January 2, 2014

Tiger Mom Chua's new book on ethnicity

Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and her fellow Yale Law School professor and husband Jed Rubenfeld have a new book coming out in a month:
The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America  
Amy Chua (Author), Jed Rubenfeld (Author)
It may be taboo to say, but some groups in America do better than others. Mormons have recently risen to astonishing business success. Cubans in Miami climbed from poverty to prosperity in a generation. Nigerians earn doctorates at stunningly high rates. Indian and Chinese Americans have much higher incomes than other Americans; Jews may have the highest of all. 
Why do some groups rise? Drawing on groundbreaking original research and startling statistics, The Triple Package uncovers the secret to their success. A superiority complex, insecurity, impulse control—these are the elements of the Triple Package, the rare and potent cultural constellation that drives disproportionate group success. The Triple Package is open to anyone. America itself was once a Triple Package culture. It’s been losing that edge for a long time now. Even as headlines proclaim the death of upward mobility in America, the truth is that the old fashioned American Dream is very much alive—but some groups have a cultural edge, which enables them to take advantage of opportunity far more than others. 
• Americans are taught that everyone is equal, that no group is superior to another. But remarkably, all of America’s most successful groups believe (even if they don’t say so aloud) that they’re exceptional, chosen, superior in some way.  
• Americans are taught that self-esteem—feeling good about yourself—is the key to a successful life. But in all of America’s most successful groups, people tend to feel insecure, inadequate, that they have to prove themselves.  
• America today spreads a message of immediate gratification, living for the moment. But all of America’s most successful groups cultivate heightened discipline and impulse control. 
But the Triple Package has a dark underside too. Each of its elements carries distinctive pathologies; when taken to an extreme, they can have truly toxic effects. Should people strive for the Triple Package? Should America? Ultimately, the authors conclude that the Triple Package is a ladder that should be climbed and then kicked away, drawing on its power but breaking free from its constraints.

I reviewed Chua's first book, World on Fire, about market dominant minorities, for VDARE in 2003.

118 comments:

Jason said...

It'll be interesting to see if they commit to any sort of mea culpa as far as their (her?) own child-raising traits were concerned (e.g. being too rigid in not having allowed their children to play instruments other than the violin and piano, Chua totally wearing the pants-in-the-family as far as bringing up the children was concerned and leaving the nice Jewish guy in the garage, and that sort of thing).

Anonymous said...

The Triple Package uncovers the secret to their success. A superiority complex, insecurity ...


You would think that a superiority complex would be totally incompatible with insecurity. I can attest from personal experience that, at least in the case of Jews, it's not. An incredibly grandiose sense of their own wonderfulness coexists with a whiny self-pity and feelings of victim-hood. Depending on the context they veer back and forth between "Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair!" and "Poor, pitiful widdle us!".

agnostic said...

The Parsis don't have a superiority complex -- just the opposite.*

Insecure... not really either. They feel it's their duty to do good works, make the best of their gifts, and help others in doing so. But they don't have a chip on their shoulder, or anxious to prove themselves to a cultural jury.

Impulse control, sure. And high intelligence doesn't hurt either, but that book won't sell because it wouldn't rationalize the loathsome traits of today's foreign mercenary minorities.

It's like Malcolm Gladwell sucked off Gordon Gekko. "You might naively believe that insecurity and a superiority complex were bad for your group's status. That it might even make them hated and the the targets of pogroms. But the latest research in Counter-intuitive Studies suggests that these are definitely good things -- in moderation."

It is shameful that these people have nothing to say about the Parsis. They aren't some fluke success of a group -- they've been "market dominant minorities" for hundreds of years, and control some of the largest industries and prestigious industries in India (and abroad).

Yet their host population's government is trying to subsidize them to RAISE their fertility rates. That's how deeply valued they are. Which host of the Ashkenazim has ever tried to subsidize them to have more kids? Which hosts of the expat Chinese?

Smarts and delay of gratification -- that seems to be the whole story. All of that other junk is naked rationalization of socially corrosive status-striving. I wonder who the intended audience is.

* That phrase must mean something conscious, bragged about at least among in-group members, and disparaging toward out-group members. Otherwise everybody has a "superiority complex" by thinking their tribe is the best.

agnostic said...

The inclusion of Mormons is another howler. The authors are a Jew and a Chinese from the East Coast -- what would they know from Mormons?

How insecure does Ned Flanders' family appear? And other than the universal belief that our own group is following the best path (otherwise we'd be itching to join some other group), how much of a superiority complex do they project?

Smarts and impulse control -- yep. But neither of the other two. Just like the Parsis, they're the total opposite on those dimensions. They don't brag about how much greater they are than other groups, and they couldn't be more emotionally stable and bland. They're nuclear family-centric Dog People.

And what do you know -- Americans don't feel like launching a crusade or pogrom against the Mormons. (Not since they stopped being so oppositional.)

It's almost like normal people from one group appreciate normal behavior from another group. Like it puts their anxieties at ease, and willing to let them live their own different way of life.

agnostic said...

Why aren't the Amish at the top of the economic pyramid? Shoot, they've got at least as big of a superiority complex as the Chinese or Jews. And they certainly seem to be under constant pressure to prove themselves, rather than have everything in life handed to them. Impulse control goes without saying.

What gives?

The Amish are like other northern/western Europeans for IQ (around 100). Despite their pre-futuristic technology, they don't live lives like the Ancient Greeks did, inventing geometry, logic, rhetoric, etc.

They are more salt of the earth types, excelling at crafts, using their hands and body, and so on. They still get into feuds about beard-yanking (or was it beard-cutting?). They are corporeal, not cerebral.

But why bother pointing out glaring counter-examples? That, like, totally ruins the fun of telling the elite that their gains have not been ill-gotten. They're just expressing the culture of market dominant minorities!

gubbler MAY crack up reading her crap said...

"Jews may have the highest of all."

may? may? how cute and precious.

Cool Dance Outfits said...

The Unconventional Greatness of the Parsis.

Anonymous said...

"Nigerians earn doctorates at stunningly high rates."

http://www.bellanaija.com/2012/08/22/60percent-of-lecturers-in-nigerian-universities-dont-have-doctorate-degrees-president-goodluck-jonathan/

That must be why there are so few back in Nigeria with doctorates.

Anonymous said...

How insecure does Ned Flanders' family appear?

I don't think Flanders is a Mormon. He's a Protestant.

But anyway, the Mormons have traditionally felt insecure about their status, similar to how Catholics in the US used to feel. Especially back when the country was more Protestant dominated.

Anonymous said...

Why can't they ever state the obvious? NW Europeans who built this country and Canada - Britons, Irish, French, Germans, Scandanavians came here to farm and manufacture and fight wars, and form the backbone of the workforces of those relatively low paying jobs.

Jews, Chinese, Indians, Nigerians, and the like don't come here to do anything except business and the professions.

Any ethnic group can look smart and be successful when it avoids sending its ignorant peasants and focuses its efforts on occupying high paying professional jobs.

Why am I supposed to be impressed by the cognitive elite of traders and professionals of these nationalities, as if they are representative of the whole? The reality of India, China, and Nigeria is fully on display in the strife, ignorance, disease, filth, superstition, and poverty of those countries where they form a 99% majority of the population. The same backwards impoverished lifestyle used to be on full display among the Jews from the Pale, Romania, and Hungary too until Hitler killed them all in the Holocaust.

Any nationality would look brilliant compared to an intact and whole population if a selection of people with 115 and up IQ's were to move to another place, or if the entire left side of the bell curve of a people was sent to gas chambers.

Anonymous said...

And what do you know -- Americans don't feel like launching a crusade or pogrom against the Mormons. (Not since they stopped being so oppositional.)

It's almost like normal people from one group appreciate normal behavior from another group. Like it puts their anxieties at ease, and willing to let them live their own different way of life.


It has more to do with genetic and cultural distance. With greater diversity, there's less relative distance between Mormons and non-Mormon whites. It'd be different if the country were purely white Protestant and Mormon.

Steve Sailer said...

The Mormons are the only group dopey enough anymore to think it's a good idea to pretend to be normal Americans. Everybody else knows that you get ahead (or at least your elites get ahead) by pretending to be oppositional. Just look at the 2012 vote breakdown by group.

Anonymous said...

Power is aggression and control.

Only control is like a cold engine.
What wasps became.

Only aggression is like a gasoline poured and lit up in flame. Wasted energy. What Negroes be.

But pack and burn that aggression through the iron control of the engine, and it's gonna get moving.

But some groups have bigger engines.

It's like there are some essential principles to athletic will and training, but some groups have more natural talent.

Chua's stuff reminds me of Niall Ferguson's 'killer apps' of why the west beat the rest. Good stuff, but Ferg is a total bullshitter in one area. He says it's 'utter rubbish' to say the more homogeneous and whiter makeup of north America had anything to do with US's triumph over Latin America.

But, even if his theory of killer apps is true, surely it will have different results in different regions. Even in one nation like the US, where everyone has access to the same killer apps, different groups use them differently..

Indeed, even under bad systems, some people do better than others. Eastern bloc nations were all communist, but some nations and some groups did better under communism.

Poland under communism was better off than Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Jews did better under communism than the Uzbeks.

So, killer app or no killer app, some groups and some compositions do better than others, all things being equal.



Socially Extinct said...

Actually, a superiority complex and insecurity are not anywhere near mutually exclusive. Most superiority complexes are built like a delicate house of cards which tenuously remains intact owing to the tensions of insecurity.

In other words, superiority complexes require a good dose of self-delusion and posturing, an intensive manipulation of expectations and expenditure of psychic energy, leaving insecurity as a waste byproduct.

Insecurity and superiority complexes are secondary traits which mirror intelligence. Still, I'd really like to read this book rather than relying on an Amazon synopsis.

Anonymous said...

"Why can't they ever state the obvious? NW Europeans who built this country and Canada - Britons, Irish, French, Germans, Scandanavians came here to farm and manufacture and fight wars, and form the backbone of the workforces of those relatively low paying jobs. Jews, Chinese, Indians, Nigerians, and the like don't come here to do anything except business and the professions."

Europeans came when farming and factory were the main occupations. But Europeans who come today likely want to work in professions, esp high tech.
In the past, a lot of Chinese came to work on farms and build railroads. Professions were not open to them.
And I don't think anyone came here to fight wars. Irish who came here and were drafted into the civil war were angry as hell and rose up in riots. And many German Americans didn't want US to get involved in WWI and WWII and supported 'isolationism'.

"Any ethnic group can look smart and be successful when it avoids sending its ignorant peasants and focuses its efforts on occupying high paying professional jobs."

With some groups, we can safely say only the smart one come here. But with some other groups, while the majority may be unwashed and ignorant, if they're given a chance at education and mobility, huge numbers can do well. After all, at one time, most Europeans were dirt poor farmers.

"The same backwards impoverished lifestyle used to be on full display among the Jews from the Pale, Romania, and Hungary too until Hitler killed them all in the Holocaust."

Yes, poverty was once rife among Jews esp in Russia, but once the door was opened to them under communism, they--mostly through merit--did much better than other groups. The Jews that Hitler killed were not dirt poor ignoramuses. The way wrote it, you make it seem as though Hitler did a great favor to the Jews by killing off only the dummies.
You are one sick neo-nazi puppy and screw you.

Anonymous said...

If Chua is so politically incorrect, how come her daughter is such a pc dodo?

Looks like she raised her girls to follow orders than think on their own.

Education Realist said...

ltimately, the authors conclude that the Triple Package is a ladder that should be climbed and then kicked away, drawing on its power but breaking free from its constraints.

In the case of the Chinese, Indians, and Koreans, they advise cheat like crazy, get good grades without ever learning anything, look down on white people (with even more contempt for non-Asian non-whites)--but only until they're on the top. Then what? Be nice to the little people? http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/asian-immigrants-and-what-no-one-mentions-aloud/

I also find it interesting that, based on what you've quoted, the authors are clearly writing to the immigrant audience. What, precisely, is in it for the Americans themselves to welcome such "toxic" people?

Anonymous said...

I don't consider any of that 'success'

Howard Hughes and those men who built planes because they wanted to fly them...That's what makes a society great. That's Success. That's Intelligence.

Climbing the corporate ladder and grabbing money is just parasitical on other people cuz you gotta kick someone else off of the ladder.

I'm so over all of this b.s.

Go away Amy. This book is a projection of you and your husband's cultures and issues. Although, I'm glad to see the warning at the end.

I want a group of men who discover for the sake of discovery, who build for the sake of building, who create for the sheer joy of creating.

That's what I want. Everyone else just go away.

Whiskey said...

Indeed I'd say the Tiger Mom's book on ethnics is a study in failure. The post-American world is not one of hugs and rainbows, but Boko Haram, riots and bombings in Urumquai and XianXing and Lhasa, the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, a spate of bombings in Volgograd (STalingrad's new/old name), narco-states within states, and everything else.

What matters then is not a fancy law degree from Harvard, or "impulse control" or inferiority/superiority/mediocrity/idiocracy complexes, or any of that garbage. What matters when the global hegemon 1945-1992 goes home for good is the ability to get enough of your men together to militarily dominate any and all combination of enemies. By killing them, or enough of them.

Contra Pinker, War and Martial Skills and basic war fighting become MORE relevant with a global hegemon retreating and market dominance matters about as much as a fancy degree did in the campaign for the Philippines.

Simply put, with Uncle Sam no longer doing the fighting and dying, the future belongs to those who fight the best and most successfully. Nothing else.

Whiskey said...

One last and I'm done. Chua and her husband raised their kids on the assumption that life would be pretty much the same as it was before. That there would be no massive break. That a constant stream of third world immigration into all the countries of the West (here Derb is correct, the Western peoples allowed this because they ceased to care about their countries or peoples) would not have a breaking effect that suddenly snapped the system into collapse.

In other words, the Chuas bet their reproductive success on the absolute certainty that life in 2030 would be pretty much like life in 2010. And that bet will pay out handsomely if that is true. The downside is, the bet will be called, catastrophically, if life progresses in the West from say, 469 to 479 AD. I.E. collapse of the Roman Empire totally in the West.

If for example, life in the US resembles that of say Sudan-South Sudan: constant low level civil war, strife, etc. or even much of Nigeria (paging Boko Haram, paging Boko Haram!) then their kids are likely to end up dead very quickly because the skill set there is: being related to powerful warlords, knowing first aid, basic sanitary skills, primitive cooking, basic firearms skills, etc.

Are the Chuas and people like them mobile enough to simply get on a plane and leave for elsewhere? I would say, not, for the most part. The Ultra-rich, sure. And those leave at the first hint of trouble, the world is their oyster. A house on every continent, and five or six paid-for passports (about $500,000 will get you a Maltese passport, Caribbean islands will issue one for less investment money and no residency). In a crisis, when shooting breaks out, it is already too late. Airports close. Refugees are refused. Desperation time closes in.

That's the thing about the Chuas -- fragile. They can only exist where rule of law, honesty, high trust, and so on also exist, and they undermine it constantly with ethnic nepotism and multiculturalism. Would China even take them in? Could they even be considered really Chinese?

Anonymous said...

In the case of the Chinese, Indians, and Koreans, they advise cheat like crazy, get good grades without ever learning anything, look down on white people (with even more contempt for non-Asian non-whites)--but only until they're on the top.

I get that you're an implicit racialist, but you don't need to make stuff up. It's simply not true that these people "advise" their kids to cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-white non-asians. If you want to say that these kids do these things, it'd be more plausible to say that these kids just do things on their own without being "advised" to do so.

john marzan said...

"It'll be interesting to see if they commit to any sort of mea culpa as far as their (her?) own child-raising traits were concerned (e.g. being too rigid in not having allowed their children to play instruments other than the violin and piano,"

chinese parents living in USA are sometimes overkill w/ piano/violin lessons. In asia, oriental parents who cant afford these lessons or dont have the time for them just let kids play video games.

both methods get same high achievements in school from kids.

NOTA said...

If you make grades and test scores matter more, you will get more cheating and cramming for the test, with correspondingly less actual learning or understanding or playing around with interesting ideas. This is something the US as a society is doing now, and the result is more cheating and cramming, more smart kids doing resume-polishing stuff to get into a top school and fewer smart kids doing anything clever and fun that really teaches them something, but doesn't look impressive on a college application. We started judging teachers and schools on test scores, and *they* started having massive cheating scandals and making their kids cram instead of learn.

It's self-delusion to pretend that this is a pathology of some ethnic group. Asian societies tend to focus on test scores and grades to decide where people will end up in life even more than the US does, and so they get even more cheating and cramming.

Anonymous said...

"You would think that a superiority complex would be totally incompatible with insecurity. I can attest from personal experience that, at least in the case of Jews, it's not. An incredibly grandiose sense of their own wonderfulness coexists with a whiny self-pity and feelings of victim-hood."

Exhibit A: OCD.

name me any asian, latino, black person or even redneck who has OCD. i believe this just invented by jews to gain some sympathy. for example, howard stern and lena dunham.

john marzan said...

"In the case of the Chinese, Indians, and Koreans, they advise cheat like crazy,"

but only because they want to get PERFECT scores. getting passing grades isnt enough.

john marzan said...

"look down on white people (with even more contempt for non-Asian non-whites)--but only until they're on the top."

they dont look down on white people. they like white people.

Education Realist said...

"t's simply not true that these people "advise" their kids to cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-white non-asians.".

The "they" in question are the authors, who are telling them to do all the "toxic" behaviors (cheating, etc) but only until they get to the top.

That said, yes, the parents do not only tell their kdis to cheat, they often pay for it. I am speaking of first or second generation Asian immigrants.

And it's most assuredly true that they overtly tell their kids not to associate with non0-Asians. "Ameicans" (whites") being preferable to blacks and Hispanics, of course.

"they dont look down on white people. they like white people."

No, they don't want their kids to hang around whites. That's why they "cocoon" over here.

Hail said...

Jason wrote: "Chua [wore] the pants-in-the-family as far as bringing up the children [...] leaving the nice Jewish guy in the garage"

The "tiger daughters" have Twitter accounts and blogs. Read them, and it's clear that those girls are actually quite explicit Jewish-ethnic-nationalists and identify as Jews, not as Chinese. Both, as I recall, frequent tweeted/blogged about, rah-rahed the Jewish ethnostate, and attacked "self-hating Israeli left-wingers" (a paraphrase of one Twitter harangue from the younger daughter).

By contrast, they simply rarely discuss Chinese issues, except "Oh, Mom made some dumplings [or insert other Chinese food]". Really, that was it for the Chinese side.

Anonymous said...

Power is aggression and control.

I've always thought that Jewish success owes at least as much to their aggressiveness as to their intelligence. They've got far shorter lists of "things you just_don't_do."

Anonymous said...

So all they did was reword pride, ambition, and intelligence. Geez...

As long as someone has ambition and smarts, not much holding them back in the US. You could substitute pride with just about anything, especially nepotism, and still get the same results.

Anonymous said...

The "tiger daughters" have Twitter accounts and blogs. Read them, and it's clear that those girls are actually quite explicit Jewish-ethnic-nationalists and identify as Jews, not as Chinese.

That's usually the deal in Jewish outmarriages, children will be raised Jewish. Also, it's rare for White/Asian mixes to identify as Asian. At best, they'll claim 50-50 identity. Also socially speaking, the one drop rule doesn't seem to apply to Asian/White mixes. Maybe a 1/8th rule?

Lisa See is an exception. Lol She makes her living writing about being Chinese.

David said...

>Any ethnic group can look smart and be successful when it avoids sending its ignorant peasants [...] Why am I supposed to be impressed by the cognitive elite [...] of these nationalities, as if they are representative of the whole? The reality of India, China, and Nigeria is fully on display in the strife, ignorance, disease, filth, superstition, and poverty of those countries where they form a 99% majority of the population.<

Too true. Hanging with the better people in Mexico City is much different, for example, than hanging with any of the Jose Averages elsewhere in Mexico (from personal experience).

I have no plans to visit India. Here is an example of why:
India is drowning in its own excreta

Anonymous said...

That said, yes, the parents do not only tell their kdis to cheat, they often pay for it. I am speaking of first or second generation Asian immigrants.

...

No, they don't want their kids to hang around whites. That's why they "cocoon" over here.


Virtually all the Asians in the US are first or second generation immigrants.

Like I said, you're wrong and it'd be more plausible to say that these kids just do these things on their own without being "advised" to do so. I don't see why you feel the need to make this up, especially something that couldn't be backed up without something like bugging conversations of the parents "advising" their kids to cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-white non-asians. It's bizarre.

Anonymous said...

That said, yes, the parents do not only tell their kdis to cheat, they often pay for it. I am speaking of first or second generation Asian immigrants.

And it's most assuredly true that they overtly tell their kids not to associate with non0-Asians. "Ameicans" (whites") being preferable to blacks and Hispanics, of course.


As a second gen Korean, I disagree with the first point, but somewhat concede the second, but I think it depends on what State/City and it goes both ways.

I'm sure there are "some" parents that are so cut throat that they would encourage their children to cheat, but that's really aggressive, anti-social behavior they are imparting on their children. I personally don't know any parents of any race that are like that. That just sounds like some wild caricature. I mean even most criminals would try to teach their own children right from wrong. No?

Anonymous said...

"In the past, a lot of Chinese came to work on farms and build railroads. Professions were not open to them. "

Indians too, specifically Punjabis, were lumberjacks for a while in the PNW at the turn of the last century until the locals kicked them out. I remember reading about riots in Bellingham, WA (of course, those places are now bastions of liberalism). The Indians then took refuge in Canada, which I supposed being part of the British Empire had no right to refuse them entry. That's why there's a large Indian population in British Columbia today, especially in Vancouver.

Anonymous said...

Some of the 'insecurity' is part of a made up past.

"Wynn was born Stephen Alan Weinberg in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael, who ran a string of bingo parlors in the eastern United States, changed the family's last name in 1946 from "Weinberg" to "Wynn" when Steve was six months old "to avoid anti-Jewish discrimination".[2] Wynn was raised in Utica, New York, and graduated from The Manlius School"

So a Jewish gambling mogul wanna be changes his name to Win (winner would be too obvious) of all things, but it is to avoid discrimination. Then he sends his own kid to the place he will most likely be discriminated against. So a story about why daddy wanted to assimilate is invented.

The original German family name Weinberg meaning wine + hills in English is no more Jewish than Wynn, Jewish being a covenant with God so a last name is meaningless one way or another. You could say that the Wynns shed themselves of their Central European Jewishness in favor of American Jewishness but that's about it. But there is no sense of victimization there.

For some reason super rich and secure gambling mogul Wynn does not change his name to something more Jewish. Maybe the Hebrew word for win?

SFG said...

"Wynn was born Stephen Alan Weinberg in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Michael, who ran a string of bingo parlors in the eastern United States, changed the family's last name in 1946 from "Weinberg" to "Wynn" when Steve was six months old "to avoid anti-Jewish discrimination".[2] Wynn was raised in Utica, New York, and graduated from The Manlius School"

So a Jewish gambling mogul wanna be changes his name to Win (winner would be too obvious) of all things, but it is to avoid discrimination. Then he sends his own kid to the place he will most likely be discriminated against. So a story about why daddy wanted to assimilate is invented.

The original German family name Weinberg meaning wine + hills in English is no more Jewish than Wynn, Jewish being a covenant with God so a last name is meaningless one way or another. You could say that the Wynns shed themselves of their Central European Jewishness in favor of American Jewishness but that's about it. But there is no sense of victimization there.

For some reason super rich and secure gambling mogul Wynn does not change his name to something more Jewish. Maybe the Hebrew word for win? "


EVERYONE used to anglicize their names before 1950 or so. People used to actually want to be Americans. Assimilation actually worked pretty well when we had the balls to tell immigrants they had to.

As for the German names, it's because the Austro-Hungarian Empire insisted on it.

You actually do see the new generation giving their kids Hebrew first names now. I find it regrettable, but nobody ever asked me.

Anonymous said...

"And it's most assuredly true that they overtly tell their kids not to associate with non0-Asians. "Ameicans" (whites") being preferable to blacks and Hispanics, of course.

No, they don't want their kids to hang around whites. That's why they "cocoon" over here."

nah, they're okay with white people, as long as they're not hillbilly white trash.

-john m.

Anonymous said...

Wondering ... do these Nigerians tend to be all-around smart, interesting people? Or do they just have an unusual (in blacks, that is) ability to focus on being good at a few things?

Anonymous said...

"That said, yes, the parents do not only tell their kdis to cheat,"

you speaking from experience? if not, then you dont know what you are talking about. (i should know, speaking from experience).

-john marzan

Anonymous said...

"In the case of the Chinese, Indians, and Koreans, they advise cheat like crazy,"

And the system cheats them, ironically two-fold.

In the name of helping 'minorities', affirmative action requires Asians--a smaller minority than blacks and Hispanics(even lily white Hispanics)--to outperform everyone for the same level of admission.

Anonymous said...

"Too true. Hanging with the better people in Mexico City is much different, for example, than hanging with any of the Jose Averages elsewhere in Mexico (from personal experience)."

Isn't this why urban libs despise cons?

They see themselves as educated, hip, and worldly whereas too many cons are Bible-thumping, gun-hugging, Creationist, and rural hillbillies who don't know nothing.

Anonymous said...

"you speaking from experience? if not, then you dont know what you are talking about. (i should know, speaking from experience)."

education fantasist than realist.

Anonymous said...

Golly, maybe if I adopt the right traits, then as a old stock White American, I can be allowed to have some success too! Oh golly please!

When the WWII Generation started the process of absolutely giving the country away to whoever could stumble over the border, they truly screwed us.

Art Deco said...

I see Prof. Chua bullied her capon husband into putting his byline on one of her books. I would be fascinated to know why she thought that would be useful.

Svigor said...

may? may? how cute and precious.

Yes, may. As in, "do," when it serves their purposes, and "don't," when it doesn't. As in, "do," but not if or when they take exception.

Anonymous said...

Irony of ironies. Kim of commie North Korea is the product of affluenza.

Anonymous said...

... does she mention that such people create socipathic, low trust societies - and that they can only 'prosper' when they take advantage of other people's benevelance.

Do white liberals really believe that when the Jewish/Asian alliance gains more power, they will invite whites to hold hands and sing songs about diversity?

Anonymous said...

There is one other pernicious ingredient in this story of immigrant success that the authors left out – tribalness.

This where successive generations of the immigrant group maintain their allegiance to another country at the expenses of the host country.

And where the immigrant group works together – not to be included in the culture – but to take it over.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 12:44a:

Also, it's rare for White/Asian mixes to identify as Asian. At best, they'll claim 50-50 identity. Also socially speaking, the one drop rule doesn't seem to apply to Asian/White mixes. Maybe a 1/8th rule?

1) Some East Asians can pass for white as is. Intermarriage simply makes this assimilational appearance simpler.

2) Everyone in the US wants to pass for white if possible.

3) White-East Asian hybrids look more white than East Asian. I would imagine you would need to get to 1/4 or 1/8th white to start looking non-white again.

4) This is no different than the large numbers of American Indians who can pass for white as is or with as little as 1/8 white blood quantum.

5) When white people were thought of worldwide as people with reddish-blondish-brownish hair, light colored eyes, and either egg shell white or suntanned white skin, Asians/Indians passing for white was much more difficult. With the admixture of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern lines into America from southern Italians, Greeks, Turks, Jews, Syrians, Lebanese, Persians, and North Africans and thier acceptance as white, passing for white is easier for more people. These folks would not pass for white in Finland.

6) East Asians = "white" Asians - Japanese, Koreans, Chinese. Does not include the darker southeast Asians - Vietnamese, Thais, Filipinos, Cambodians, Malays, Indonesians, Polynesians, etc.

d..... said...

Always fun to read the insane Jew-haters that Steve allows to speak for himself.

Re Chua's insane ethno-nationalist daughters, I suppose they are rebelling against being raised by a mother who raised them to be Chinese ethno-nationalists. (She says so in TIGER MOTHER.)

Overwhelmingly, children of mixed Jewish heritage have a Jewish parent who is estranged from Jewish ethno-nationalism.

In any case, the third and fourth generations (if such happen) are of interest. Historically these assimilate completely into the mainstream.

For those of you with the brains (few, I expect), google Hannah Primose, Countess of Rosebery. This story combines three abiding obsessions of Sailerism:

Jews, homosexuals, British aristocracy.

d..... said...

You can't cheat your way into a major symphony orchestra.

Ed said...

Slightly off topic but is anyone following the little media tit for tat on Twitter over weed legislation? A lot of the younger media types are incredulous over David Brooks column against marijuana legislation. Then Tina Brown tweeted out something about the legislation making Americans unable to compete against China and the howls grew louder.

I really feel the future of this country is in dire peril when the supposed best and brightest think it's wise for the government to make it easier for folks to go through life stoned.

How is this going to impact military preparedness?

Anonymous said...

A superiority complex, insecurity, impulse control—these are the elements of the Triple Package


Excepting the impulse control (notably missing in blacks) I've long thought that the traits which make somebody a liberal or Democrat are the combination of a superiority complex and a sense of victimhood. You find these two traits in Jews, blacks, feminists, homosexuals, atheists, Muslims, and just about every other sub-group which makes up the Democratic party.

I have some Polish-American cousins who are dyed-in-the-wool lefty Democrats, and they combine an excessively high opinion of their own intelligence and general self-worth with the belief that some vague, shadowy forces (billionaire white men in general) are exploiting them.

Anonymous said...

The "tiger daughters" have Twitter accounts and blogs. Read them, and it's clear that those girls are actually quite explicit Jewish-ethnic-nationalists and identify as Jews, not as Chinese.


Probably for the same reason there are a lot more Lakers/Yankee/Steelers fans than Clippers/Mets/Browns fans - people identify with the winning team and make its success, their success. The Jewish team has been a lot more successful in the US than the Chinese team. Heck, if I was half-Jewish/half-Chinese, I'd probably identify as Jewish too. For one thing your physical appearance tells the world you're (part) Asian, but they won't know you're Jewish unless you constantly remind them of it.

Dutch Boy said...

The American vices cited by Chua make them easy marks for certain ethnic groups with elastic ethical standards when it comes to dealing with outsiders (i.e., their "fellow" Americans).

el supremo said...

The traits Chua talks about are great for the advancement of a self-contained ethnic minority, but they don't do very much for the overall progress of the broader society.

Look at the contrast between the career paths of a German (or Japanese or Korean) engineer vs their counterparts in mainland China. The German (or Japanese) tends to work in the same firm and often live in the same town for much of their career, and this sense of security allows them to develop the detailed mastery of their product that allows for top quality production and regular small innovation, and to develop stable communities.

In contrast, the perpetual petty competition for everything in contemporary China and culture of insecurity means that professional people regularly hop between jobs and industries chasing the latest trends and opportunities (the career paths of some people I know have had truly bizarre leaps between unrelated fields on a regular basis) and they never develop the mastery and commitment to their products you see from Japanese or German firms. You also see a much more atomized broader society.

The periods of great innovation and prosperity in the US where usually when competitiveness was tempered with some degree of group solidarity and long term stability that allowed planning beyond chasing petty profits on a week to week basis.

el supremo said...

Including the Nigerians based on their rate of PhDs earned seems a bit dodgy (presumably to deflect charges of racism in not including any blacks in the super-minorities?) With so few Nigerians in the US and post-grad university admissions they main way they get in, of course they will be over-represented among their compatriots.

The ratio of Gulf Arabs in post-grad education is probably even higher, as plenty of them do professional degrees in the US, and almost none of them migrate here otherwise (given how high their standards of living are at home). Yet of course no-one would use this statistic to say the elite of the Gulf has any kind of superior achievement culture.

candid_observer said...

One tires in the end of the "taboo breakers" who simply can't bring themselves to tell the truth and shame the devil.

Yeah, it's all culture. Got it. Who would have guessed?

Anonymous said...

"The traits Chua talks about are great for the advancement of a self-contained ethnic minority, but they don't do very much for the overall progress of the broader society."

On the individual level, I think even self-made wasps were full of drive and resentment. The very founding of this nation was based on grievances, rather wild ones since the British were actually very indulgent with the colonies.

And lots of wasp tycoons who rose from nothing had something to prove as individuals. In fact, the whole American narrative has been 'we free individuals will show the snobby European aristocrats what WE can do.'

Complacency(which breeds magnanimity toward enemies and rivals) is the bane of power.


as said...

agnostic: Yet their host population's government is trying to subsidize them to RAISE their fertility rates. That's how deeply valued they are. Which host of the Ashkenazim has ever tried to subsidize them to have more kids? Which hosts of the expat Chinese?

I get your point about Parsis, but I wouldn't take the Indian government's actions about anything as representing the wishes of the people.

The government also subsidizes the Hajj, and they want to subsidize Christian pilgrims to Jersusalem, and Bangladeshi migrants. Etc.

Anonymous said...

"A lot of the younger media types are incredulous over David Brooks column against marijuana legislation."

Brooks said pot was fun but didn't lead him anywhere.
It's not supposed to. I mean beer doesn't take you anywhere either.

"Tina Brown tweeted out something about the legislation making Americans unable to compete against China and the howls grew louder."

Pot smoking Jews will out-compete China, whereas none-pot-smoking Mexicans won't.

Anonymous said...

The traits Chua talks about are great for the advancement of a self-contained ethnic minority, but they don't do very much for the overall progress of the broader society.


In fact they are inimical to the health of the broader society. People with a superiority complex and victim complex simultaneously despise and fear that broader society. If their numbers and power increase beyond a certain point you end up with things like "comprehensive immigration reform" - a de facto race war by some ethnic groups on other ones.

Education Realist said...

In the name of helping 'minorities', affirmative action requires Asians--a smaller minority than blacks and Hispanics(even lily white Hispanics)--to outperform everyone for the same level of admission.

I wrote about this, too: http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/college-admissions-race-and-unintended-consequences/

That, coupled with the essay above, explains (but does not excuse) the discrimination against Asians. However, while Asians would still be overrepresented, I think the selected population would be different if colleges were doing it right.

Like I said, you're wrong and it'd be more plausible to say that these kids just do these things on their own without being "advised" to do so.

I'm not wrong. The kids are doing it, the parents often pay for it. Most, but not all, of the hagwons and other secondary schools provide copies of local tests and pay for copies of actual SATs in advance. You think the parents are somehow unaware? Cheating at Asian schools is a huge problem, exacerbated by the parental fury when their kids are caught--fury not at the kids, but at the teachers and administration.

As for my experience, I live in an area that's over 60% Asian, am very familiar with six high schools an dtheir students that are over 80% Asian, and work at a pseudo-hagwon (that is, we don't cheat and lose business for it.)

I provided a lot of links to stories all over the country about cheating and the Asian link. It's not meant to be proof. Just awfully convincing to anyone who isn't determined to ignore it.

Anonymous said...

Overwhelmingly, children of mixed Jewish heritage have a Jewish parent who is estranged from Jewish ethno-nationalism.


By definition a Jewish ethno-nationalist would marry and have children with another Jew, so yeah, I guess we can say that the Jewish parent with a non-Jewish spouse is "estranged from Jewish ethno-nationalism".


Always fun to read the insane Jew-haters that Steve allows to speak for himself.


If such banal truths as "Jews are ethnocentric" or "Jews have a superiority complex and sense of victimhood" strike you as "insane Jew hatred" then you must regard Chua, who married a Jew, as an insane Jew hater. After all, she said it and the rest of us are just commenting on it.

I shudder to imagine your reaction if somebody uttered the words "The Jewish race is the cancer of human history".

Simon in London said...

"A superiority complex" = asabiya/group cohesion/ethno-nationalism. A ladder that was, indeed, kicked away.

Simon in London said...

>>agnostic said...
Why aren't the Amish at the top of the economic pyramid?<<

The Amish put their efforts into maximising reproduction. They treble in numbers every generation, while maintaining or improving their standard of living. If they keep it up they'll be the dominant group of the 23rd century.

Simon in London said...

>>el supremo said...
Including the Nigerians based on their rate of PhDs earned seems a bit dodgy (presumably to deflect charges of racism in not including any blacks in the super-minorities?) With so few Nigerians in the US and post-grad university admissions they main way they get in, of course they will be over-represented among their compatriots.

The ratio of Gulf Arabs in post-grad education is probably even higher, as plenty of them do professional degrees in the US, and almost none of them migrate here otherwise (given how high their standards of living are at home). Yet of course no-one would use this statistic to say the elite of the Gulf has any kind of superior achievement culture.<<

I teach a lot of both on my postgrad course, and there is really no comparison. Nigerians are very good by global standards (North-West Europeans are probably the best - my one Japanese student was brilliant, but I can't sat much from one data point), often gaining Merit degrees. Other sub-Saharan Africans are good too; I supervised an excellent PhD from a black South African woman.

As a group, Gulf Arabs are absolutely terrible, with occasional slightly brighter spots. The worst thing is the cheating by the majority; I greatly respect the few who don't as they're going against their whole culture, and often really struggle to succeed honestly.

Anonymous said...

I provided a lot of links to stories all over the country about cheating and the Asian link. It's not meant to be proof. Just awfully convincing to anyone who isn't determined to ignore it.

You're being slippery with your claims here. Your initial claim in this thread was that they "advise" their kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites. Now you're just trying to suggest that your claim is that Asian students cheat, which is a different claim and something that probably nobody here would dispute.

Not only is it more plausible to say that these kids just cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-whites on their own without being "advised" by their parents to do so, but this is a blog where HBD views are accepted and where genetic explanations aren't controversial or rejected in favor of environmental/parental ones. It's bizarre that you would make a highly implausible environmental claim, especially something that couldn't be backed up without something like bugging conversations of the parents "advising" their kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"Irish who came here and were drafted into the civil war were angry as hell and rose up in riots."

I thought they were keen to go fight the Scots-Irish (their old foes) down South, but rioted later at the freeing of the slaves, which threatened their wages. Years ago I visited a museum in the Republic of Ireland which displayed commemorative US Civil War plates celebrating Irish-American victories over the US Southerners, right alongside Irish Civil War memorabilia such as captured Royal Irish Constabulary caps. My then-naive American Southern wife was surprised and saddened: "But we were fighting for our freedom, too!"

Anonymous said...

"That, coupled with the essay above, explains (but does not excuse) the discrimination against Asians." - they should quit voting for said system of discrimination then. Asians are net beneficiaries of the system of ethnic preferences period.

Education Realist said...

It's bizarre that you would make a highly implausible environmental claim, especially something that couldn't be backed up without something like bugging conversations of the parents "advising" their kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites.

It's clear that the book is focusing on cultural issues. I pointed out the downside in that. My response was about the book and the pov as reported by Steve.

If I'm reading your obsessive rigidity correctly, you are asserting that I have not proven that Asian parents support their children's cheating. Fine. I'm asserting based on experience and available evidence that they do. Not just the kids, but the parents. Full stop. You are further making some bizarre point about environmental factors. Um. What? No, don't tell me. Enjoy life on your little reality plain.

I

David said...

>is it more plausible to say that these kids just cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-whites on their own without being "advised" by their parents to do so<

Racism begins at home. How could you have disregarded 60+ years of propaganda to that effect? I shall report you to the Thought Police as a recalcitrant.

Anonymous said...

"Irish who came here and were drafted into the civil war were angry as hell and rose up in riots."

"I thought they were keen to go fight the Scots-Irish (their old foes) down South, but rioted later at the freeing of the slaves, which threatened their wages."

I dunno. In GANGS OF NY, they seemed to be pissed as soon as they were drafted as they got off the boat.

Anonymous said...

d..... said..."Always fun to read the insane Jew-haters that Steve allows to speak for himself."

Always fun to see very mild and generally even-handed criticism of Jewish excess as coming from "insane Jew-haters"

The stereotype of Jews as a combination of verbal aggression, physical cowardice, and bad faith when dealing with out-groups is quite accurate in your case. To be fair, I'm not positive about the physical cowardice part, but I'm pretty comfortable throwing it out there.

blogger said...

Are Asian parents more corrupt? On an individual level, prolly not.
From my personal experience/observation(Negroes excluded because their behavior belongs on a planet all its own), the most corrupt and venal on the individual level are the southern Italians and Greeks--but I have a soft spot for Greeks cuz they are so fun and throw wonderful parties with good music and bake the best cookies in the world. I kid you not: a parent of a Greek kid in high school sort-of-bribed a teacher with Greek cookies.(Yes, they were that good.) The mother found out he loved Greek cookies, and sent him a whole batch, and the student, who was C-material at best, got a B in class. Of course, it wasn't technically a bribery but just cookie-giving, but we all knew the cookies did the trick.
Greeks are shameless about cheating and even take pride in it. Even Asians who cheat would not be proud to admit that they did. Greeks seem to take some pride in being slick and oily. It's like what the black guy at the end of COOLEY HIGH; "I can lie and steal too good not to survive." For blacks, the pride is jazzy; with Greeks, the pride is bouzouky.
Difference with Jews is that Jews generally don't cheat on the way up, but then, once they are on top, some of them can't help but cheat to have more and more. Greeks cheat on the bottom, so the rot goes deeper. I never saw a Jewish parent bribe a teacher with bagels.

Asian parents don't seem to be as shameless as the Greeks. If a lazy good-for-nothing Greek kid went to his/her parents and says he wants something, the parent(usually the mother--and Greek women are nuts)--will try to bend the rules to get it for the child... instead of telling the child to work harder at it. It's like Fanucci in GODFATHER II forces the grocer to hire his worthless nephew and costs the hardworking Vito his job.

But Asian parents do seem to push their kids toward genuine achievement. They won't listen to excuses. But under the pressure, some Asian kids might look for ways to cheat. Dumb ones might do it to be more competitive with smart ones; and smart ones might do it to see how clever they are(like Matthew Broderick in War Games cheats as a kind of mind game); but smart ones might also be so desperate to make it to the top that they might be willing to cheat. And parents who are so fixated on the idea that tests and colleges will determine their children's entire future in a zero sum way--winner takes all, losers get nothing--, may believe that it's their duty as parents to find some 'extra' ways to help their kids. But the difference from the Greek/southern Italian model is that whereas the Greeks/southern Italians tolerate laziness and try to overcome it with cheating, Asians seem to be industrious AND prone toward certain forms of cheating. Paradoxically, too much laziness and too much work both lead to cheating. Lazy wanna cheat for obvious reasons, but the ultra-industrious are so fixated on the big prize that their obsession blinds them to the value of lesser prizes.

Also, though Asian societies are said to be 'middle class', their middle class isn't as solid as America's(or at it used to be). IN America, even if you didn't go to the best schools, you could have a damn good life as a middle classer. But being 'middle class' in Asia may be far more fragile; it could be taken away much more easily, so unless you're at the top, you never feel safe. As American economy becomes more divided, same thing could be happening here. Unless you're lean-and-mean at the top, you end up eating beans, something Jefe Cowen will allow for us.

blogger said...

Asians are a funny bunch in some way. They are most conservative in some way, but that quality has the way of making them most liberal. Paradoxically, those who respect authority the most(generally a conservative attitude) will most sheepishly embrace and absorb whatever the elites are telling them. So, almost overnight, conservative Chinese became rabid commies under Mao. Almost overnight, anti-American Japanese became American-loving toadies listening to "Tokyo Shoeshine Boy". Asian parents in American prolly tell their kids, 'respect teacher. do as school say. do homework and read every assignment'. IN the past, it may have made Asians into patriotic Americans. Today, such conservative attitude toward authority is gonna make them into homomaniacal and multi-culti 'anti-racist' drones since the elites are Liberal and PC.

In America, cheating among Asians is prolly done more by students. As immigrants parents don't know the language and system all that well--unless Asian-Indian who are savvier about such things--, they prolly just leave it up to schools and just make their kids hit the books at home.

But in Asia, as Asian parents know the system and grew up in it themselves, they might be more involved in cheating... though the style of cheating prolly has a lot of grey areas.

It's anecdotal evidence, but some Taiwanese woman I knew at work told me that back home when she was young in the 1970(maybe things are different now), parents gave gifts to teachers. Depending on the size of the 'gift', some students got preferential seating(which mattered in a nation where class size could be 70 to 80 students) in the front and were generally chosen to be school leaders; they were also punished less severely if they got out of line. But this sort of thing was so culturally ingrained that it wasn't seen as cheating-cheating. It was just part of the culture, tradition. To us, it's cheating, but it becomes murky where the culture is different.

As Asians tend to be conservative, I think their way of cheating is often cultural than individual. So, if a certain ways of bending the rules have become the cultural norm, it's seen as part of how things are done. In America, such cheating is sometimes institutional, as with 'affirmative action', 'disparate impact', and 'girls can't do pullups, so let them pass'. Americans justify their cheating through 'progressive values' and legal institutionalization to redress 'historical wrongs'. Even crooked Jews on Wall Street say, 'we were just getting even cuz some blueblood club didn't let me play golf'. Jews dominate the narrative, but they have lib wasp collaborators who are showered with privilege for fighting 'white privilege'. Bill Clinton seems to be doing pretty good.

Anonymous said...

Nixon was filled with resentment, and he made it to the top.

Maybe Jews hated him cuz of what Freud called... something like 'hostility of tiny differences' or some such.

Though not an immigrant in the technical sense, Nixon did migrate from the West(as then underdeveloped) to the East Coast where the brahmins and power elite were. He was an outsider who was snubbed by the insiders, the east coast elite who went to Harvard and Yale. Nixon had the brains to go to either but had to settle for Duke cuz he didn't have the right name, connections, references.

So, in this sense, his grievance was like that of Jews against the wasps. They were competing for the same pie/prize. He was nasty and pushy like the Jews. So, subconsciously, Jews may have hated him cuz he, unlike the magnanimous bluebloods(who could be toppled with white guilt baiting), had the deviousness and feistiness to go all the way to get the power.... just like the Jews. He was a real fighter and competitor willing to play it like a gangster.

Catholics such as Buchanan also had the same kind of tenacity, and that may have been why Buchanan felt especially close to Nixon(even as he admired Reagan as a man more). Reagan was nicer but Nixon was a dirty warrior in a dirty game, and Buchanan the warrior Catholic respected that.
Buchanan's favorite film is GODFATHER.

Catholics, along with Jews, toppled the protestant wasps, but Catholics ran out of ideas and steam. Trapped in dogma, they weren't as creative as the Jews in adapting to new times. Jews pegged their power to the future, Catholics to the past. Vision beats nostalgia.

Steve Sailer said...

That was Theodore White's view of Nixon -- he saw a lot of himself in Nixon.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"I dunno. In GANGS OF NY, they seemed to be pissed as soon as they were drafted as they got off the boat."

Well, that proves it then. >:) Was this some kind of Vietnam-war analogy? I only got ten minutes into Gangs of New York, I think I saw Daniel Day-Lewis*' gang of WASPs(!) kill Father Liam Neeson's gang of Irishmen. But I don't think it was intended to be historically accurate.

*Daniel Day-Lewis is a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, son of a Poet Laureate as I recall from isteve, who cleverly identifies as Irish.

Anonymous said...

If I'm reading your obsessive rigidity correctly, you are asserting that I have not proven that Asian parents support their children's cheating. Fine. I'm asserting based on experience and available evidence that they do. Not just the kids, but the parents. Full stop. You are further making some bizarre point about environmental factors. Um. What? No, don't tell me. Enjoy life on your little reality plain.

Like I said, you're being slippery. This is sophistry. It's not "obsessive rigidity" to note that "they 'advise' their kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites" and "Asian students cheat" are quite different claims.

You're the one making the bizarre point about environmental factors here. Your initial claim was that an environmental factor - in this case parental advice - was causing these kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites.

You don't have evidence that they "advise" their kids to cheat, to never learn anything, and to hate whites and non-whites. If they do cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-whites, then it's more plausible to claim that they do so because of genetic reasons rather than environmental reasons like you bizarrely suggest.

Anonymous said...

Why aren't the Amish at the top of the economic pyramid? Shoot, they've got at least as big of a superiority complex as the Chinese or Jews. And they certainly seem to be under constant pressure to prove themselves, rather than have everything in life handed to them. Impulse control goes without saying.

The Amish actually take car of their own unlike a lot of white evangelicals in the South.

Otis McWrong said...

Anonymous said..."Nixon was filled with resentment, and he made it to the top. Maybe Jews hated him cuz of what Freud called... something like 'hostility of tiny differences'"

I don't know why (or if) Jews hated Nixon, but the leftist elite hated Nixon because he chair the House Committee that pulled down the pants of Alger Hiss. Hiss was a communist and Nixon knew it. Also, Nixon immensely disliked (the WASP) Hiss from the start, likely in part to Hiss' condescension and rudeness.

The sheep left hated Nixon because they were told to.

blogger said...

How did "bluebloods didn't let me play golf" become one of the great socio-historical injustice narratives in American history? (But then, whaddya expect when 'gay marriage' is the great human rights issue of the day?)

I can understand hurt Jewish feelings and resentment, but come on!!
And why are Jews the only ones who keep repeating this over and over and over?

We don't hear Italians say 'bluebloods didn't let me play golf'.
We don't hear Polish Catholics say, 'bluebloods didn't drink bourbon with us'.
We don't hear Japanese-Americans say 'bluebloods didn't have tea and muffins with us'.

The Jews are the ONLY ones who make this gripe. You'd think it's K in Kafka's CASTLE.

The fact that Jews are the ONLY ones making it means that...

1. They succeeded greatly in wasp-made America with rule of law and freedom and opportunities. But Jews show no gratitude for all the great freedom and opportunity made possible to them in the wasp-created order and instead fixate ONLY ON 'wasp didn't let me play golf'.
Never mind Jews had their own clubs and kept others out.

2. The fact that so many Jews wanted to join the blueblood club means that they wanted to be part of the exclusive privileged club themselves. If they were for equality, why even try to enter some highfalutin club?

3. Jews bitch about how wasps still dominated the elites until the 1970s, but why shouldn't wasps have? They freakin' built this country. The fact that Jews who arrived in the early 20th century and rose to the top in a matter of decades means that, contrary to Jewish griping, that wasps opened a lot of doors to the newcomers. While wasps kept some doors at the top shut, wasps had many more doors open to Jews than closed. And in the end, wasps were even magnanimous enough to step aside and let Jews take over the top spot. But all we hear is 'wasps didn't let us play golf'. Jews can now own all the golf courses in America, but this is the gripe we hear over and over.

-----

The fact that no other group makes this complaint means that Jews are way and high above them all.
They are the elites over us, and this fact is what they trying to hide by constantly fixating on 'wasps didn't let us play golf' so that we won't notice that 'Jews control Wall Street and the government'. Jews make it seem like they speared the movement to make the elite institutions more diverse, but some groups are way more equal than others. Just ask Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas who, when they refused to play ball, were fired and blacklisted. And they weren't even asking to play golf with the rich Jews.

I mean most Mexicans would be crazy to even dream of applying for some fancy club.

Only Jews rose so high that their MAIN WORRY in society became 'bluebloods don't let us play golf'. Other Americans--even most non-elite wasps(and most wasps were non-elite)--had OTHER MORE pressing issues on their minds.
Only a lot of Jews became so rich and successful that their main complaint in life centered around country clubs and porking blonde blue blood daughters.

And yet, these elitist Jews wanna make us feel that they are speaking for all of us when they bitch about country clubs.

In America, a funny historical equivalence narrative is afoot: "I'm a Negro and my folks were enslaved and whipped" = "I'm an Indian and the sacred land of my people were taken from us" = "I'm a Jew and wasps didn't let me play golf". Looks like the golf thing is getting more coverage these days in defense of Jewish billionaires on Wall Street. Oh poor darlings!!! Save them!! 12 yrs a rich Jew who couldn't play golf at a blueblood country club.
Greatest injustice since the Holocaust.

My heart weeps.

What schrama queens.



Anonymous said...

Me Polack. Wasps didn't let me bowl.

FWG said...

My girlfriend is a first-generation Korean and her family likes me just fine. She's very close to them. Whites could learn a lot from these folks. They stress education, but aren't so maniacal about it as to encourage cheating.

john marzan said...

"I'm not wrong. The kids are doing it, the parents often pay for it. Most, but not all, of the hagwons and other secondary schools provide copies of local tests and pay for copies of actual SATs in advance. You think the parents are somehow unaware?"

I usually try to acquire previous SAT questionaires or buy books like Schaum's to prepare myself for math exams.

just admit it education realist, and stop deluding yourself. asians are better in math than whites, and much MUCH better than latinos and blacks, the fact that they do this effortlessly gets to you, right?

john marzan said...

"If I'm reading your obsessive rigidity correctly, you are asserting that I have not proven that Asian parents support their children's cheating. Fine. I'm asserting based on experience and available evidence that they do. Not just the kids, but the parents. Full stop."

do you have evidence of this? any links?

Anonymous said...

"Superiority complex and a sense of victimhood" describes most commenters here to a tee. But they are too irony-impaired to see this.

Jake said...

"It may be taboo to say, but some groups in America do better than others. Mormons have recently risen to astonishing business success."

They insert groups like Mormons and Cubans to make it sound like it's not just about Asians and Jews, but it is.

Mormons aren't dramatically more successful in business than any other group. They don't, to my knowledge, comprise a disproportionate share of Fortune 500 CEOs. Mormons are 2% of the population and there probably aren't even 8 Mormons on the Forbes 400 - the Marriott brothers, Richard Peery (whose sister is married to a Marriott), and...that's probably it. James Sorenson and Earl Holding were on there, but died. Jon Huntsman - the dad, not the dickhead son - has seen his fortune decline.

At present, Utah isn't home to a single member of the Forbes 400 and only one company on the Fortune 500.

Anonymous said...

They insert groups like Mormons and Cubans to make it sound like it's not just about Asians and Jews, but it is.

Mormons aren't dramatically more successful in business than any other group. They don't, to my knowledge, comprise a disproportionate share of Fortune 500 CEOs.


I don't think Asians are dramatically more successful in business in terms of being major CEOs either. I think they're more successful in average terms, like presumably Mormons are.

Anonymous said...

-----"Superiority complex and a sense of victimhood" describes most commenters here to a tee. But they are too irony-impaired to see this.------

Well, there goes Chua's theory. We ain't rich.

Anonymous said...

I am a Chinese immigrant who have climbed to CEO positiion of our company after 10 years. It is a mostly white employees company with a few of Asians.

As a typical Chinese, I do not like to show off my status. Our office janitors have no idea that I am the CEO. Instead, janitors often believe my jewish colleage as CEO. Quite fun.

Anonymous said...

If you want to understand ambitious Asians, remember one thing. The 20th century sucked for them. In their native countries they either lived in ruinous peasant-level poverty, or had their lives wrecked by wars, or lived under repressive political systems that did not allow you to obtain an advanced education or a good job unless you kissed up to the state.

Many Asians during the last century have suffered from an intense psychological frustration that Americans don't have any grasp of because as a culture, we were given plenty of freedom and opportunity. We've always been told you can make your own destiny. That hasn't been true for Asians until very recently.

A burning, driving ambition is born out of fury that your life isn't getting better and that there are outside forces actively working to keep you down for reasons that are, in essence, utterly stupid. This is why so many Asians push their kids. They see themselves as people born in jail, but their kids can be pushed out between the bars.

Anonymous said...

"Superiority complex and a sense of victimhood" describes most commenters here to a tee.


Ah, behold the power of the mighty Jewish intellect at work!

I'll point out to you, again, that the "superiority complex and a sense of victimhood" observation came from Amy Chua, a Chinese woman married to a Jewish man, who sees these traits in Chinese and Jewish Americans. But then, perhaps she's an iSteve commenter as well?

Anonymous said...

Daniel Day-Lewis is a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, son of a Poet Laureate as I recall from isteve, who cleverly identifies as Irish.


That's like saying that Queen Elizabeth is a member of the German aristocracy who cleverly identifies as English. That is, it's true, in a certain hyper-technical sense which most people don't generally use.

Anonymous said...

"My girlfriend is a first-generation Korean and her family likes me just fine."

Meaning she was born here, right?

Full-Fledged Fiasco said...

"I'd thank you for saying it, as it is a reminder that I have better things to do than hang around here. It's a waste of time."

Take care.

David said...

>"Superiority complex and a sense of victimhood" describes most commenters here to a tee. But they are too irony-impaired to see this.<

You're too irony-impaired to see that it applies to you in spades.

Anonymous said...

"Many Asians during the last century have suffered from an intense psychological frustration that Americans don't have any grasp of because as a culture, we were given plenty of freedom and opportunity. We've always been told you can make your own destiny. That hasn't been true for Asians until very recently."

Woah, hold on there. Good times came to US only with the boomers of the late 50s and 60s.

It wasn't easy for most Americans in the first half of the 20th century. Lots of factory work, farm work, few went to college, Grapes of Wrath and dust bowls, the depression, the wars, and etc.

Even during the good times since the 60s, negroes ran around causing much havoc.

And the 20th century was hell for Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and whole bunch of others.

Anonymous said...

"triple package"? genes, genes & genes. when is that book going to be written?

Anonymous said...

Hail wrote:
The "tiger daughters" have Twitter accounts and blogs. Read them, and it's clear that those girls are actually quite explicit Jewish-ethnic-nationalists and identify as Jews, not as Chinese. Both, as I recall, frequent tweeted/blogged about, rah-rahed the Jewish ethnostate, and attacked "self-hating Israeli left-wingers" (a paraphrase of one Twitter harangue from the younger daughter).

I read a few of their twitter posts out of curiosity. Without question, brilliant kids. A sample quotidian twitter post was a snarky joke about Harold Koh. It's a rarefied world for the children of two Yale law professors.

Anonymous said...

They're describing classic free-riding behavior from game theory.

However they don't seem to realize free-riding requires someone to ride on.

Anonymous said...

Education realist wrote:

"It's simply not true that these people "advise" their kids to cheat, never learn anything, and hate whites and non-white non-asians.".

The "they" in question are the authors, who are telling them to do all the "toxic" behaviors (cheating, etc) but only until they get to the top.

That said, yes, the parents do not only tell their kdis to cheat, they often pay for it. I am speaking of first or second generation Asian immigrants.

And it's most assuredly true that they overtly tell their kids not to associate with non0-Asians. "Ameicans" (whites") being preferable to blacks and Hispanics, of course.

"they dont look down on white people. they like white people."

No, they don't want their kids to hang around whites. That's why they "cocoon" over here.


I understand you are a teacher at a high school with a large Asian population. It is still a preposterous thing to say for someone who has little to no personal experience with Asian parents (PTA meetings do not necessarily count.) For every story that you can provide supporting your grand claim, I bet I can provide ten that contradict it. How does one respond rationally to something so exaggerated? You made similar claims on your website, but when asked by commenters to provide data to back-up your grandiose arguments, you were essentially mute on the topic. For instance, how does a purportedly unqualified Asian kid who cheats on his SATs and gets into MIT then graduate Summa or Magna Cum Laude with a STEM degree? If only it were a few them. Instead those rascals are overepresented.
I am not saying that Asians do not cheat more than other races. However, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Where is that evidence? Aren't you a math teacher? I would assume you could provide some basic statistical data to corroborate your assertions. At least something, rather than nothing--not a single study. Or are the conniving bastards cheating every step of the way like an infinite tower of cheating turtles standing upon cheating turtles?

Anonymous said...

Correction re: the twitter joke.
It was about the infamous John Yoo, of course, rather than Harold Koh. I am now less informed than a high school junior.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, poverty was once rife among Jews esp in Russia, but once the door was opened to them under communism, they--mostly through merit--did much better than other groups."

Between 1917 and 1940 the Bolshevik politburo sent most of the previous top 10% to concentration camps where they were murdered.

I expect that helped to thin out the competition.

Anonymous said...

@Anonmous,
"For instance, how does a purportedly unqualified Asian kid who cheats on his SATs and gets into MIT then graduate Summa or Magna Cum Laude with a STEM degree? If only it were a few them. Instead those rascals are overepresented.'

The are not cheating to pass. They are cheating to get from the 95th to the 99th percentile.

The real difficulty is getting into MIT rather than getting a high GPA. A hardworking student with an Q of 120 will have no trouble getting honours at MIT.

American undergraduate degrees - even at "elite" universities- are considered very easy by world standards.

In Britain or Australia a science or engineering student completes the equivalent of a US Masters degree in only 3-4 years as an undergraduate student.

Anonymous said...

"The real difficulty is getting into MIT rather than getting a high GPA. A hardworking student with an Q of 120 will have no trouble getting honours at MIT."

Really? You know this how? There are no honors degrees at MIT. And an IQ 120 kid wouldn't make it through the first week's problem sets.

blogger said...

"The are not cheating to pass. They are cheating to get from the 95th to the 99th percentile."

For the hyper-competitive, the stakes are just too high.
Look at Lance Armstrong. And other pro athletes. The difference between winning and losing can be 100 million dollars in endorsements. Also, once there's the perception that OTHERS are cheating--and they are not caught or they are even tolerated by the authorities--, cheating spreads even among the inherently honest.

In politics, where stakes are very high in a winner-takes-all contest, cheating and deception are endemic. Just look at the 2012 election. The media are in it too.

We have a media that uses codewords like 'teens' and calls George Zimmerman a 'white hispanic'.

From work ethic to work cheatic.

Anonymous said...

"Between 1917 and 1940 the Bolshevik politburo sent most of the previous top 10% to concentration camps where they were murdered."

But Jews were not specially targeted. As Jews were over-represented among the upper echelons, some famous ones got killed. But most Jews did very well under Stalin... until Zionists chose US over USSR despite Stalin's full backing of the creation of Israel. Soviets even sent arms to Zionists through Czechoslovakia, thus the canard about 'Czech rifles'.

blogger said...

"I am not saying that Asians do not cheat more than other races. However, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Where is that evidence?"

I think education unrealist is confused because there are two meanings to cheating.
There is cheating-cheating that violates rules and regulations. It's possible that Asians might be cheating more at the most competitive edge because of pressure from parents, cultural stress on education as honorable or some such, and because they see education as the only hope for them. Sports, culture, and etc. are mostly out of the question for the geeks. This kind of cheating is obviously wrong.

But there is also another meaning to cheating. Cultural cheating. This sort isn't illegal or violates any written down rules, but it does violate certain cultural values and assumptions of a nation. Americans, for example, like people to be well-rounded. Good with books but also healthy in body and sociable and 'creative' and funnish, and etc. So, even as American parents make their kids do the home work and etc, they also make time for their kids to do other things. It's part of the American way. There is the American ideal of the East Coast Brahmin scholar but also the American myth of the Cowboy and Davy Crockett. Now, this is not a law but it's a shared assumption.

When Americans seen all these Asians do nothing but study and study and study, it seems like they're not living life as Americans. It looks like they are acting Nibelungish like Alberich the dwarf who just conspires on and on and on for power!

So, even though most Asians don't seem to be breaking laws, they--at least immigrant kids and etc--seem to be rejecting the American way of the scholar-and-cowboy and just going for scholar-and-scholar. Thus, for many Americans, there's a sense of cultural cheating.

dcite said...

"Lisa See is an exception. Lol She makes her living writing about being Chinese"

1/8 Chinese I think it is. While she writes a good story, I couldn't help thinking she lifted parts of the Little House on the Prairie books (Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobio of frontier life) in some of her descriptions of Chinese village life. See grew up totally western American, raised by a white American mom. But writers cast about for the right gimmick and she found a reasonably appropriate one.

btw, Lisa See had a hard time convincing a cab driver in China that Americans were not adopting Chinese girls just for their organs. The Chinese do not readily understand altruism. I remember that from The Good Earth, where Wang Lung tries to find out why some rich people gave food to the poor. Surely, he said, some do it out of goodness of heart (that was the author Pearl Buck, the missionary daughter, thinking for Wang Lung). The actual Chinese answered that it was done so they (the rich) would come back again as privileged people in their rebirth.
There is genuine altruism among Chinese, but it is not a culturally iconic virtue as it has been in the Christian lands (and to some degree, the Muslim.)

Aaron said...

There doesn't seem to be any data out there on cheating by race. What data there is on cheating seems to suggest that cheating rates are high enough that even if we assumed all Asian students were cheating, significant numbers of non-Asian students apparently are as well:

http://www.caveon.com/resources/cheating-statistics/

Udolpho.com said...

"I understand you are a teacher at a high school with a large Asian population. It is still a preposterous thing to say for someone who has little to no personal experience with Asian parents (PTA meetings do not necessarily count.)"

Sorry but this is a fairly dumb thing to say. I think he makes his points a lot better than you make yours.

Anonymous said...

I understand you are a teacher at a high school with a large Asian population. It is still a preposterous thing to say for someone who has little to no personal experience with Asian parents (PTA meetings do not necessarily count.)

I've taught at schools with lots of Asians and at those private academies called "hagwons."

It may be the case that Asian parents advise to "cheat like crazy, get good grades without ever learning anything, look down on white people (with even more contempt for non-Asian non-whites)," but it was impossible to tell. They're not so impolitic as to tell you things like this.

Anonymous said...

"Between 1917 and 1940 the Bolshevik politburo sent most of the previous top 10% to concentration camps where they were murdered."

"But Jews were not specially targeted."

The opposite if Jews had been mostly excluded from the upper echelons in Tsarist times.

The original point was Jews did well in Soviet Russia entirely on merit. My point was the murder of millions from the Tsarist upper echelons thinned out the competition.

asian anon said...

"Asians are a funny bunch in some way. They are most conservative in some way, but that quality has the way of making them most liberal. Paradoxically, those who respect authority the most(generally a conservative attitude) will most sheepishly embrace and absorb whatever the elites are telling them. So, almost overnight, conservative Chinese became rabid commies under Mao. Almost overnight, anti-American Japanese became American-loving toadies listening to "Tokyo Shoeshine Boy". Asian parents in American prolly tell their kids, 'respect teacher. do as school say. do homework and read every assignment'. IN the past, it may have made Asians into patriotic Americans. Today, such conservative attitude toward authority is gonna make them into homomaniacal and multi-culti 'anti-racist' drones since the elites are Liberal and PC."

you're overthinking it. As an asian person myself, I can tell you exactly how I think, and how most of the other asians I know think. In a nutshell, asian people are hyperpragmatic, logical, no nonsense types. (generally speaking of course) Asians care much less for ethical considerations relative to whites. I am not saying that asians are UNETHICAL, rather I am merely saying that we are LESS ethical relative to whites. So basically, we "do what works", if its not possible to game the system then we suck it up and grudgingly endure it. I mean realistically, what else can you do? As an example, take your "conservative chinese and communist china example", the fact is that the chinese population as a whole probably didn't really believe in communism, rather they went along with it because it was the best possible option at the time/had no choice. Even when the communist system was firmly in place, corruption was endemic. Thus showing how the actual thinness of their "communist convictions". Likewise with your japanese example, its not as if the japanese truly switched gears on the american issues because they wanted to, rather they did so because they had no other choice (obviously); when it finally became apparent that the american occupation was actually beneficial to them in economic terms thats when they began to embrace it in earnest. Why? Because from a pragmatic point of view it makes perfect sense.

Basically, we asians are not necessarily intrinsically conservative. Rather we just have little patience for chasing castles in the sky/getting lost in silly idealistic notions. That very mindset ironically correlates with the archetypal conservative mindset, but that doesnt mean that they are necessarily the same. Causation is not correlation. Take the issue of gay marriage for example; for me personally I don't hate it, but I think ultimately its not an issue worthy of obsessing about either. I don't oppose gay marriage because I am firmly love tradition and want to protect the sanctity of marriage, but rather I latently oppose it (refuse to get worked up over it) because its ultimately an issue that's not really important. Seeing as it would only affect a small percentage of the population it doesn't have any major ramifications for this country. Also, you can call me heartless, but honestly I don't even really care about gay people. Do I see gay people trying to collectively help out asian people? No. So why should I expend my time and energy to help them out in any way? Helping out people is a two way street. The only gay people I care about are ones that I know on a personal basis. I could care less for the abstract gay collective.

asian anon said...

cont.

Secondly, asian people generally have a different notion of personal boundaries than white people. For asian people, our basic philosophy is that I do my own thing, and you do yours, unless there is other more important consideration that overrides this basic unspoken rule and requires absolute unity in thought. For white people, from what I have seen they basically have a VERY weak notion of personal boundaries. White people have no problem trying to tell other people how they should think or what they should do. Even if the issue at hand isnt even related to them! So naturally you can see how these two opposing viewpoints would clash on some level. For me personally, I get extremely irritated when white people try to tell me to care about some issue, whether it be whale hunting in japan, gay marriage or fucking kony 2012. I respect other people's boundaries and don't tell them what to do, so why the fuck do they think they have a right to try to tell me what to do? When white people do this to me, I feel like they are impinging upon my personal space and not only that, but trying to assert authority over me by telling me what I should think. Naturally I would resent that. Anyways, my point is that, asians may come off as conservative because honestly the majority of us believe in live and let live, and we just don't get emotionally worked up over stuff. To whites this comes off as being coldhearted and emotionless, while to asians it just comes off as minding our own business.

One other thing I want to add in my lengthy reply is that YES I do acknowledge the presence of asian liberals. I even know a few that are my friends. However for me personally, I think their motivations are suspect (status posturing or needing to say the right things to get in with the right people), or at the very least they are fairly lukewarm in their views. For the record, I have never had an asian person who is liberal get extremely angry at me or cut off all contact with me because of a political disagreement. Other asian people may not always agree with me or my views, but they are content to leave it at that. Afterall, from an asian point of view, whats the use in getting mad over a political argument? There is absolutely no point. (once again the pragmatic principle at play) Especially if it has no immediate, direct ramifications for either party. (OTOH if a political issue has a direct connection to the parties involved then expect sparks to fly. Just look at korean lawmakers behaving badly if you want to see this in action, or also korean and chinese people getting testy and violent about japan. However like I said, if its an abstract political issue that doesn't majorly affect either party, asian people just don't get worked up over it.) On the other hand I have had countless white people (usually liberals but not always) shun me and snub me due to minor political disagreements.

The last thing I want to say is that I think a lot of the posters here are simply overromanticizing the asian mentality when in actuality its extremely easy to understand. Asians are more pragmatic, and less emotional/idealistic compared to whites. Thats it! Once you acknowledge that, the enigma of asian behavior becomes perfectly clear.