Michael Smerconish, who scored the highest (i.e., least elite) of any journalist who publicly took Charles Murray's Coming Apart class quiz, interviews Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld. Chua says:
"Now we do state facts, and I think that's what makes people uncomfortable. You know, we say things like, 'Asian American SAT scores are 140 points above the average.' That's a fact. Or Indian Americans have a national household income of almost double the national average. Mormons are hitting it out of the parkI'd characterize Mormons as more singles and doubles hitters than homer sluggers.
, and we say: 'Look, they're doing something different from mainstream America. Let's look at them.' Let's look inside - people don't know what goes on - and learn from them, and, honestly, I think if we can't just state a statistic without being accused of racism, then we are not going to be able to learn and make any improvement."
C'mon, like Truth says, facts are just flying pigs.
ReplyDeleteMichael Smerconish, who scored the highest (i.e., least elite) of any journalist who took Charles Murray's Coming Apart class quiz
ReplyDeleteSource, please.
RE: Amy Chua,
ReplyDeleteJust noticed that she does not have the epicanthic fold. Of course, that trait is not universal among East Asians, so she might not have been born with it. On the other hand, maybe she did have it and had plastic surgery. Given her vanity (cf the part of her tiger mom book where she points out that her grandmother liked to praise her for having a high nose bridge, unlike her sisters, who were castigated for their flat, monkey-like noses), I think that she would get plastic surgery to correct any serious aesthetic deficiencies.
I continue to be flummoxed by her baseline assumption that everyone would like to achieve like Asians and Indians but just don't know how and that she's performing an obvious service by explaining what it is. She is truly trapped in the value system she was raised in and cannot see past its boundaries.
ReplyDeleteFor most Americans of European descent, especially the talented and intelligent, the kind of stable achievement achieved by Asians and Indians is perfectly comprehensible but seen as deeply unglamorous, un-sexy, and not worth the obvious and incredible sacrifice that Asians make. Does she honestly not realize that the lengths to which Asians go to secure their modest perch on the social ladder is not perceptible to the rest of the population? It has long since passed into anecdotal knowledge.
Now, it may not be a healthy and positive thing that Americans of European descent find stable professional success deeply un-sexy - I would agree with that - but it has a certain logic based on the very high bar set by the brilliant achievements of Western civilization. People of any civilization feel they must extend or surpass the achievements of their ancestors. Interestingly, the more brilliant the achievements of your civilization, beyond a certain peak apathy will set in as further achievements, or even comparable ones, begin to seem impossible.
In a certain sense an exceptionally brilliant cultural legacy might prove a heavy and de-motivating burden.
Then there is the fact that since the Romantic movement the West has been the Promethean society par excellence. Like it or not, we have Romantic values, which means we elevate the cult of the genius, the maverick, the shining star, the exceptional talent, at the expense of the plodding, the hard working (hard work in the Asian sense is seen as almost an admission of lack of talent), the stable, the conventional, and professional.
None of this is conducive to the kind of conventional success that Asians strive for and not surprisingly achieve. At the heart of every talented American of European descent lies the wish to be a genius, at the heart of every American of Asian descent lies the heart to be a successful professional. The real takeaway lesson might be to set oneself more achievable goals.
To the list of traits that breed stable professional success that Chua lists I would add one more that is well exemplified by Chua herself; a completely un-philosophical cast of mind that takes whatever value system it was given at birth by the community utterly for granted, without questioning it at all. This way, all the "big questions" are answered for you and you only have to devote your time to the practical affair of getting on. Chua cannot even imagine that the Asian recipe for success is extremely well observed and well known in America, just that it has a very dull lustre for anyone not raised in the Chinese tradition of dry, hard, money-making practicality.
Very we'll said, couldn't agree more
DeleteAnother mark of Amy Chua's vanity has to do with her White husband. She makes a point of stating that she was the first and only Asian woman that he went out with. In other words, he's not some loser White guy who goes out with Asian women because he can't get White women. No, Amy is hot enough to get a White guy in spite of being Asian.
ReplyDeleteShe assumes that learning and improvement are what is desired by society. That assumption is unproved.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should tell her "mainstream America" had always done just fine. And would still be doing just fine today without all the recent human imports. Whereas East Asians and Indians weren't doing quite so well in the environments they'd managed to establish in their own countries.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete>>>Steve Sailer posted:
"""""Let's look at them.' Let's look inside - people don't know what goes on - and learn from them, and, honestly, I think if we can't just state a statistic without being accused of racism, then we are not going to be able to learn and make any improvement."""""""
This was Jason Richwine's identical response when so accused and it didn't turn out so well for him.
In this instance, one could reasonably wonder that Chua's saving grace is that she's a Chinese American and not Caucasian so perhaps she'll get off with just a slap on the wrist.
""""Michael Smerconish, who scored the highest (i.e., least elite) of any journalist who took Charles Murray's Coming Apart class quiz"""""
Ok, Steve, my interest is piqued. Where exactly are the results of this quiz of Charles Murray's posted? Where can ordinary folks peruse the results and see how various journalists scored on the quiz?
Also, it would be interesting to know what the various criteria are that resulted in a high or low score on the quiz.
Just google it. Smerconish talked about his score, 42, in his review of Murray's book (where the quiz is)
DeleteI'd characterize Mormons as more singles and doubles hitters than homer sluggers.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but they've got the deepest bench in the league, and quite the productive farm system to boot.
And they stay off the A&W Cream Soda.
Look, they're doing something different from mainstream America.
ReplyDeleteYes, they're are demanding that main stream america 'play fair' by not banding together, and give their in group special privileges.
It's classic in-group out-group strategy. Much like telling the other team to not play like a team, but act as individuals, meanwhile your team says 'let's throw a touch down pass'!
BTW asians - which indians here are considered for affirmative action programs - do benefit from 'divirsity' programs in companies and, for example low interest SBA loans.
Anymous:"In this instance, one could reasonably wonder that Chua's saving grace is that she's a Chinese American and not Caucasian so perhaps she'll get off with just a slap on the wrist."
ReplyDeleteYou mean she's not from the Caucasus? And here I was wondering if she might be part Georgian.
Oh, I see. By "Caucasian" you mean White/West Eurasian/Caucasoid. In the future, use Caucasian to mean of or pertaining to the Caucasus. Less confusion that way.
How come Amy Chua is a mass media phenomenon and you are a virtually unknown?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you can get away with Noticing if you're an Ivy League tenured prof. Borjas has gotten away with it. Chua is getting away with it. Rubenfeld is getting away with it. Huntington got away with it. You'll be called a racist, but you'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteRichwine's mistake was going into Heritage, instead of finding an Ivy League social science department, keeping his head down and focusing on his other, more boring interests like public pensions until he was tenured.
" By "Caucasian" you mean White/West Eurasian/Caucasoid. "
ReplyDeleteTo most Americans Caucasian means white. Using that word to mean anything else causes confusion. The best that careful writers can do for clarity's sake is to call Georgians, Chechens, etc. peoples of the Caucasus and all humans with narrow noses Caucasoids.
Instead of listening to Chua's advice, we could just follow her example - have one child for, roughly, every $300,000.00 of income.
ReplyDeleteOr we could go by the Larry Page standard of having one child per $10,000,000,000.00 of net worth.
ReplyDelete“The feeling I mean of course is that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.
ReplyDelete“The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the center of his life a good, solid resounding lie. I don’t mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty and good sense than in height or waste-measurement. I mean he does not believe it himself. No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the purely political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.
“And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority.”
- C.S. Lewis, “Screwtape Proposes A Toast”
By the way, I think that narrow-nosed would be stenorrhine in science-Greek. I'm guessing that Somalis and other East Africans became stenorrhine through Caucasoid admixture. If Caucasoids are the only modern source of narrow-nosedness, maybe Stenorrhines is a good term for us. Clearly better than Caucasoids.
ReplyDeleteUh oh.
ReplyDeleteThe MSM doesn't like it when people notice things.
Just noticed that she does not have the epicanthic fold.
ReplyDeleteShe does appear to have epicanthic folds:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Amy_Chua_2012_Shankbone_2.JPG
Agreed Steve, Mormons have exceptional on base percentage but a low slugging ratio, which, religious considerations aside, makes them an excellent populace to live next to, likewise with the founding stock of the Anglosphere (because it's the same people, funny how that works)
ReplyDeletethe Chinese tradition of dry, hard, money-making practicality
ReplyDeleteMoney-making practicality is actually disdained in Chinese tradition. Agrarianism or agrarian conservatism is what's revered in Chinese tradition.
In the future, use Caucasian to mean of or pertaining to the Caucasus. Less confusion that way. --anon
ReplyDeleteLikewise, use "European" for those wogs who begin at Calais, and not for the insular folk whose ancestors escaped the continent and whose descendants left the hemisphere altogether.
Anonymous:"To most Americans Caucasian means white."
ReplyDeleteYes, and it sounds really retarded when they use it in that sense. It's like calling East Asians Mongols.
Anonymous:" Using that word to mean anything else causes confusion."
Not if people stop using it improperly. People can adapt to linguistic change quite rapidly.
Anobymous;" The best that careful writers can do for clarity's sake is to call Georgians, Chechens, etc. peoples of the Caucasus"
Which is unwieldy and cumbersome, like referring to Europeans as people from Europe, Asians as people from Asia, etc.
Anonymous:" and all humans with narrow noses Caucasoids."
An excellent suggestion. If people used Caucasoid as the racial form, they would swiftly figure out that Caucasian means people and languages from the Caucasus.
"Yeah, but they've got the deepest bench in the league, and quite the productive farm system to boot."
ReplyDeleteNo joke. Who is gonna win, the team with a single slugger or the bench with a bunch that consistently hits singles and doubles? My shitty analogy...
Now, it may not be a healthy and positive thing that Americans of European descent find stable professional success deeply un-sexy - I would agree with that - but it has a certain logic based on the very high bar set by the brilliant achievements of Western civilization.
ReplyDelete...
None of this is conducive to the kind of conventional success that Asians strive for and not surprisingly achieve. At the heart of every talented American of European descent lies the wish to be a genius, at the heart of every American of Asian descent lies the heart to be a successful professional. The real takeaway lesson might be to set oneself more achievable goals.
There may be some truth to this, although White Americans today aren't particularly well versed in or familiar with the traditional cultural products and achievements of Western civilization. And White Americans have always had quite bourgeois and conventional aspirations, especially relative to Europe.
"I'd characterize Mormons as more singles and doubles hitters than homer sluggers."
ReplyDeleteThey're certainly no Scotch-Irish, but are you aware of the HBS phenomenon described herein:
href="http://www.economist.com/node/21554173">
The problem w/ Chua is that success at the top has little to do with family values, emphasis on education, etc. That stuff is simply a prerequisite to middle class.
At the upper echelons it's all about cohesive and exclusive networks that are buoyed by ethnocentrism. Mormons represent a peek at what white gentiles could accomplish with this attitude.
I began reading the books and it's got food for thought. And instead of being a simple formula book, it offers lots of conditions, contexts, and contrasts to qualify the argument. So, the many of the issues that we brought up are actually addressed and given consideration in the book. It's a book that doesn't just say stuff but thinks about what it's saying.
ReplyDeleteBut still, there are some howlers due to the PC article-offaith. Certain taboos simply cannot be touched. The funniest is the black Americans were stripped of their Triple Package because of slavery, which is ROTFL. What makes Chua and Ruben believe that black Africans had the triple package to begin with? Of course, they know otherwise, but the black issue is one taboo they dare not toy with. So, it's all whitey's fault.
Apparently, Kunta Kinte had the triple package but it was stripped from him.
"Agrarianism or agrarian conservatism is what's revered in Chinese tradition."
ReplyDeleteIdeally. In practice, it was the merchants who usually made the social climb.
"Money-making practicality is actually disdained in Chinese tradition."
ReplyDeleteThey force their kids to play piano or violin or to memorize math and science facts 12 hours a day. There's little money in classical music. Engineering isn't very lucrative either.
I think they're moved by two things: 1) an inborn desire to work hard on something, anything. 2) a desire to appear cultured. Classical music is far more culturally prestigious than lucrative.
"Someone should tell her "mainstream America" had always done just fine."
ReplyDeleteNot so fine lately, especially as the 'mainstream' is more diversity and Smiley Circus.
Gringo said: Source, please?
ReplyDeleteHunsdon said: Reading is fundamental. In the VDare link, "The highest score I’ve seen any reviewer claim for himself is talk show host Michael Smerconish’s 42."
"One of the groups that have had a decline of fortune is white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), who Chua told me were the original triple-package culture."
ReplyDeleteThis seems questionable. For one thing, Mormons could be counted as wasps.
Another thing is while Wasps have declined relative to Jews, they are still the second most powerful group in America by far.
Another thing... Wasps are more numerous than other groups. So, its averages are gonna be lower than successful minority groups. But wasp elites are among the most powerful people in America still.
She is child abuser and only gets away with it because she is asian. As education realist notices, Chua and her contemporaries are very good at grades and tests without a commensurate understanding of the subject matter. i.e. she don't know of what she speaks.
ReplyDeleteHer noticing or my noticing?
ReplyDeleteI doubt she would defend my noticing.
For most Americans of European descent, especially the talented and intelligent, the kind of stable achievement achieved by Asians and Indians is perfectly comprehensible but seen as deeply unglamorous, un-sexy, and not worth the obvious and incredible sacrifice that Asians make.
ReplyDeleteBut what did become regarded as "glamorous" and "sexy" recently among talented and intelligent white Americans were MBAs, law degrees and careers in finance and law, which are quite conventional fields. And they became "glamorous" and "sexy" for quite conventional reasons: they paid more.
"""""To most Americans Caucasian means white."
ReplyDeleteYes, and it sounds really retarded when they use it in that sense. It's like calling East Asians Mongols."""""""
No, as a racial scientific designation, Caucasoid is the correct and accurate term to use. It designates all white peoples.
Besides, if we must refer to blacks as African-Americans, (Africanoid, their race term designation) then it is acceptable to do the same for whites by referring to them by their biological racial designation. And that of course would be Caucasian, in common parlance.
You have a nice day.
Noticing vs no-to-seeing.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"She does appear to have epicanthic folds"
ReplyDeleteYeah, in that photo she seem to have them, but in others she does not. Perhaps it's the angle of the photo combined with the position of her face (in the shot, we seem to almost be looking up at her)?
"In other words, he's not some loser White guy who goes out with Asian women because he can't get White women"
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not her point. Many guys have a fetish for Asain women. She's saying that he wasn't one of them. Your "microagression" that white women are superior to Asian women is duly noted, however.
In this photo Chua does not seem to have the epicanthic fold:http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058044_2060338_2060004,00.html
ReplyDeleteI'm LDS and agree with Steve's assessment. We are the very opposite of being an exclusive group and now include a lot of different people from all over, not just those descended from Scandinavians and people from the British Isles. We tend to be consistently self-reliant, but we don't statistically show great brilliance. In politics, we have some real dim bulbs like Harry Reid and Jeff Flake. I went to high school with Flake, didn't know him well, but I knew I was a smarter than he is. It wasn't until recently I realized how much smarter.
ReplyDeleteJoe H.
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/20140215-dallas-area-home-to-huge-health-care-frauds.ece
ReplyDeleteI read Amy Chua's book "World on Fire". She denied that America has any "market dominant minorities". She has a talent for not noticing.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt there are truly educated Chinese in this country, but I've never met one. Most of what I have seen are highly trained worker bees. Drilling and testing and getting a degree from Brand Name U are not education.
ReplyDelete"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kind"
ReplyDelete- Dalai Lama
Michael,
ReplyDelete"To the list of traits that breed stable professional success that Chua lists I would add one more that is well exemplified by Chua herself; a completely un-philosophical cast of mind that takes whatever value system it was given at birth by the community utterly for granted, without questioning it at all."
Let me suggest that you have not read "World on Fire". I didn't take the book or Amy Chua seriously until I accidentally picked up the book and started reading.
The subtitle should demonstrate that Amy Chua is no slave to the conventional wisdom
"How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability"
Michael,
ReplyDelete"To the list of traits that breed stable professional success that Chua lists I would add one more that is well exemplified by Chua herself; a completely un-philosophical cast of mind that takes whatever value system it was given at birth by the community utterly for granted, without questioning it at all."
Let me suggest that you have not read "World on Fire". I didn't take the book or Amy Chua seriously until I accidentally picked up the book and started reading.
The subtitle should demonstrate that Amy Chua is no slave to the conventional wisdom
"How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability"
Regarding Smerconish's score: I guess I will never understand people who take the time to post comments asking a question, but don't first do an internet search to find the answer. First of all, Steve had a link, it's to his earlier Vdare piece which has a link on the number 42, but that link is now broken. Search Smerconish, 42 Charles Murray and you should find this article: http://m.winonadailynews.com/news/opinion/columnists/michael-smerconish-are-the-wealthy-out-of-touch/article
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteI find your analysis of the Asian ethic intriguing. Where would you place the Jews in your discussion of groups reflecting the romanticist or Promethean tendnency? Should they be viewed more like Euro-Americans or Asians?
Mormons don't hit so many home runs because they tend to re-focus from wealth accumulation to community and humanitarian pursuits after hitting a certain level.
ReplyDeleteMitt Romney would have assuredly been a billionaire, maybe even a deca-billionaire, had he not left Bain in 2001. (Right before the hedge fund and private equity boom). Instead he's "only" worth $300 million or so, and doesn't make the Forbes list.
Rather many Mormons, like Mitt, decide that after a certain level they'd rather self-actualize by "giving back" rather than just accumulating more wealth. In Romney's case he brought the Olympics to Salt Lake City and went into politics.
"Agreed Steve, Mormons have exceptional on base percentage but a low slugging ratio, which, religious considerations aside, makes them an excellent populace to live next to, likewise with the founding stock of the Anglosphere (because it's the same people, funny how that works)"
ReplyDeleteMormon missionaries were active in Australia from the 1860's. One branch of our family moved to what is now Utah from Australia in the 1860's. When I google our uncommon family name I see that it is now quite common in Utah. Yes, excellent founding stock(religious considerations aside). The future of Anglomerica.
"Now, it may not be a healthy and positive thing that Americans of European descent find stable professional success deeply un-sexy - I would agree with that - but it has a certain logic based on the very high bar set by the brilliant achievements of Western civilization. People of any civilization feel they must extend or surpass the achievements of their ancestors. Interestingly, the more brilliant the achievements of your civilization, beyond a certain peak apathy will set in as further achievements, or even comparable ones, begin to seem impossible." - Michael
ReplyDeleteKudos for an original idea (at least, this is the first time I've seen this expressed), but do you really think the working class has any real awareness of the achievements of the white race and is holding back from economic success for that reason?
I think your theory only applies to Ivy League graduate slackers.
I think she is saying something much more profound than "everyone should work hard like Asians and enjoy modest success." She is denying that group performance differences are due primarily to white prejudice. She is postulating that the cause of group differences in achievement is found within the groups, their attitude, culture, effort, etc.
ReplyDeleteDrilling and testing and getting a degree from Brand Name U are not education. --Discard
ReplyDeleteAt first I read that as "nesting". But that's an intriguing question: do these groups "nest" the way homos do?
I'm not familiar with Amy Chua's work, but if she is being sincere in her statements about culture being the main factor for difference in achievement in America, then obviously she's not a racist. She simply has a major blind spot. She comes off sincere, which makes it all that much more absurd that she's trying to play the role of a luminary. I'll listen to her right after I pick up some profound thoughts from Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested in observing how long she maintains the nurture argument in the face of future discoveries. If she's enlightened and continues to speak up, then we can categorize her as a racist. If she doesn't speak up, then she'll showcase that she has some limits to her attention seeking and may not be racist. If she's never enlightened, I'd eventually have to question her intelligence.
As for her husband not having an Asian fetish, what is he supposed to do? Should he broadcast that he has a race fetish? We don't know if he does, but given other correlations within this racial pairing, it's likely that there's at least a 50% that he does. After all, how many Asian women was he around versus how many non-Asian women? The chances someone like him has an Asian fetish is obviously very high. Her being in denial of this obvious fact is congruent with her incessant advocacy of the cultural argument.
Her old man is Jewish. He's positioning his offspring for the next century. Chua plays a superficial game. Her hubby is thinking in extremely long term ways.
DeleteChua think she so freakin' top notch. What's her Cromartie score?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/25596256-452/internet-witch-hunters-put-woody-allen-on-dunking-stool.html
ReplyDeleteWhy not just denounce him as a 'white Jew' and be done with it?
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/02/17/cheating-at-caltech/
ReplyDeleteI"ve followed the romantic/promethian thing with interest on this discussion. I've never come up with a satisfying term for what concerns me about the Tiger ethic.
ReplyDeleteWhen the "battle hymn" came out, I went on the NYT comments. There were lots of Indians and Chinese posting. I commented that I was concerned that this sort of mentality was admirable in one sense but very narrow. Where is the sense of civic culture that is uniquely American in all of this?
THe amount of hostile responses was very telling.
All of them had the idea that you should just pay your taxes, let the state take care of stuff, etc. One poster said that he couldn't understand the Tocquevillian spirit of associations in American civic culture.
I guess the term that comes closest is Jeffersonianism- a kind of well-rounded, participatory man who takes interest in everything: community affairs, the arts, science, the natural world, philosophy- a kind of cultured man who still appreciates the sturdy yeoman. I like this spirit. It's what I know, it's my heritage, and quite frankly, I think it's essential to maintaining a republic. I have no interest in the kind of narrow, go-getter types that Chua espouses. Seriously, could you imagine being stuck in a cocktail party with folks like this?
People, modest success is the only kind of success available to a group of people. The extremely successful "genius" will never be more than a small minority within any group. The Asian mindset is simply more pragmatic.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the-wendy-doniger-episode-is-not-a-free-speech-issue-1388751.html?utm_source=ref_article
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"No, as a racial scientific designation, Caucasoid is the correct and accurate term to use. It designates all white peoples."
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's why I said that "Caucasoid" is acceptable. No one thinks that you mean Caucasian (of or pertaining to the Caucasus) when you use it. For some reason, though, American society seems to prefer Caucasian to Caucasoid as a why to refer to Whites as a whole, and that preference leads to absurdities.
Anonymous;"Besides, if we must refer to blacks as African-Americans,"
Who says that we must? I never do. All the Black people that I know use Black; they regard African American as a needless affectation, like Kwanzaa.
Anonymous:" (Africanoid, their race term designation)"
the PC version of "Negroid," I suppose.
Anonymous:" then it is acceptable to do the same for whites by referring to them by their biological racial designation. And that of course would be Caucasian, in common parlance."
If we are looking for a one-to-one comparison with "Africanoid," wouldn't "Europoid" be more exact? Using Caucasian for White is akin to referring to Blacks as Congolese.
To sum up: Caucasian as a synonym for White is silly. Use Caucasoid instead.
RE: Caucasian,
ReplyDeleteSince grievance-mongering is the way our society operates, I take offense when I am called "Caucasian." It is a microaggression, a denial of my identity. therefore, I insist that you call me Caucasoid.
It's worked in the past. Up til the 1980s, you could say Oriental, but then the PC elite decided that
Oriental was racist.
It's hard to get irritated she notices that Chinese-American earn more money than White Americans.
ReplyDeleteIt's annoying she *doesn't* notice that they come from family and occupational prestige backgrounds that are not typical for their country.
(and Greg Clark has recently shown that social mobility and persistence of status is no different in China to Europe).
Noticing is fine, but please try and ensure that you notice without any biases. If you don't, not the end of the world because eventually someone else will do it for you, but we could save a lot of time and misunderstandings.
http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-gunday-1201103256/
ReplyDeleteThe planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kind"
ReplyDeleteI agree, although you need to be well fed first and foremost, but that is solved here in Obese USA. Blaming the "west" for everything they think is bad, while ignoring the blindingly obvious benefits brought to them by the same, is contemptable hipocracy practiced by many POCs right here, and abroad. OTOH, the "west" needs to keep its nose out of the rest of the world. If it did, we'd have fewer of them on our hands (forever, it seems), and they could be left in peace (or war) to enjoy such benefits as they feel ready and able for, while fixing (or not) their own problems.
>>>Mountain Maven said...
ReplyDelete""""Chua and her contemporaries are very good at grades and tests without a commensurate understanding of the subject matter. i.e. she don't know of what she speaks."""""
This is a faulty dichotomy. So in other words, the TRULY smart and educated individuals are those who screw up on tests and get F's in the classroom.
See? It doesn't work.
It's the old familiar sour grapes that one group simply did better than yours or a favored group.
Facts are facts are facts. If a particular group did extremely well in the classroom and on the tests then that would tend to make them smart as well as fairly knowledgable about the subjects that they were tested on. Of course, we can automatically remove those individuals who may have cheated on the tests and in the classroom there is certainly that possibility.
But aside from that, why in the hell would we ever take the opposite approach? That the groups that DONT ever do well on the tests or in the classroom are really the smartest ones and we just haven't been highlighting them enough.
That's getting close to Jesse and Al kind of thinking.
Better to accept the facts; there actually are indeed inherently smart people who test high, do well in the classroom and have a fairly high genetic IQ as well and the stupid ones are never going to be on this list as a whole. That's life, that's how it is.
QED
"if we can't just state a statistic without being accused of racism" ------------- In other words, if we can't state facts without having to do so within the constraints of the anti-racism cargo cult? The word 'racism' needs to be re-appropriated as the Lefties like to say. Since it simply articulates the boundaries of acceptable dialogue, or issue framing, according to the sacraments of a denial oriented cargo cult, why not challenge the cargo cult head on rather than complain about being called a witch under their docrine?
ReplyDeleteHey, here's something I notice: it pays to be a professional homosexual. It can even get you college scholarships.
ReplyDeletehttp://money.cnn.com/2013/11/01/pf/college/college-scholarships/
OT, but here is another hit piece on the Swiss. This time in Bloomberg. The remarkable thing is not the article, but the comments. They sound like an iSteve discussion. I don't read Bloomberg much, so I was surprised. I thought their readership would be more like the NY Times.
ReplyDeleteI believe Coon used -oid terms for the five races:
ReplyDeleteCaucasoid,
Capoid,
Mongoloid,
Australoid,
Congoid.
And they seem to be the least ambiguous terms to use.
http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2011/05/stupid-liberal-things-to-say-theres.html
CamelCaseRob said....
ReplyDelete"Kudos for an original idea (at least, this is the first time I've seen this expressed), but do you really think the working class has any real awareness of the achievements of the white race and is holding back from economic success for that reason?"
Probably not, but the economically and socially stable among them are certainly aware of the achievements of their parents, grandparents, other ancestors, and choose to live similar lives.
Boys choose to enter the trades, or farming, military/fire/police, etc. because they emulate their fathers, uncles, neighbors. The best among them successfully achieve their goals.
Others fall short, and in part because the system is rigged against them. The economy is no longer suited to their choices, and the culture doesn't sustain them. That's a lot to overcome.
I think it was Al Franken who made the observation that he saw an Indian family at a hotel pool and they reminded him in their dress of a 1950s Jewish family. They dress to represent - real strivers. Established and satisfied types don't work that hard to keep up appearances.
I really dug that link someone posted here, of that Chinese tourist who had the insensitivity to be complaining about rotting-corpse flotsam along the Ganges. It was wild, man--wild!
ReplyDelete"In other words, he's not some loser White guy who goes out with Asian women because he can't get White women"
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not her point. Many guys have a fetish for Asain women. She's saying that he wasn't one of them. Your "microagression" that white women are superior to Asian women is duly noted, however.
They aren't? Here I thought the vast majority of women considered beautiful in this country are white. Wouldn't you think it weird if Chinese men overwhelmingly thought African women or white European women were more beautiful than their own? White women are superior...to most white men. And vice-versa, considering white women are least likely to marry outside her race in this country.
I think if we can't just state a statistic without being accused of racism, then we are not going to be able to learn and make any improvement.
ReplyDeleteWhich presupposes the people running things are interested in making improvements that may threaten the power structure. Not the way I would bet.
david epstein gives a 47 minute interview on noticing stuff, with regard to the sports gene.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy7Qf8Vq5ZI
"I think your theory only applies to Ivy League graduate slackers."
ReplyDeleteOr the slacker offspring of Ivy League graduates.
"At the upper echelons it's all about cohesive and exclusive networks that are buoyed by ethnocentrism. Mormons represent a peek at what white gentiles could accomplish with this attitude."
ReplyDeleteMormons are just slightly more group-oriented/collectivist than average WASPs. They also embrace diversity and demographic suicide for whites.
The "peek" that "white gentiles" could achieve with more cohesiveness is much higher than the accomplishments of Mormons.
Baloo:"I believe Coon used -oid terms for the five races:
ReplyDeleteCaucasoid,
Capoid,
Mongoloid,
Australoid,
Congoid."
Absolutely. And note how the clarity and utility of these terms has been corrupted by PC jargon. So, instead of Congoid/Negroid, we get the unwieldy Sub-Saharan African. For that matter note how Sub-Saharan African is also less precise, as it would seem to include peoples like the San, who are clearly a different racial type.
"Wouldn't you think it weird if Chinese men overwhelmingly thought African women or white European women were more beautiful than their own?"
ReplyDeleteYou joking?
Asians are 'liberal' for 'conservative' reasons. Conservative mind-set defer to authority, follow official dogma, don't dissent, and try to conform. As US media, education, sports, and pop-culture are so Jewish/black/homo-dominated, Asian kids who come here conform to the prevailing authority that happens to be overwhelmingly Liberal.
ReplyDeleteBut we are seeing the same thing among Conservative whites. Their basic instinct is to conform and assent with the rich and those with the power, so, one after another, we see conservatives sucking up to homos as they got used to sucking up to Jews.
As conservatism is about following, conservative mentalities will eventually follow whoever is the leader.
There is a kind of NQ or Noticing Quotient.
ReplyDeleteEverybody, even Liberals, notice things, but certain things come with taboos and most Americans are afraid to notice them.
Usually, if a taboo is tagged with 'racism' or 'antisemitism', most Americans, libs and cons, will not notice. If it's tagged with 'homophobia', most libs will not notice and lots of cons won't notice either. If it's tagged with 'sexism' or 'xenophobia', majority of libs will not notice but some will and many cons will still notice.
Suppose a mainstream conservative has a NQ of 100. Your average Lib will have a NQ of 80. Sailer is about 130. Most of you are around 140. A few are higher. I'd like to think of my NQ as 200 but I could be fooling myself.
Smerconish is a real name?
ReplyDelete"Suppose a mainstream conservative has a NQ of 100. Your average Lib will have a NQ of 80. Sailer is about 130. Most of you are around 140. A few are higher. I'd like to think of my NQ as 200 but I could be fooling myself."
ReplyDeleteNoticing too much may hurt with pattern recognition. Perhaps one's NQ-to-IQ ratio is relevant.
PC is noticing the noticing.
ReplyDeleteMost forms of political incorrectness tend to be noticing of the noticing of the noticing than simply noticing.
Defense rests on free speech than the veracity of what is noticed and said, implying that political incorrectness cannot be defended on the basis of truth but only free speech rights.
If one side says, 'we speak the truth', and the best the other side can muster is 'we speak falsehood but defend the right to speak the falsehood', then the latter will lose.
Success is based on noticing more but saying less of what you notice.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you're a sports team owner, you must notice that blacks run faster and jump higher. You'd be a fool recruit diversity--Arabs, Asians, Mexicans, Hindus, etc.
But you better not say what you notice and instead yammer about 'diversity'.
Act on but don't speak on what you notice.
"Wouldn't you think it weird if Chinese men overwhelmingly thought African women or white European women were more beautiful than their own?"
ReplyDeleteYou joking?
No, I'm not. Did I miss something there? My only understanding of what Chinese men like are those I know who are all married to Chinese women, so that is a bias on my part.
As education realist notices, Chua and her contemporaries are very good at grades and tests without a commensurate understanding of the subject matter. i.e. she don't know of what she speaks.
ReplyDeleteI like education realist, but he has an axe to grind and I don't think he's read Chua's other work, like her book "World On Fire", where she does show an understanding of subject matter, especially compared to most public intellectuals and many academics today.
Chua cannot even imagine that the Asian recipe for success is extremely well observed and well known in America, just that it has a very dull lustre for anyone not raised in the Chinese tradition of dry, hard, money-making practicality.
ReplyDeleteThe traditional American WASP elite - the "Boston Brahmins" and others - were merchants who, ironically, ascended by making their money trading with China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_China_Trade
Marissa:"No, I'm not. Did I miss something there? My only understanding of what Chinese men like are those I know who are all married to Chinese women, so that is a bias on my part."
ReplyDeleteSteve has done a number of posts on this topic. Stated crudely, Asian men are not viewed as being very attractive by White and Black women. Hence, their options are largely limited to Asian women.
Chua cannot even imagine that the Asian recipe for success is extremely well observed and well known in America, just that it has a very dull lustre for anyone not raised in the Chinese tradition of dry, hard, money-making practicality.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"The traditional American WASP elite - the "Boston Brahmins" and others - were merchants who, ironically, ascended by making their money trading with China"
And once the Brahmins made their pile, they set about engaging in public service and cultivating the arts and the sciences. They knew that money is a a matter of means, not ends.
""""""The traditional American WASP elite - the "Boston Brahmins" and others - were merchants who, ironically, ascended by making their money trading with China""""""
ReplyDeleteOpium trade? Since that was the most lucrative mid 19th century good traded. In fact, the bulk of John Kerry's Forbes family linage made tons of their wealth due to the opium trade.
Come to think of it, they weren't from Boston but FDR's family also became wealthy trading with China during the Opium years.
"And once the Brahmins made their pile, they set about engaging in public service and cultivating the arts and the sciences. They knew that money is a a matter of means, not ends."
ReplyDeleteBut doesn't the decline of America's WASP elite suggest that spending a little more time on making their pile would be wise? Competition is a fact of life, animal or human. If you stop competing, somebody is going to eat you.
Anonymous:"But doesn't the decline of America's WASP elite suggest that spending a little more time on making their pile would be wise? Competition is a fact of life, animal or human. If you stop competing, somebody is going to eat you."
ReplyDeleteOnly if you live in a Randian society.
And once the Brahmins made their pile, they set about engaging in public service and cultivating the arts and the sciences. They knew that money is a a matter of means, not ends.
ReplyDeleteActually the Brahmins themselves were largely displaced by the industrialists of the late 19th/early 20th century.
>Sailer is about 130. Most of you are around 140. A few are higher. I'd like to think of my NQ as 200<
ReplyDeleteNot certain what this means, but if you think that you or "most of" us (!) outclass our host on the topics that he excels in, then I would ask you to perform a re-think, with special attention to your manners.
As for Chua, she has noticed as much as she could, and it is in vain to expect her to match the level of her first book, which said it all and was inspired by a horrific event in her life. "Fire" is it. I expect her future titles to be increasingly less serious, on the lines of "Chicken Soup for the Tiger Mom" and "How to Teach Your Tiger Cub the Magic of Compound Interest."
FDR's family also became wealthy trading with China during the Opium years.
ReplyDeleteWarren Delano, FDR's maternal grandfather made >100 million $ trading with China. He came back to America and lost it all in the Panic of 1859. He went back to China and again made >100 million.
That's Panic of 1857.
ReplyDelete"Only if you live in a Randian society."
ReplyDeleteI don't know what kind of society we live in, but the WASPs certainly got eaten. For a while, they could both make money and engage in public service, cultivate the arts, et cetera. Then the balancing act failed.
That's a tragic thing for America.
To those saying Asian women are only for losing white men:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/30/247530095/are-you-interested-dating-odds-favor-white-men-asian-women
tl;dr - everyone likes Asian women, and white men.
I can tell you that in Silicon Valley, Yellow Fever is a thing, to the point that some white women get irked (ok, sample size of one). By way of anecdote note that Zuckerberg married an Asian woman.
jellyfish:"To those saying Asian women are only for losing white men:"
ReplyDeleteHas anyone said that they are only for losers?No, what has been said is that the social perception is that White guys who can't get White women go for Asian girls.
jellyfish:"http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/30/247530095/are-you-interested-dating-odds-favor-white-men-asian-women"
Online dating preferences are problematic. For one thing, loser White guys are more heavily represented, the kind of White guys who can't get any traction from White women in real life.
jellyfish:"I can tell you that in Silicon Valley, Yellow Fever is a thing,"
Again, the fact that White techies are into Asian girls is not exactly a shock.
jellyfish:" to the point that some white women get irked (ok, sample size of one). By way of anecdote note that Zuckerberg married an Asian woman."
And I might note that Zuckerberg does not exactly inspire erotic fantasies in White women.
@ jellyfish To those saying Asian women are only for losing white men
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/30/247530095/are-you-interested-dating-odds-favor-white-men-asian-women
Being the doyenne of internet dating isn't *exactly* a proof of being for losing white men.
Neither is getting a high response rate, e.g. men probably message back women they see as "easy" and not women they see as "tough nuts to crack". Similarly, short Asian women might be more amenable to shorter (but relatively tall) White men.
Plus, I doubt there's actually a large gap between White male responses to White and Asian women, just the White men who respond to Asians are a little er... "different" and "special".
Asian women are small, slim, babyfaced, not very curvy, rather cold and introverted (they're not exactly warm Mediterranean mom material, more anxious Tiger Mom material), somewhat irritable but tend rather to passive aggression due to low self esteem and social confidence.
Lots of White men will like that, but I'd think most White men would prefer women with average height, adult beauty (a grownup but delicate face), curves, warmth and self confidence.
Asian women will appeal to White men with Asian (read, geekazoid) personalities and White women to White men with average White man personalities.
Nerdy White men like Asian women because they tend to share low social abilities and surgency. Nerdy men can be winners in the game of life, but they *are* still nerds.
Everyone should emulate tribal middleman minorities. Sounds like a recipe for social unity and prosperity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything in the blurb Sailer pasted here and I don't have any truck with Chua/Rubenfeld on an intellectual level.
ReplyDeleteYet I can't feel sorry for someone who thinks that becoming a law professor and getting married to a law professor is the pinnacle of life achievement.
I remember most of my law school profs were pompous, self-important buffoons. The married professor couples (my law school had 3 prof couples, I'm guessing this a common phenomenon) were the most insufferable, pretentious social climbers of the bunch. Shades of the Obamas & Clintons. Yecch.
"Everyone should emulate tribal middleman minorities. Sounds like a recipe for social unity and prosperity."
ReplyDeleteI wonder how this book would have been greeted if it had focused on individuals than on groups. Suppose it didn't mention any ethnic group but theorized that many successful individuals have gained something from this triple package thing.
Ross Perot may qualify. In politics, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, especially as they came from humble backgrounds--unlike Kennedy and Bush with huge wind on their backs.
The book prolly would not have been very controversial.
But many successful people prolly had little to do with tripackage. Social Network makes a tripackage case for Zuckerberg. He was this little Jew with a very high opinion of himself but was dumped by his girl, rejected by fancy college clubs, and kicked around as hireling by Anglo-Nazi clone twins. So, there was the superiority complex, insecurity thing, and lots of drive and focus.
Except the real Zuck wasn't like that. He just happened to be very bright, very energetic, and very shrewd by nature. He didn't suffer from any complexes. And I think same goes for the Google jerks. They probably feel superior due to higher IQ but they prolly lack a superiority complex, which is more complicated. Generally, people who naturally feel superior and are superior and have all the doors open to them to succeed don't suffer from any complex.
They suffer from complex if (1) they feel/are superior but doors are closed to them or (2) they feel superior but aren't really all that special and have a hard time facing the fact(like the guy in PAPER CHASE with superb memory but no reasoning skills).
As Zuck and Google guys are naturally smart and had all the doors open to them, I doubt if they felt any complex about their superiority. If they'd gone to schools where 'big dumb polacks' who pushed them around, they might have developed the geek complex, but I think they went to happy schools where everyone was friendly and supportive. And I think this was true of Bill Gates as well. Most Jews today go to nice schools with few if any bullies. My highschool had lots of Jews, and very few unpleasant types, at least back in the 80s. It was a nice environment, not a place that fed nasty complexes.
Steve Jobs was different from other high tech bigshots. He was smart but adopted into average family. He was smart but not as smart as the super computer geeks, so he had to compensate with force of personality and 'vision' thing. His big personality rubbed many people the wrong way, and he had to prove the worth of his personality and vision.
"Yet I can't feel sorry for someone who thinks that becoming a law professor and getting married to a law professor is the pinnacle of life achievement."
ReplyDeleteI don't think she does. In a way, both admit they are failures of sorts. Rubenfeld failed at acting, his great passion. Chua couldn't make it through science and math. So, they settled for law. But success in law at Ivy League is still pretty good as only a handful of law students get that far.
I don't like lawyers either, however. I think we have rule of lawyers than rule of law. Law is just a gimmick of lawyers who really don't give a shit about laws except the kind that suits them. Take that Richard Posner guy. Punkass jerk.
"I can tell you that in Silicon Valley, Yellow Fever is a thing, to the point that some white women get irked"
ReplyDeleteSexual racism!!! The preference for certain races over others as sexual mates!!! Hate!!
Maybe bisexuals can accuse straight men and homos of 'sexual sexism', the preference for one sex than for both sexes. How dare straight men prefer women over men? How dare homo men prefer men over women?
You see, bisexuals are sexually anti-sexist since they like both sexes.
Good lord. All this amateur psychologizing about white men and Asian women.
ReplyDeleteI'm white and I've dated just about every kind of woman there is to date, but in the end I prefer Asians. Why? Simple - I think they're more physically attractive.
Chua's theory is even more annoying than the liberal view. The cultural argument is unscientific nonsense. It's just that every race has some groups that selectively migrate to the US. Nothing more, nothing, less. It's just another form of HBD denial.
ReplyDelete"Except the real Zuck wasn't like that. He just happened to be very bright, very energetic, and very shrewd by nature."
ReplyDeleteI read up on Zuckerberg's family, and, yeah, his dad is only a dentist, but he's an extremely successful dentist. His mother is a psychiatrist, but she only practiced for a year after her children were born and then quit to be a stay at home mom. They're like an indoor version of one of these Winter Olympic families with money and high-achieving kids.
Extreme outlier success is much more about luck. Hard work and talent will get you a nice car and a good job.
ReplyDeleteExtreme success has a much higher proportion of luck in it.
For every guy like Zuck who makes it big there are countless just as good who you never hear about. It's called survivorship bias.
You then retrofit the narrative to explain Zuck's success by all sorts of personal qualities.
Again, hard work and high IQ will get you a nice apartment in NYC with a BMW. Beyond that its much more about pure, simple, randomness.
But no way would Zuck tell you that.
Co ethnics controlling arbitration and tribunals that favour your proprietary rights don't hurt your chances either.
DeleteEric, you only date Asian women because you find them the most attractive?
ReplyDeleteWhy not just only date attractive women?
To limit yourself to a sub-set of attractive women rather than the whole set means, by definition, that it isn't attractiveness that is motivating you, because you now have a smaller pool of attractive women to choose from. Simple statistics.
Just sayin'.
And not that there's anything wrong with you having an Asian fetish - but it ain't because you find them most attractive.
To limit yourself to a sub-set of attractive women rather than the whole set means...
ReplyDeleteWhere did I say I limit myself? I'll date any woman I find attractive. All I'm saying is the Asians are over-represented in that group.
You said you "prefer" Asian women - in other words you are selecting for Asianness and not merely ending up with Asianess after selecting for beauty. You didn't say Asian women end up being over-represented in the pool of attractive women you select from. In other words, you don't "end up" with Asians as the result of a statistical distribution that characterizes the sample set "attractive women". You actively seek them out out of preference. Your words.
ReplyDeleteSounds fetishy (not that there's anything wrong with that)
You said Asian women are "more attractive" - not "most attractive women are Asian". There is a big difference between those statements, my friend. Big.
Nope. Quite clear that you are selecting for Asianness and not merely ending up with Asianess after selecting for beauty. Sorry. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Look at it this way, we are all mysteries to ourselves, and you just learned something about yourself that you can use to structure your life. You got the yellow fever.
And I might note that Zuckerberg does not exactly inspire erotic fantasies in White women.
ReplyDeleteHe's normal looking and is worth billions. Most women of every background would be glad to have him.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/02/18/Rich-UK-Kids-Worse-at-Maths-Than-Children-of-Chinese-Cleaners
ReplyDeleteEric:"Good lord. All this amateur psychologizing about white men and Asian women."
ReplyDeleteIt's how society perceives it.
Eric:"I'm white and I've dated just about every kind of woman there is to date, but in the end I prefer Asians. Why? Simple - I think they're more physically attractive."
Yeah, and I know a White guy who is massively into Black girls. Personal preference is meaningless when we are talking about the mass tendencies.
Amy Chua is 51 years old, but she looks like she is in her late 30s or early 40s at the most.
ReplyDeleteShe got some good aging genes.
Jefferson:"Amy Chua is 51 years old, but she looks like she is in her late 30s or early 40s at the most.
ReplyDeleteShe got some good aging genes."
No, she looks like a woman in her late 40s-early 50s who takes care of herself.
"Amy Chua is 51 years old, but she looks like she is in her late 30s or early 40s at the most. She got some good aging genes."
ReplyDelete"No, she looks like a woman in her late 40s-early 50s who takes care of herself."
What is this, National Inquirer?
Most women of every background would be glad to have him.
ReplyDeleteMost women would be glad to divorce him.
Triple Package seems to apply to the higher-end of the above-average people than to the really smart ones.
ReplyDeleteI think the really smart people of any community will do very well with or without triple package.
Really smart people tend to be more interested, more curious, more ambitious. And they got the smarts to become Bill Gates and others like him.
But there are people who are smart but not too smart. If they just coast along, they will do pretty well in society, but if they wanna rise higher, they have to work much harder.
This is where triple package matters. Not with Chinese, Hindus, and etc with IQ of 160 but those with IQ of 125 to 135. They feel superior to most people since 125-135 is pretty damn good but they are not as good as those with super IQs. So, they feel superior but also feel insecure. And they gotta compensate for lack of true genius with lots of hard work.
Chua wasn't as smart as her pa, so she had to work a lot harder to secure her higher place in life.
So, Trip Package should really be read as a higher-end-of-above-average manifesto. Or battle hymn of the smart but not too smart, aka the leopard that wants to be a tiger.
"And I might note that Zuckerberg does not exactly inspire erotic fantasies in White women."
ReplyDeleteHe's normal looking and is worth billions. Most women of every background would be glad to have him.
He's an uptalker.
And I might note that Zuckerberg does not exactly inspire erotic fantasies in White women.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"He's normal looking and is worth billions. Most women of every background would be glad to have him."
They would be glad to have his billions; they would not be glad to have him.