tubercular Indians on it ...
Once we were a Triple Package nation, say the authors, but no more. We have been done in by our superiority complex, our poor, Western-style “self-esteem parenting” and lack of impulse control. 
The question they finally pose — Should America be a Triple Package country again? Can it? — is followed by a paragraph-long, yes-no-maybe answer that will give you whiplash. 
“The real promise of a Triple Package America,” they conclude, “is the promise of a day when there are no longer any successful groups in the United States — only successful individuals.” 
Today, the demographic predicted to have the greatest impact economically, politically and culturally, by the year 2042, are Hispanics. Just don’t tell the Mormons or the Jews.

The 4.8 million Hispanics in Los Angeles County can't even muscle their way into jobs as gaffers, key grips, and best boys. Do you really think they'll suddenly be running the media by 2042?

96 comments:

dsgntd_plyr said...

“Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if it doesn’t buy into — or hasn’t yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.”

BURN THE WITCH!!!!

SociallyExtinct said...

I like Amy. I know many Amy's (in fact, I was married to one who proved that Tiger Mom's span ALL of Asia, not just the mainland zoo) and they buy, have bought, into this domesticated, Western consumerist matrix, and have committed to perpetuating it through fanatical rigor and child slavery.

I look forward to reading this book, but based on preliminary snippets, it seems, 1) the Chua's are being overly racially generous, or 2), she is publishing a grand dog whistle that is essentially saying what HBD land has been saying for some, but she has ingeniously disguised it in order to illuminate it for those who recognize it, or are suited to. And thus plant the seed of discussion in an open-minded closed society.

BTW, Hispanics will never break into the Entertainment union shops for many reasons, but ability and willingness to work are least among them.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious in its predictability. But no real long-term damage. The groups are only cultural anyway and besides, what liberal wants to risk appearing a raging anti-Semite?

Anon87 said...

Indian??

Bert said...

Immigrationists are so damned predictable. It really is a credit to them that they can maintain their dogma completely, no matter what.

Anonymous said...

Okay. The thing is....are these two authors angling to take away Malcolm Gladwell's mantle of "general expert on nearly every major topic"?

Except in this case, unlike Gladwell, who was more preoccupied with pontificating on several topics from a general perspective, Chua and her husband have decided to keep it simple: Pose as experts on a couple topics while making them appear relevant to still prized demographic: the white middle class married with kids.

Paradox: Don't African-Americans has a whole feel pretty darn superior to others just cause? I mean, they have a whole historical month named just for them as well as having the only federal holiday explicitly named for one of their own?


Perhaps they're trying for the next big thing by identifying previously ignored ethnics.

I mean, who really thinks of Nigerian-Americans as economic powerhouses? Aren't they mainly known for internet scams and fake lotteries where you have to pay to claim your prize? If you want to make a case for another African ethnic, why not "the black jews"---the West Indians and/or Carribbeans? They've certainly been here for much longer and have roughly the same numbers as Nigerian Americans.

And why Iranians and Lebanese as opposed to the Greeks? Greek Americans have certainly been in America longer than the Lebanese, and both seem to have cornered the ethnic restaurant market in equal numbers. But what else exactly are the Lebanese known for in America that we can't also say that Greek Americans aren't?

Example: former USC star Petros Papadekos is a somewhat famous NCAA/National Radio host on FOX Sports Radio. Cant think of any Leanese cultural equivalents here as of yet.

Funny that most of these groups are infinitesimal to hardly matter.

Except for the Jews, always the jews.

Anonymous said...

Chua can hardly be racist because the groups she names include examples from all races. Okay, she didn't mention Melanesians or Kalahari Bushmen, does that make her racist?

Peter

Anonymous said...

>>"BTW, Hispanics will never break into the Entertainment union shops for many reasons, but ability and willingness to work are least among them."


Thats an opinion, not a demonstrable fact. Ability always rises to the top. Hollywood unions in their present condition date back to the '30s. The fact that verrrry few hispanics are in these trade entertainment unions speaks volumes. If they were any good, they'd be in them by now.

Name a field where hispanic productivity due to overwork is well documented. You can't because it doesnt exist.

Example: Put any hispanic up vs Asians for work hours and see who works the longest and the hardest. I think we know the answer to this one.

The word siesta, is Spanish for a reason. That concept hardly exists in China, Japan, Korea, etc.

Anonymous said...

Koreans?

Deep down, Chinese consider Koreans to be an ancient Chinese off-shoot, who should have been reconstituted at least 1500 years ago. Koreans are the only "foreign" people who are so proximate to the "center" of the "middle" kingdom.

Jerry said...

Another almost unbelievably stupid article from the NYT... Chua points out that it's ok to call the Appalachians "white trash," and for the NYT this means that she denigrates them...

There is an old (Polish?) saying, "The fish rots from the head." With a media like this, America is becoming a land of fools. Your situation is even worse than that of the Soviet Union, where everyone knew that the the TV and the papers lied. Here, "a free press" has become confounded with implicit guaranteed of reliability. prostitute.

The meme of America no longer being America, so to speak, and of ambitious immigrants being more American, in the traditional meaning of the term, than Americans themselves, is one that I have repeatedly picked up from Korean and Chinese friends. It's a measure of how much things have changed... Meanwhile, one of my (not unintelligent) high school pals is all over facebook about the Packers game, and about his new skateboard. A fellow in his forties who designs microchips, white American good ol' boy. I unfriended him.

Anonymous said...

>>"Anonymous said...
Koreans?

Deep down, Chinese consider Koreans to be an ancient Chinese off-shoot, who should have been reconstituted at least 1500 years ago. Koreans are the only "foreign" people who are so proximate to the "center" of the "middle" kingdom."



Well, from a historical perspective, they have a strong point.

But also mention the Japanese. They don't take too kindly to either nation and do NOT consider themselves racially to be a part of either one. They are distinctively their own culture, civilization etc. (at least how they see it).

You want to see and understand real intense dislike, try Japan vs Korea or Japan vs China. Better not diss Japan by building up China.

Perhaps it isn't so odd that Chua, being Chinese, would, wether intentional or not, not give a mention to Japanese Americans who have been in US for as long as Chinese Americans and certainly longer than Koreans have.

SociallyExtinct said...

@ Anonymous: regarding Hollywood unions.

How many Asians are in Unions

vs.

how many are tethered to jobs with company-mandated Smartphones and laptops?

Anonymous said...

But what else exactly are the Lebanese known for in America that we can't also say that Greek Americans aren't?

Don't know about the rest of the country, but I can say that the Lebanese have always done very well in the South, well beyond other non-European groups.

Anonymous said...

Name a field where hispanic productivity due to overwork is well documented. You can't because it doesnt exist.

Example: Put any hispanic up vs Asians for work hours and see who works the longest and the hardest. I think we know the answer to this one.


They are pretty damn productive in the U.S. service sector.

Anonymous said...

>>"SocialllyExtinct said...

How many Asians are in Unions

vs.

how many are tethered to jobs with company-mandated Smartphones and laptops?"




NO, the original QUESTION was whether or not hISPANICS are going to be prominently involved in hollywood trade unions. As of now and roughly 80yrs worth to check, they aren't very well represented in hollywood's unions and that's on them as a whole.

They've had plenty of time to get into the unions....that is...if they were any good or even competent.

At least the Asians are in the hollywood unions as opposed to, you know,....prison. And for the most part, they don't "own" the fruit picking manual labor in CA the way hispanics do.

See, hispanics have no kick coming. They've been here for a couple centuries and should BY NOW be starting to figure it out. But they are getting passed by other immigrants who come here and within a couple generations BAM are already scaling the heights.

Like Amy Chua. You would notice that there's no such thing as "Mexican Mom" as the equivalent to Tiger Mom. But as the vast majority of hispanic USers dont have very good education scores (and in the hollywood trade unions, you have to have the smarts to operate a lot of the new technically advanced equipment and they dont have the smarts) why should anyone be surprised.

Siesta, yes. Hard work and/or smarts, no.

In that case, the Asians have them beat.

Anonymous said...

"BTW, Hispanics will never break into the Entertainment union shops for many reasons, but ability and willingness to work are least among them."

What are the main factors that you estimate would hold them back?

Anonymous said...

>>"They are pretty damn productive in the U.S. service sector."


They should be by this time since they've "owned" it for nearly half a century. I suppose that if you've got four or five generations in dead end jobs going nowhere a la Siesta speed that even they can figure it out, specially since the work is done at a 12yr old level.

Anonymous said...

Example: Put any hispanic up vs Asians for work hours and see who works the longest and the hardest. I think we know the answer to this one.

They are pretty damn productive in the U.S. service sector.

And to add to my prior comment in bold, I would probably put my money on Mexicans as far as work hours in the service and manual labor sectors go.

SociallyExtinct said...

@ Asian Anonymous

More value created clearing out a hotel room for new guests than sitting in a corporate conference room all afternoon rehashing corporate hermetically sealed BS.

Anonymous said...

"They are pretty damn productive in the U.S. service sector."

They should be by this time since they've "owned" it for nearly half a century. I suppose that if you've got four or five generations in dead end jobs going nowhere a la Siesta speed that even they can figure it out, specially since the work is done at a 12yr old level.


Actually, the newly arrived Mexicans work pretty damn hard, from what I have seen.

I still favor an immigration moratorium and repatriation, however.

Anonymous said...

Just a quick point about siesta- that concept definitely exists in China. Anybody who's lived in China for any time is well aware of xiuxi (shoo she) or resting. As in " you can't have your visa application processed now because everybody is resting. My friends from the Fujian say that it was and is really common for everybody to take a mid day nap on the job.

Perhaps it's a sign that this stuff isn't genetic since Chinese are obviously capable of working pretty hard as well.

Also if you go back 50 years you'll see things like the prime minister of Singapore lamenting the Confucian culture for not supporting saving and hard work. It's funny to read about those kinds of sentiments in the present, but it's a useful correction to the genetics=destiny pessimism that's all too easy to fall into. As Steve says, it's 50-50 so there's always plenty of ways to try to make things better.

David said...

So Nigerian immigrants and Jews are better than Amish, who are "losers."

What makes a parvenu superior? He rakes in the coin, never mind how.

On this standard, Capone must be admirable, while Jefferson - who died in debt - is contemptible. A frickin' loser!

Gotta love the values of the canaille. After all, life is not more than a contest among competing cockroaches to see which of them takes the biggest bite of a cake someone else made - isn't it?

Anonymous said...

>>"SocialllyExtinct said...

More value created clearing out a hotel room for new guests than sitting in a corporate conference room all afternoon rehashing corporate hermetically sealed BS."


Tell yourself what you have to. They certainly are putting that fourth grade education and 75IQ to good use. Even 75IQ can figure out the same ol' same ol dead end generation menial tasks, over and over. Rinse, wash, repeat, siesta.

But since it's either that, or prison, or working in the fruit fields picking cherries, then life is good. It's all good, specially with a siesta.

SociallyExtinct said...

essnaAnonymous @ 2004:

Are you intimating that Hollywood unions (trade) are purely, or half-assedly, meritocratic?

Actually, do such unions present special cognitive demands?

Anonymous said...

Tell yourself what you have to. They certainly are putting that fourth grade education and 75IQ to good use. Even 75IQ can figure out the same ol' same ol dead end generation menial tasks, over and over. Rinse, wash, repeat, siesta.

Why are you so bitter? Service work is honest and needed work.

Reg Cæsar said...

Um, why would anyone expect to see a balanced treatment of this subject from someone with the name "Maureen Callahan"?

Anonymous said...

The attitude among the "elites" - and the HBD crowd for that matter - is that loyalty to race just doesn't matter. When other Whites are insulted it means nothing to them.

It's amazing how HBDers can be bemused about the utter destruction of their own people. They are able to analyze it with a detached distance that is frankly inhuman.

And even though they talk about race and ethnicity, they seem quite certain that Whites (especially the “lowah” class types) are doomed and need to be written off. (Proles don’t you know).

I predict both the elites and HBDers are going to be shocked in a few years. When Whites realize they cannot win in 2016 under the current GOP political system, we will see some radicalization. And that will include programs to get every last White person to vote for some party, nobody what it takes.

Anonymous said...

But also mention the Japanese. They don't take too kindly to either nation and do NOT consider themselves racially to be a part of either one. They are distinctively their own culture, civilization etc. (at least how they see it).

Well actually, educated Japanese know that they are descended from ancient and medieval Koreans. They won't ever admit it (although their emperor publicly announced Korean ancestry to the shock of the nation), but historical documents and archaeological findings and the Japanese government's reactions to them (they've shut many archaeological sites down to researchers) make it self-evident.

Anonymous said...

“Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if it doesn’t buy into — or hasn’t yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.”


Paradoxically, the most avid creators and promoters of those "post-1960s, liberal American principles" have been (and still are) Jews - who do not themselves buy into those values.

Anonymous said...

How about Armenians? Koreans? Barbadians (Bajans)?

What about certain Protestant groups like Episcopalians?


Her examples of successful cultural groups are actually just successful subsets of larger groups whose averages are, well, pretty much average. The average Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, Cuban, White American, etc. is average for their group and not wildly successful.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Koreans?

Deep down, Chinese consider Koreans to be an ancient Chinese off-shoot, who should have been reconstituted at least 1500 years ago. Koreans are the only "foreign" people who are so proximate to the "center" of the "middle" kingdom.


Except Koreans have almost no Austronesian DNA whereas Han Chinese have a good portion of it. Japanese have a little (more than Koreans but less than the Han).

Koreans are almost entirely (perhaps about 90%) descended from south Siberian/Manchurian ancestors and account for very roughly about 40% of Japanese imperial/aristocratic genetics.

The Han have a considerably more mixed origins.

Anonymous said...

"Koreans are almost entirely (perhaps about 90%) descended from south Siberian/Manchurian ancestors and account for very roughly about 40% of Japanese imperial/aristocratic genetics."

I think their lingo is related to Japanese, Mongolian, Turkish, and Mongolian. Some even say Finnish, but I> think that's stretching it.

Anonymous said...

I wanna see the numbers on Nigerians.

Rifleman said...

“In this paradoxical sense, equality isn’t fair to African-Americans,” they write. “Superiority is the one narrative that America has relentlessly denied or ground out of its black population.”

Really? So I guess it's a mere coincidence that most black so called leaders are reverends and ministers. And that black garbage from Rodney King to Willie Horton to Trayvon Martin are all considered morally superior black martyrs to White racism.

There is in fact quite a bit of black superiority identity in the areas of group moral self image, sports, music, "creativity", dance and even hyper-masculinity expressed in the ability to "game"/pimp women or punk out or "knockout" males of other races.

How can any American not notice that?

Anonymous said...

>>"Except Koreans have almost no Austronesian DNA whereas Han Chinese have a good portion of it. Japanese have a little (more than Koreans but less than the Han).

Koreans are almost entirely (perhaps about 90%) descended from south Siberian/Manchurian ancestors and account for very roughly about 40% of Japanese imperial/aristocratic genetics.

The Han have a considerably more mixed origins."




Something you overlook. Did you know that Koreans and FINNISH share a very similar linguistic connection? In other words, Finnish, descended from Hungarian, is similar in language to Korean and vice versa?

So then....Koreans and Hungarians must've gotten together somewhere along the line.

You also better check that. Japan is at least as old as Korea which is merely an outgrowth of China.

CHINA is definitely older in race and in civilization than Korea. Dont bet the farm on Korea. Best to wager on the oldest and the largest Asian race in the world, China of which almost all Asians are descended from in one form or another.

Steve Sailer said...

"I wanna see the numbers on Nigerians."

419

Anonymous said...

"Paradoxically, the most avid creators and promoters of those "post-1960s, liberal American principles" have been (and still are) Jews - who do not themselves buy into those values."

I think you're wrong. Not to belabor the obvious but Chua and her Jewish husband are a perfect illustration of how Jews have absolutely bought into the post-60s values. The man not only married a non-Jew, he married someone from a different race. In terms of proportions, etc., my guess is that you'll find interracial breeding among Jews at much higher levels than for non-Jews. Following the same attitude, you'll find much higher proportions of Jews among gays, non-children families, etc., etc. Too, watch anything Jewish related on TV or on the news and you'll see that they are at the forefront of adoption of the main-line culture, whether music, art, etc. And in terms of academic achievement, if Unz is to be relied on, then Jewish youth are dramatically in decline from the ranks of the highest achievers, although their numbers at the elite schools still haven't caught up to that reality. I think Jews have lived by their post-60s principles quite well. I think our thinking about Jews is still about two or three decades behind reality. Woody Allen and Blankfein not so much, the future is Mark Zuckerman and Adam Levine types.

Anonymous said...

If you want some insight into how much of this is cultural, take a look at how Chinese-American distinguish between first generation "fresh off the boat" Chinese and "American-Born" Chinese people. Americanized Asians tend to perform about as well as their American friends in school.

Steve Sailer said...

Yes, but if they are going to school in Irvine, CA or some other nice place like that, they are already in good shape.

sunbeam said...

" is that historically, immigrant groups tend to experience upward mobility in America until the third generation, and then, for reasons unknown, tend to level off. "

I'd make a long winded argument, but the gist of it is that by the third generation they are fully assimilated into being the present era's version of Americans: Couch Potatus Consumericus.

My view, which was articulated much better by Joe Bageant, is that this is the creation of the media bath that people live in since birth basically.

Here in America we have made a new breed of man. He may not be able to do much, but he is definitely new. But very lucrative to market to. After all that's the way the made him.

And he is spreading. I'd wager a guess that the infection has spread to all the Anglo-zone countries, and to a lot of the euro zone.

The only defense is to have some kind of self-discipline (ultra rare), or family or cultural influences that guard against it.

But I wouldn't be too proud if I were Amy. This machine takes people and turns them into this. You might do well. You might have grandchildren that do well. But rain can erode mountains over time, and it will erode them as well.

Of course I think it is an unstable system, so it might not have the chance.

But strictly speaking to my own impressions of oriental people, it sure doesn't take much to kick them into full blown consumer mode. They might be straight off the farm, but put a little money in their pocket and show them bling, and they bite the hook hard. Well a lot of them anyway, particularly the young ones.

As for laziness, well we'll get them there. It's what we do. Just take a little longer.

Honestly I think we have already broken the Jews. They just don't know it yet, and their personal situations are doing fine. But I see fewer and fewer Jewish names on any science or technical article as time goes by. Pretty soon they won't know anything but Ivy League schools and Wall Street. Kind of like another group they bitched about a generation or two ago.

Anonymous said...

The Han have a considerably more mixed origins.

There is much misunderstanding of Han ethnicity in the west. It's a more of a cultural identity and not a strict bloodline ethnicity. For instance, Northern Han (admixed Manchu, Mongol, and other northern tribes) are genetically very close to Koreans, whereas Southern Han have some Austronesian admixture. If you are East Asian, speak Chinese, extol the greatness of Han culture, and have at least one Han parent, then you are full Han. So you can be technically half Han and half Korean and be full Han at the same time. Also, your kid could be genetically 1/4 Han, 1/4 Korean, 1/2 Manchu and still be accepted as full Han, if certain criteria are met (language, culture, etc). It's kind of like what claiming American identity is today. Except in America, you don't have to speak English, extol American culture, or have an American parent to be American. What I'm saying is from a genetics standpoint, Han is pretty much meaningless.

Whiskey said...

The Rifleman (love Chuck Connors) nails it with Blacks. As I've said before, a toxic level of self esteem combined with manifest incompetence (for the most part) in G-loaded tasks characterizes most Blacks particularly the left hand of the Bell Curve.

"That's real retarded ... sir." : one Rachel Jenteal. On how she could not "read cursive."

Sunbeam nails it on Jews. They absorbed the 60's message more than most. Which in turn is the reform version of Protestantism brought to its logical Mary Wollstonecroft (mother not daughter) and fellow "free love" advocate William Blake brought to its logical conclusion. Universalism, disdain of tradition as binding chains, start from zero, etc.

Jews have tiny birth rates, TFR well under replacement, horrific out-marriage rates, and exist only in Wall Street and Media. Already they are being pushed out of Law by "diverse" people utilizing racial/ethnic nepotistic strategies.

What Chua ignores is that the ability of minorities to extract great gains from the majority nearly always results in pogroms and riots and seizures absent a great power protector like China now with SE Asia. Market dominant minorities end up getting it in the neck by a military embracing the Master Sgt. Samuel K. Doe or Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings strategy: mutiny, kill your General Officers, seize stuff, distribute to peers. And who has more stuff worth seizing? Not Joe Redneck in his double wide. But guys with Gold Chains or some racially distinct group that excludes others?

Chua assumes Western forbearance in their own countries of masses of market dominant minorities who maintain a separate identity is sustainable. History shows it is not.

Anonymous said...

CHINA is definitely older in race and in civilization than Korea. Dont bet the farm on Korea. Best to wager on the oldest and the largest Asian race in the world, China of which almost all Asians are descended from in one form or another.

I'm Korean and I think you're right. You know that saying: Hope for the best and plan for the worst? The Korean version goes something like: expect the worst, hope for better, but don't plan anything. For perspective, Koreans in L.A. are fully conscious of the possibility of another riot, so they pray it doesn't happen and vote for anti-gun candidates. Sigh.

RKU said...

There is much misunderstanding of Han ethnicity in the west. It's a more of a cultural identity and not a strict bloodline ethnicity...Also, your kid could be genetically 1/4 Han, 1/4 Korean, 1/2 Manchu and still be accepted as full Han, if certain criteria are met (language, culture, etc). It's kind of like what claiming American identity is today.

Exactly. In many respects, China is the original "propositional nation" and a tradition that's thousands of years old is a pretty strong one.

Anonymous said...

Apart from the Mormons, all the other groups can be distinguished by what can only be most charitably described as 'sharp practice'.
The less said about the 'morality' of Nigerians, Iranians, Lebanese and Indians the better.

Anonymous said...

Just look at who all the big-time drug dealers and smugglers are:

You'll find the Lebanese way up there, in the stratosphere, right up at the top of the food-chain. The semi-mythical 'boss of bosses' whose name can never be uttered - and amongst the kukies is treated with same reverence of YHWH, who incidentally, originated in the same part of the world.
A peg below, as particularly vicious foot soldiers - and ensnarers of stupid young white drug hinnies - you have the Nigerians. Doing more than their fare share of dealing, usually using their nasty little, but ' oh so enriching and diverse' restaurants as drug warehouses, you have the subcons - they do this in every polity that they have foisted, (with a nod, a wink and a guff from the political class), themselves in to.
Chua's list is more or less a shadow ranking of big-time drug lords. Only the coca-cola and caffeine deanying Mormons are the whitebread, holier-than-thou, WASP exception.

RD said...

Jewish
Indian
Chinese
Iranian
Lebanese-Americans
Nigerians
Cuban exiles
Mormons

What about the WASPs? Surely the people who founded the United States are also an 'exceptional' cultural group.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about the US but in Latin América the Lebaneses have been extremely successful, especially in Brazil and México.

Anonymous said...

Setting aside the entirety of the Western tradition, from Socrates & Plato & Aristotle, all the way down to Goedel & Church & Turing and beyond, do you know who else had their folks omitted from Tiger Mom's list?

Bill Clinton & Hillary Rodham.

Richard M Daley & Warren "Bill de Blasio" Wilhelm & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Charlie Rose & Bob Beckel & George Stephanopoulos.

Angelina Joli & Brad Pitt & Matt Damon & Alec Baldwin.

James Carville & John Podesta & Paul Begala.

But mostly Bill & Hillary.

Who are not exactly what I'd call "meek".

I would not want to be a lamp sitting on a desk in a room with Bill & Hillary after she read this article.

Anonymous said...

Chua's getting Richwined!

-john m.

Anonymous said...

How does Amy Chua's ethnic order of merit concord with Steve Sailer's LA County Order of 'Hairy-Man' phobia?

Seems to be quite a big overlap, in fact, when you dis reagrd the not naturally hirstute ethnies of man.

Svigor said...

I think you're wrong. Not to belabor the obvious but Chua and her Jewish husband are a perfect illustration of how Jews have absolutely bought into the post-60s values.

The Israeli quasi-Apartheid state, and American Jewry's BFF relationship to it, puts the lie to all of that. Jews are faux-leftists.

Power Child said...

Throughout my time doing grip & electric in Hollywood (2011-2013), I worked with a grand total of three Hispanics--all Mexican. All three were exceptionally competent, sharp, and pleasant to work with.

Two of them were females with what I'd say were "highly plausible" ambitions to someday be directors. The third was an electrician ("juicer") with equally plausible ambitions to join the juicer's union.

All three seemed well on track to reaching these goals but I've lost touch with them and have no idea if they succeeded.

I think the reason for the dearth of Hispanics in American film production is very similar, in this case anyway, to why there are so few black hockey players: it's less a matter of potential ability than because the field is already so dominated by whites:

People tend to want to join fields where they already have, or can easily envision having, some kind of ingrained network. This is especially true in fields where you have to work really hard for a long time for very little money before you "make it." (Hockey is different from soccer, football, or baseball in this regard because it requires so much expensive specialized equipment and access to a very specialized area.)

The notion that Mexicans can't be good filmmakers is sort of disproven by the existence of the very active Mexican film industry, which actually produces a lot of good work. (I say "sort of" because the Mexican film industry's nexus is in Mexico City, which is pretty different from the rest of Mexico.)

Anonymous said...

About the Amish. I'm reminded of an old joke told around these parts:

The middle-aged Amish couple are at the realtor's to make settlement on a large piece of land. The realtor says, "That'll be one million dollars. How will you be financing that?"

Amos responds that they will pay in cash. He turns to his wife and says, "Give him the bag, Rebecca." She hands over a large bag of cash.

The realtor carefully counts it and announces, "I'm sorry Mr. Lapp, there's only $900,000.00 here."

Annoyed, Amos turns to his wife and says, "Rebecca, you brought the wrong bag!"

Anonymous said...

It is obvious that the USA population exhibited by the people who posted to this blog have no idea what this book is about. They do not understand the overwhelming impact of "CULTURE". The culture a person lives in is the most influential component of character. More than any other influence, culture will determine if you become a positive contributing member of society or will end up in prison. A culture can only be changed or improved by those who live in that culture. The author has directed the spotlight on cultures in general by pointing out the obvious. People of superior cultures succeed - people of inferior cultures fail. Are the Jewish #1?
Are Blacks at the bottom of the scale?
Take a look at these cultures and the people in them and then criticize the conclusions made in this book. If you are honest, you may not agree with the exact list as presented, but must agree
with the overwhelming truth of the message.

Anonymous said...

I often wonder about black self-esteem. Superficially, they appear to have loads of it. One feminist study of American school children several years ago by the American Association of Univ Women discovered to their embarrassment that black females had the highest self-esteem of the four groups they tested. Black/White-Male/Female. Of course, this is paradoxical. A black from anywhere on the planet has never won a science Nobel, but get into an argument on the subject with a black person on the internet, and they will quickly tell you, as won just informed me the other day, that a black man invented the computer. Now, I would have conceded the SuperSoaker. At any rate, of course the Chinese and Jews think they're superior. What would be nice is if us goyim could develop our own civilization/society/economy without the YKW's doing their best to dilute it out of existence. Well, at least there will always be a China and an Israel.

Anonymous said...

Not to belabor the obvious but Chua and her Jewish husband are a perfect illustration of how Jews have absolutely bought into the post-60s values. The man not only married a non-Jew, he married someone from a different race. In terms of proportions, etc


Jews have been mating with non-Jews for thousands of years. The impressive thing is the way they maintain a strong separate identity in spite of that. Chua's daughters identify as Jewish. So do the offspring of most marriages between Jew and non-Jew. And that sort of identification flies in the face of the "post-1960s, liberal American principles" - principles which, as I say, have been strongly promoted by Jews (or should I say, by people who identify as Jews).

Anonymous said...

identified as guarantors of wealth and power: superiority, insecurity and impulse control.

“Wealth and power” -- seeking wealth is natural for new immigrant groups, some more than others – and many of them do act tribally in their quest. But the American economy and culture is invigorated and better off for these wealth seeking groups.

But power is another story – of the groups mentioned only the Jews have sought and gained “power” in a big way.

Jewish coercion of our elected officials for the benefit of Israel is staggering – 9/11 and the following wars have forever changed America in a very negative way. The divide and conquer politics of Jewish liberalism is destroying America’s cohesion. We are now a nation of divided groups – this is not good!

Anonymous said...

You know, I was joking about Hillary throwing the lamp.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether this sort of overtly anti-Western tribalistic triumphalism is precisely the sort of thing which could bring some of the aging 1960s hippie nihilist white radicals, like Bill & Hillary, back into the fold?

When they see the, ah, Scots-Irish and their Pacific-Rim & Indian-Subcontinent Asian allies all preparing to dance in celebration over the ashes of what had once been Western Civilization, do you think that the tiniest measure of Western Anger might be awakened in the Clintons?

Seriously - these solipsistic narcissists like Bill & Hillary are NOT going to be happy to read a tribalistic cultural obituary of their folk as written by The Frankfurt and Its allies.

Nor will be Charlie Rose. Nor Matt Damon. Nor anyone in the Chicago Daley family.

Those folks have egos the size of frigging Mount Everest.

Anonymous said...

"Paradox: Don't African-Americans has a whole feel pretty darn superior to others just cause? I mean, they have a whole historical month named just for them as well as having the only federal holiday explicitly named for one of their own?"

That's why TRIPLE is important.
Blacks lack impulse control. Also, their aggression tends to be physical than mental.
In terms of physically taking over entire turfs and driving others out, blacks are indeed a success story. Whites run, blacks conquer.
But physical power don't rake in the dough.

Anonymous said...

"Chua's getting Richwined!"

To be fair, I think she knew this was coming.

Chua on Fire.

Anonymous said...

"So Nigerian immigrants and Jews are better than Amish, who are "losers."

I think this has to be taken with a grain of salt.
It's like the Olympics. Each nation is allowed to put forth only one team.
If the Olympics really wanted the best basketball players in the playoffs, most players should be black Americans.
But America is allowed to send only one team. So, there's Russia, Spain, and etc too.

Chua took the Olympics model. So, even though Nigerians may not rank with Jews in brain power, they may be the best among blacks, and they represent the blacks.
Koreans and Japanese are broadly represented in the Chinese grouping.

Also, even crime has big winners and small winners. Nigerians are experts at scam. There is smart crime and dumb crime. Jewish oligarchs in Russia were into smart crime.

Nigerians feel superior, tribally and morally. They cheat other blacks and feel they, as best blacks, have the right to fool dumb blacks.
They cheat whites and feel that they are morally justified because of imperialism.
They also have a chip on their shoulder since their country is a mess.
They seem to have more impulse control. It takes patience to run a lot of these scams.
Maybe they learned business skills from selling black slaves to white for s long.

McGillicuddy said...


I figured that the reason she threw the Nigerians in there was to head-off charges of racism. They do complete grad school in high numbers, but all this has gotten them is a median household income that is about the white average and an unemployment rate of over 10%.

Anonymous said...

"Not to belabor the obvious but Chua and her Jewish husband are a perfect illustration of how Jews have absolutely bought into the post-60s values."

But they are not Jeff Spicolis, dude. And they didn't raise their girls to be Smiley Circus.

Anonymous said...

by The Frankfurt and Its allies

= by The Frankfurt School and Its allies

Anonymous said...

>> More value created clearing out a hotel room for new guests


cheap,consumer-affordable robots already exist to do the vacuuming. Give the koreans/japanese another decade, they will have robots doing the whole job.

Anonymous said...

Regarding the Amish, they are one of the few white populations in America that is growing rapidly. They are generally prosperous despite their technological limitations. In fact, their prosperity and growth is probably the result of their turning their backs on the poisons that affect the rest of native white America: smartphones, television, computer porn, higher education, etc.

Anonymous said...

The 4.8 million Hispanics in Los Angeles County can't even muscle their way into jobs as gaffers, key grips, and best boys. Do you really think they'll suddenly be running the media by 2042?

One often notes these cheerleading arguments for ethnic minority success with bemusement.

Why should I, a member of ethnic group X be so excited by the prospect of being outcompeted people from ethnic group Y in [insert name of industry] at some point in the future? I mean really, whats in it for me?

The assumption has to be the cheerleader either feels they have some innate superiority that will keep them in employment or that their children will or, or well, what exactly?

Truth said...

"Since they can sing and dance, run and jump, punch and kick, shake their big asses and swing their big dicks, and out-holler anyone, they feel superior. That's what they care about most."

LOL, that's what most people care about most, that's why you don't know anyone who's bought a $75 ticket to watch someone split an atom.

Anonymous said...

"to result in the West’s big fear — the continued rise and ultimate supremacy of China"

That's the West's big fear? I thought it was economic collapse and ethno-sectarian civil war brought on by cultural poisoning?

Fear of China is way down my list.

Anonymous said...

"Your situation is even worse than that of the Soviet Union, where everyone knew that the the TV and the papers lied"

Spot on. The killer flaw in high trust societies is they are so vulnerable to cultural poisoning.

Anonymous said...

"It's amazing how HBDers can be bemused about the utter destruction of their own people. They are able to analyze it with a detached distance that is frankly inhuman."

The motivations behind an interest in HBD are very varied imo.

.

"I wanna see the numbers on Nigerians."

Send me your credit card details and i'll mail them to you ;)

.

"People of superior cultures succeed - people of inferior cultures fail...If you are honest, you may not agree with the exact list as presented, but must agree
with the overwhelming truth of the message."

Accepting that point leads to an interesting question. What happened to the previously successful culture?

Especially as those segments of the White population which retain the most of that original culture are the most relatively successful.

It's the destruction of that successful culture that has allowed the situation described in the book to arise.

.

"Jews have been mating with non-Jews for thousands of years. The impressive thing is the way they maintain a strong separate identity in spite of that."

If one half of a population always marries in then the other half can alternate marrying out and then back in again thus retaining majority ethnicity over time.

A marries A to produce AA children.

A marries B to produce AB children.

AB children marry back in with AA children giving AAAB grand-children.

Potentially you could change a phenotype without changing the majority of the genotype.

AMac said...

@Whiskey, 1/5/14 11:00 PM --

"What Chua ignores is that the ability of minorities to extract great gains from the majority nearly always results in pogroms and riots and seizures absent a great power protector like China now with SE Asia."

Replace "ignores" with "knows all too well."

As alluded to anonymous (1/6/14, 12:59 PM), Chua came to prominence in 2004 by writing World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. Well worth reading.

Anonymous said...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-court-gay-marriage-20140107,0,1829277.story#axzz2piopLnkQ


http://nyti.ms/1gBTQ0N

It being Utah, shouldn't polygamy rights be prioritized over 'gay marriage'? It's a Mormon state.

Talk about cogdis or cognitive dissonance.
In the Mormon state, polygamy has been banned, and Mormons were forced to comply.
And progs have no problem with that.
But it must have 'gay marriage'.

Anonymous said...

"The 4.8 million Hispanics in Los Angeles County can't even muscle their way into jobs as gaffers, key grips, and best boys. Do you really think they'll suddenly be running the media by 2042?"

White hispanics seem to be making some inroads.
Cuaron and Del Toro are big players.

Guillermo Navarro is an excellent cinematographer.
So is Rodrigo Prieto.

Actually, white hipanics are creatively better represented in Hollywood than conservative whites.


Anonymous said...

"Why should I, a member of ethnic group X be so excited by the prospect of being outcompeted people from ethnic group Y in [insert name of industry] at some point in the future? I mean really, whats in it for me?"

That's one way to look at it, esp when it comes to professions. But at the tail ends of creativity, we all benefit from excellence and creativity wherever it comes from.

Maybe the rise of German opera did threaten the dominance of Italian opera, but everyone could enjoy and learn from German opera.

Cuaron may have out-competed native born American directors, but everyone can learn from and be inspired by GRAVITY.

Most film crew jobs are just jobs, a matter of professional competition.

But high-end creativity has universal value. Ford influenced Kurosawa, Kurosawa influenced Peckinpah, and etc.

Anonymous said...

"The Israeli quasi-Apartheid state, and American Jew's BFF relationship to it, puts the lie to all of that. Jews are faux-leftists."

Liberalism for everyone else. Right wing nativism for themselves. The only consistency is love of $$$, which they justify regardless of whatever ideology they're pitching.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Jews have been mating with non-Jews for thousands of years. The impressive thing is the way they maintain a strong separate identity in spite of that."

That's because they have a farm-team: orthodoxy. The orthodox have high fertility and a very strong sense of ethnic identity. As people outmarry out of jewish ethnic identity, there's always new people comining up from the minors, i.e., orthodox Jews giving up thier orthodoxy, but still identifying strongly as Jews.

Anonymous said...

Potentially you could change a phenotype without changing the majority of the genotype.


Potentially you could. But you only have to look at Jews to notice that they have changed a majority of the genotype. They look nothing like Middle-Easterners. In fact they don't look look much like each other. Jews from Russia look remarkably Russian, Jews from Hungary look Hungarian, Jews from Germany look German, and so on. Jews are about as physically distinctive a type as Catholics or Protestants.

Anonymous said...

So Chinese-forwardcastes-AshJew cultural alliance forging with a few tokens?

And come on - these aren't "cultures" they're talking about. They're selected "elite" migrants, even the Chinese (although more in scatter than the mean).

the Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking

Er... Shall you tell her or shall I?

insecurity

Aka, why neurotic, unforgiving Jews and Chinese with neurotic, unforgiving parents are more successful than their IQ scores predict compared to calm, tolerant European types. Except they kind of aren't, and if they are it sure doesn't make the nation they're a part of any stronger.

the ability to delay instant gratification in the service of a greater goal

Sometimes being gratified gives you an incentive. Not that poor quality "stick" parents would have any real understanding of that.

Also, to the anon who said "The word siesta, is Spanish for a reason. That concept hardly exists in China, Japan, Korea, etc."

I associate the Chinese with opium dens and gambling addictions, personally.

It's really peculiar to me why Jews, Chinese, etc. seem to want to insist that there is something worthwhile or special about their cultures, where the reality is obviously that their cultures are horrible (compared to any Euro offshoot, probably even many African offshoots) but they are rather intelligent. They don't seem to understand their only utility is as a "brain on a stick".

"I wanna see the numbers on Nigerians."Steve - 419
lmao

Matthew said...

In the Mormon state, polygamy has been banned, and Mormons were forced to comply. And progs have no problem with that. But it must have 'gay marriage'.

You're kidding, right? I can guarantee you every prog supports polygamy. It's simple: they support whatever conservatives are against, whatever conservatives aren't.

Anonymous said...

"I can guarantee you every prog supports polygamy."

I never heard any liberal support for polygamy or 'same family marriage'. If anything, I've seen libs argue that polygamy should be banned cuz history showed it is harmful to society. Libs say we shouldn't be judgmental toward homos, but they love to be judgmental toward polys.

Of course, we can interpret history and say homos did a lot of damage too through the spreading of decadence.

What lesson for today? I think America today is kinda like Roman Empire on the decline in this sense: combo of soft moralism and soft decadence.

Soft moralism is passive/guilty morality. It is unlike tough moralism that is aggressive. Soft moralism makes one more sensitive to faults on one's own side.
Soft moralism would rather apologize than fight. It would rather be judged than judge others. US used to have hard moralism of white folks who thought they should be lecturing to other peoples. Today, whites have soft moralism that doesn't judge others but is judged by others.

Of course, there were tough and aggressive Roman Christians before the fall, and Constantine was no pushover. He turned Rome into a Christian empire but also fought wars. Nevertheless, I think Christianity had a way of weakening Roman military prowess and resolve. Christian guilt and passivity spread feminine virtues in the empire.
On top of that, the spread of decadence corrupted the Romans. And Christianity as the new official religion probably also had a way of demoralizing Romans who didn't want to accept the new order and wanted to cling to the old gods.
Soft moralism and the softening effect of decadence prolly made the Romans gradually more and more defenseless.

Same in America. Whites now have soft moralism where they just wait to be judged by others while never standing their own ground. Even American conservatives take moral lectures from homos of all people.
On top of that, there is bread and circus decadence where it's deemed okay for white girls to 'twerk' atop ghetto blacks. And no one has any guts to denounce this out of fear of being called 'racist'.

Hard moralism can overcome decadence by denouncing, shaming, and attacking it.
But soft moralism has no guts. It is defenseless against decadence and against attack from the outside. Soft moralism may be critical of decadence but lacks the guts to go to war against it.

map said...

According to the Department of Commerce, Jews, Indians, Asians, and most of these groups qualify for minority disadvantaged business loans.

Their "model minority" status is entirely funded by the US taxpayer.

map said...

Whiskey,

You wrote:

"What Chua ignores is that the ability of minorities to extract great gains from the majority nearly always results in pogroms and riots and seizures absent a great power protector like China now with SE Asia. Market dominant minorities end up getting it in the neck by a military embracing the Master Sgt. Samuel K. Doe or Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings strategy"

Didn't Amy Chua write a book called "World on Fire" which addressed this?

This just goes to show you why Chua and the rest of her ilk are just a bunch of clever sillies.

Someone should ask her how well a typical "Tiger Mom" does in China, since most Chinese don;t seem to live very well.

Tiger momism, in other words, seems to offer much lower returns in China than it does here. Why is that? Is it because people like Chua are parasitic upon the social system that allows that achieve here what they could not in their home countries? If so, then what is the point of allowing this displacement?

map said...

One more thing.

Chua ranks these groups in a hierarchy of superior/inferior, but all of these groups exist in a culture that is not their own. The superiority and inferiority she refers to parasite off of the existing culture.

These people are thieves of the existing cultural capital.

Anonymous said...

White males make the best firefighters. She seems to have overlooked them.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

""I can guarantee you every prog supports polygamy.""

I never heard any liberal support for polygamy or 'same family marriage'."

They do. They just don't know it yet. Just as liberals thirty years ago didn't known that they would eventually be asked to be completely supportive of gay marriage. That is the logic of liberal orthodoxy. Once you outsource your moral judgement to others, you no longer have a say in what you will and will not be against.

Gospace said...

"I was surprised to see driving through Amish country last summer that the Amish aren't anywhere near as poor as I expected."

That's because you don't actually know any or live near or amongst them. And people who think Amish are losers don't understand them- they live the way do voluntarily.

My HS graduating class in NJ was at least 25% Jewish. 9 of the top 10 graduates (of 400) was Jewish. One Jewish kid that I know of was in the bottom 50%. He was it. He was a little slow... No "plain folk" anywhere in the area.

Where I live now, where 4 of 5 of my kids have (or will) graduate HS, my daughter was friends with one girl who is Jewish. The only one in a class of 90. There are lots of Amish and Mennonite around here. Had a discussion recently with another parent of a public school student in which she was lamenting the fact that there were fewer children in the area, and local school districts were consolidating and closing schools. I informed her she was wrong, there just as many if not more kids in town then in the previous 20 years. They're not in the public schools. Drive by the local private Amish/Mennonite schools and they're packed with kids.

At five children and ages 58/56, my wife and I have a huge family for white people our age. We're statistically non-existent. Of my HS friends and acquaintances on Facebook, the next largest number of kids (from one marriage) is 3. Most have 1 or 2. The only Mennonite families I've seen with only 2 kids are the ones where the oldest is 3- IOW, just starting out. Our neighbors, with 5 kids and another bun in the oven, has 2 when they moved in 5 years ago. We talk, we trade cookies at Christmas, but that's the extent of our interaction. Their family gatherings at holidays and on Sunday's when it is their turn to host- are huge.

Yep, it's a definite misunderstanding to think that Amish and other plain folk are losers. Or poor. They are mostly debt free. Which by equity, makes them richer then most. And by numbers, they are increasing. Which makes them winners.

What is true is that I think that most of them don't understand that they can live freely the way they want to because of people like me, with 20 years in the Navy, and my eldest, a Capt in the Army with multiple combat tours. The bad guys aren't knocking at their doors telling them to convert or die because others are keeping them away...

Gospace said...

Oh, I forgot to mention a jarring sight one sees occasionally. A black Mennonite, either male or female. They do exist. Plain folk don't discriminate. But becoming one is voluntary. I'm not attracted to their lifestyle.

Anonymous said...

"Someone should ask her how well a typical "Tiger Mom" does in China, since most Chinese don;t seem to live very well. Tiger momism, in other words, seems to offer much lower returns in China than it does here. Why is that?"

Tiger momism offers greater return in China.
In America, you can be a slob and still have a good life.
Not so in China. There are so many people and it's so competitive that you have to be tiger-momish and steer your kid toward success.

A tiger mom will surely do better in the US than in China, but the thing is you don't have to be a tiger mom here. You have to be one there.
And considering the changes in China in the last 30 yrs, it seems to be working.. but I think it has limits cuz if China wants to be innovative, it needs monkey mom who inspires individuality and creativity than just hard work.

Anonymous said...

"White males make the best firefighters. She seems to have overlooked them."

But negroes make the best fire starters. Gotta give credit where it's due.

Anonymous said...



"Chua ranks these groups in a hierarchy of superior/inferior, but all of these groups exist in a culture that is not their own. The superiority and inferiority she refers to parasite off of the existing culture. These people are thieves of the existing cultural capital."

You have a point, but you're also missing the point. If success for non-whites only amounts to leeching off whites, then all non-whites should be doing just as well in America. And yet, those who leech off whites less do better than those who leech off more. Blacks, Mexers, African immigrants(especially Somalis), and Puerto Ricans are among the biggest leeches in American, using lots of welfare and even crime. But they are on the bottom. Jews and Asians are among the most law-abiding yet they own a lot more. To be sure, there are crooked Jews in Wall Street who robbed us big time, and there are Chinatown swindlers and Asian illegal immigrants. Even so, most Jews are not Wall Street crooks and most Chinese are not Triad bosses. Lots of Jews have built technology and science that hadn't existed before and expanded the economy in new ways. So, to just call it parasitism is knee-jerk David-Duke-ism.

That said, though I haven't read Chua's book, I get a feeling that she should have discussed the role of Anglos in the success of others. After all, there is a difference between more successful and super-successful. Chinese were always more successful in Southeast Asia, but their super success came via adopting Anglo ways in Hong Kong and Singapore and other SE nations(where Chinese speak good English and even went to American schools there or over here or in UK).
Similarly, Jews were more successful all over the world--Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and etc--, but they were super-successful in the Anglo/American world. Had Anglos and Anglo-Americans not created the new order, other groups would have been more successful but not super successful. To be sure, Anglos also learned to be better businessmen and governors from the practice of ruling over so many different kinds of folks. (One wonders why the Portuguese and Spanish failed to develop the same skills though they came to own much of Latin America. And it seems like the only lesson the Italians learned from dealing with so many different kinds of people since Roman times is to lie and cheat.)

So, there was something about the Anglo way that ensured the development of what Ferguson calls the killer apps: competition, freedom, medicine, consumerism, property rights, and work ethic.

When non-whites come to the Anglo-world, they can be more sure of their property rights being protected by law; they can be more sure of being provided with freedom; they know their work ethic will be rewarded; they know there is a vast consumer market(even Arab businessmen can become middle class by selling to inner city Negroes), etc.
Those things exist in other parts of the world too, but with less consistency and stability. Who knows what will happen to Argentina or Russia in the next 5 yrs?

Anonymous said...

How did Anglos create this new order? What was the secret? Maybe we should start with the balance of control and freedom. This balance exists in every society as all societies have some degree of freedom and some degree of control. Societies where people run wild and have little control become like Africa(or Detroit), or yob-mob ruled parts of current UK.
Too much freedom is bad. But societies where there's too much control tend to be historically constipated; they are afraid to move forward. Like Tsarist Russia, Tokugawa Japan, Ottoman Turkey, Byzantine empire, old China.
It seems like the Brits found the right balance of control and freedom. If you allow excess freedom, energies are wasted on tomfoolery and thuggery and chaos. If you enforce too much control, human energies never go anywhere and grow stale. It's like the phrase 'blow your wad'. If some guy's blowing it all the time, he's sapped of energy. If he's not allowed to blow it at all, his wad grows stale and his mind becomes funny like that of Catholic priests. Thus, the thing is to give the time for the balls to replenish the jism and then blow it when the time is right. Control and freedom; hold and release. Let the steam build and then release it when necessary. That's how steam engine works. It holds the energy within a solid body and channels it toward some goal.
Also, Brits developed one of the finest kinds of controls. There is the crude control of making people obey by simply beating them up and intimidating them. Such controls tend to stunt than develop individual souls. But British control--while harsh at times with whip and stick--tended to focus on verbal dexterity, wit, and pride of intelligence. Thus, British form of control gradually helped individuals grow into thinking rational beings with a sense of self governed by logic. In Asia and Muslim world, control often meant being told to shut up. Teachers in Iranian movies are among the most repugnant, just beating submission into the kids. Brits, in contrast, made people follow the rules and accept the system but also negotiate with it through the mastery of manners and verbal skills.

Anonymous said...

Even so, the Anglo formula prolly favored control a bit more over freedom. So, while Anglos became more known for their proper-ness and precision than for being free and liberated. Even in a nutty British comedy like THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, there's control running throughout the entire movie--even when things fall apart. Maybe the British mental discipline developed from the way the language was spoken. Maybe it has the effect of making them more aware of doing things right and properly. David Lean was a formidably precise film-maker and even lesser British directors were first-rate professionals. But something was lacking: a sense of looseness and freedom. This came to UK via American culture, and Brits became less uptight and more free-flowing. And yet, the special quality of British rock owed to this combination of mental discipline/meticulousness and freewheeling exuberance. A song like "Satisfaction" is amazing for its 'anarchic' energies(taken from American rock and blues) but also its brilliant/subtle rearrangement of them. It was as if Jagger/Richards took the energy and the basic raw structure of American music and re-engineered with insight, wit, and discipline lacking in the American mind.
British culture instilled lots of mental discipline in the use of language and manners, but order wasn't enough for full-blown creativity. Maybe some British writers loved to drink cuz it had a lubricating effect of loosening inhibitions to let their mental energies run freer if not totally free. A mind that is trained and disciplined may be repressed by propriety. Thus, a few drinks might help and allow one to play looser with wit. And in the case of British music lovers, the soul-loosening libation of American music had a way of releasing their energies. The idea of discipline is paradoxical. On the one hand, you are disciplining the students so that they will work and train hard to be better at something and work better on their own. But once they'v mastered the stuff, the habit of discipline instilled into them may hold them back from being creative and free. Discipline can train the talent but also hold back the talent. And there was something a bit too control-ish about British culture prior to the 60s. David Lean was a great filmmaker but never seemed natural. But consider something like THE WORLD'S END that exhibits all the British mastery of technique yet has all the spunk and brashness of Jack-Nicholson-ism in America.

In a way, America was a great success story because all the pent-up Anglo energies were let loose on vast virgin land. Anglos had the mental discipline and control to do lots of stuff, and they got the opportunity with America. Americanism, like Anglo-ism, is about control and freedom, but with bit more freedom than control. The danger of Americanism, however, is the 'blow your wad' syndrome. If freedom overwhelms control, it leads to idiocratic 'big ass taco' mania. And this version of Americanism seems to have affected parts of UK too. Some yob-ish youths are about freedom but no control, even doing worse in school than negroes. What use is freedom if the mind is not disciplined or trained in certain ways?

Anonymous said...

Disciplined Anglos held in their energies and let them out in little spurts, which meant they didn't run out of energy. But it also meant they were never totally free and exuberant, which is why David Lean films, for all their epic scope, seem a bit anal.
But what happens when the energies are just allowed to run free like in EASY RIDER? Fonda says, 'we blew it'. Though killed by 'conservative' rednecks, rednecks too were too 'easy' and loose. Their laid back southern style meant lack of mental discipline, and indeed, there is no sense of structure or urgency to much of the white South. Some folks are nice and all, but they seem to take things as they come, which is why Chua says white Appachalian folks are missing something. It's like them fellas in COUNTRY BOYS documentary are okay guys but without drive. They are too self-satisfied.

The Gary King guy in WORLD'S END is like a British Jack Nicholson; he's the life of the party--very American-ish--, but he blew his wad in his youth. He's so spent that his idea of the Holy Grail is to relive the old days as if he's still a young dude drinking all those beer. His friends have sobered up and have the balance of control and freedom--a bit more control than freedom.

Though the cultural narrative would have us believe that upright and repressive Brits were inspired and saved by American culture in the late 50s and 60s, the great British achievements in music actually owe a lot to the fact that guys like Jagger and Lennon grew up in a society that still stressed mental and social discipline. Had Jagger and Lennon grown up as slackers in America, their minds might not have been disciplined and programmed--academically or socially--into faculties that could take a simple song and make it better, something more sophisticated and complex, more intelligent.

Anonymous said...

That list is further evidence that mormons are not really white.