January 5, 2014

Everybody Hates Amy, Part II

Amy Chua owns January. 

Most of the news media shut down over the last 10 days in December, just running boring and inane articles about the top ten whatevers of the year and what it all means. (I particularly enjoy the highbrow film critics' attempts to find the common theme in the year's movies: "Like Twelve Years a Slave, American Hustle, and Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Gravity and We're the Millers speak to our growing concern that ...") 

What this means is that all the long running conversations get interrupted, and once halted, do you really want to restart them? So the door is slightly ajar in early January for somebody to elbow through, as Chua did in January 2011 with Tiger Mother.
Tiger Mom accused of being a 'full-blown racist' as her new book names the eight 'superior' races and religions that make better parents 
Tiger Mom Amy Chua has penned a new parenting guide called 'The Triple Package' which lays out a controversial theory for success in modern America
Declares there to be only eight successful and superior groups of people in the United States

By JAMES NYE

She gained notoriety in 2011 as the uncompromising 'Tiger Mom' - boastful that Chinese mothers make better parents and ultimately have more successful children. 
Now though, Amy Chua, 51, has inspired the fury of the public on Twitter with her new controversial theory that some races and religions are just superior to everyone else. 
Dubbed 'simply racist' by one commentor on Twitter, another pulled no punches and called her a 'full blown eugenics pushing racist!' 
Others were more diplomatic charging that 'Chua has now begun treading territory uncomfortably close to racism.' 
Published in the new book, 'The Triple Package', that she has written with her Jewish husband Jed Rubenfeld, Chua names the eight groupings that are exceptional in no particular order - and unsurprisingly, the Chinese are one of the top dogs. 
The other seven are Jewish, Indian, Iranian, Lebanese-Americans, Nigerians, Cuban exiles and Mormons. 
Clearly one of these groupings is a religion and by calling them 'cultural', never ethnic, racial or religious, Chua and her husband seek to avoid the hugely controversial criticism this would bring. 
However, Chua does identify three distinguishing features these eight peoples have that guarantees them success over others; superiority, insecurity and impulse control. 
'That certain groups do much better in America than others — as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on — is difficult to talk about,' the authors write.

'In large part, this is because the topic feels so racially charged.' 
Chua and her husband argue that far from pointing fingers and exulting certain cultural groups, they are agitating for everyone else to follow their example and bring back America's glory days. 
Spelling improved -- the Daily Mail appears to have given up not only editors, but spell-checkers.

65 comments:

SociallyExtinct said...

Yes, it's the "New Year dump."

Why do all the Gawkerites keep fixating on the "superior" thing?

Superior has become a new bad word unless you're talking about the Lake.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't Chua have listed the Igbo people and not Nigerians in general?

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't Chua have also specified Lebanese Christians? As far as I know Lebanese Shiites are not known as being economically successful.

Anonymous said...

Why do all the Gawkerites keep fixating on the "superior" thing?

Better yet, why did they drop "complex". Isn't it "superiority complex" and not just "superiority"? I mean if it was just superiority, no other reason would needed.

Anonymous said...

Ed:

"The big problem is that a majority of these are not races at all."

No problem, if you at some time decide to read the article, since she was categorizing by "culture."

Read before you comment, please.

Anonymous said...

"The big problem is that a majority of these are not races at all."

No problem, if you at some time decide to read the article, since she was categorizing by "culture."

Read before you comment, please.


Race/Culture. For these intents and purposes, this is a distinction without a difference.

Dave Pinsen said...

The original version of the Post article yesterday had races in the title too. Clearly, Chua and husband included Nigerians to insulate themselves against charges of racism.

By the way, Chua looks amazing for 51.

Reg Cæsar said...

I walked eight miles to hear Amy Chua speak during a bus strike. Then walked back. So where is my group on this list?

I was quite the tiger bachelor then.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know the cost/benefit of the Amish compared to other groups? I assume they don't serve in the military, so that would be a minus. But many of the eight super groups she mentions don't really serve either.

I don't think the Amish collect welfare or social security. I doubt they commit many crimes against others. So that's a plus.

So all in all are the Amish really losers? They're good stewards of good farmland. They provide food and furniture, and they don't burden our public schools or use the social safety net.

True, the Amish won't pioneer new technology. But I'd rather have them then the countless groups that suck off the government teet, commit violent and white-collar crimes, and lobby the government to enact the polices that Chua claims have ruined this nation over the past 50 years.

If Amish are losers, give me losers any day.

SQT said...

I haven't figured out how I feel about Chua yet-- but it is an inescapable fact that the Daily Mail is pretty much unreadable. The people who run that magazine can't even copy and paste competently.

Anonymous said...

"She gained notoriety in 2011 as the uncompromising 'Tiger Mom' - boastful that Chinese mothers make better parents and ultimately have more successful children."

But that wasn't the point of the book. It's as much about the limits as well as the advantages of of tiger motherhood.

But Chua's book cannot touch Anchee Min's. I got interested cuz I found out she was an art student. Though I didn't major in art, I did take some art classes(for fun) and hung around that crowd in college. What Anchee said about art school had me laughing so hard. Yeah, it's a freaking joke. The film is Art School Confidential is only slightly exaggerating.

But there's a lot of food for thought and it's surely one of the most un-pc books published in a long time.

In contrast, Chua had a princess life, and her me-so-great shtick sort of grates on me. But she's been terribly misinterpreted.

Rifleman said...

Dubbed 'simply racist' by one commentor on Twitter, another pulled no punches and called her a 'full blown eugenics pushing racist!'

Oooo, on Twitter of all places.

Which is like saying - "according to some graffiti written on a wall at the Port Authority bus terminal men's room"!

The Armenians seem to have come in under the radar as far as this power couple are concerned.

I wonder if the Kardashians have permanently harmed the brand.

Anonymous said...

me-so-great

Haha. That's awesome.

Anonymous said...

"Now though, Amy Chua, 51, has inspired the fury of the public on Twitter with her new controversial theory that some races and religions are just superior to everyone else."

But this is a total distortion of the point she is making. She isn't talking about religions or races/nationalities per se but about certain characteristics that have grown around certain groups as the result of history, be they religious or ethnic.

Was it Chua's idea to get her hubby onboard? Good move. That way, a Jew is 'guilty' too.

Me thinks the elites are using Chua to say controversial stuff that they themselves don't have the guts to say and then bashing her for saying shocking things.
This way, they get the ideas out but cover themselves by bashing those ideas.



Anonymous said...

Here's a pretty interesting portrait of the editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail. The online edition is run by another guy though.

Anonymous said...

'full blown eugenics pushing racist!'

If it's about eugenics, how come the book says these traits can be learned and absorbed by other groups.

Oh boy, I guess this is a case of 'reverse intelligence'.

wren said...

Spelling improved -- the Daily Mail appears to have given up not only editors, but spell-checkers.

In an article about hair conditioners or something they gave away the fact that some of their writers are very young.


Fat Man said...

I saw her on C-Span being interviewed once about a book she had written. A history not a book about child rearing. I thought she was cute, but very obnoxious.

Whiskey said...

Interesting that most people now associate Nigeria with scams and at home, Boko Haram, and ultra-violence and stupidity. The police in Nigeria and security services are simply to low IQ to even investigate bombings, is the reluctant and carefully couched November issue 2013 Nat Geo article. I was shocked to see typical African failure and dysfunction written so clearly in the mainstream.

Chua is Asian, so "racism" charges won't stick like against a White guy. As China becomes more powerful, Chinese attitudes I saw and heard expressed in Tsinghua University in the 1990's will get more airing: Blacks are racially inferior, Whites/Hispanics only a smidge compared Chinese, the Chinese way is the best, authoritarianism is the best way to organize politics and life, Blacks and Hispanics need a firm hand to guide them and control them, etc.

The multicultural rainbow will have guys who thought it funny when Tibetan Monks set themselves on fire running things. How much do you think those hard guys will give in to Black/Hispanic victim mongering and guilt-pushing?

I'd ask the Uighurs of XianXing who when they fight the police get whole communities leveled.

Unknown said...

Shouldn't Chua have also specified Lebanese Christians?

She also lumps "Iranians". In reality Iran is composed of a number of ethnic groups - true Persians are not the most succesful either. I suspect most Iranian immmigrants to the US have a lot of Armenian ancestry. Iranian Azeris also seem to be a very sucessful ethnic minority inside Iran and probably among the diaspora as well. Iran is a lot like Turkey - there is a lot of hidden ethnic factionalism going on underneath the surface.

Peter the Shark said...

Shouldn't Chua have also specified Lebanese Christians?

She also lumps "Iranians". In reality Iran is composed of a number of ethnic groups - true Persians are not the most succesful either. I suspect most Iranian immmigrants to the US have a lot of Armenian ancestry. Iranian Azeris also seem to be a very sucessful ethnic minority inside Iran and probably among the diaspora as well. Iran is a lot like Turkey - there is a lot of hidden ethnic factionalism going on underneath the surface.

Anonymous said...

"Dubbed 'simply racist' by one commentor on Twitter, another pulled no punches and called her a 'full blown eugenics pushing racist!'"

So now it's OK to quote random Twitter posts by random people as if they mean something?

The main stream media is just a complete waste.

Reading real genius writers like Steve and John Derbyshire just makes me cringe at these mediocre journalist majors.

DMac said...

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Christopher Paul said...

Actually, the print Daily Mail is quite clean. The sloppiness of the website is a head-scratcher.

Anonymous said...

Oooo, on Twitter of all places.

Which is like saying - "according to some graffiti written on a wall at the Port Authority bus terminal men's room"!


LOL! Silicon Valley has made millions turning the men's room wall next to the urinals into Twitter using 21st century whiz-bang technology.

gubbler said...

All this 'superiority' charge misses the point.

Chua is saying that it's the neurotic blend of superiority-ism and inferiority-ism that does the trick.

If one only feels superior, one begins to feel like king of the hill and takes it easy, like the hare vs the tortoise.

If one only feels inferior, one resigns to being a bean-eater... or a beaner. Si senor, I will pick your lettuce if you give me tortilla to eat.

But if one feels superior but also feels that world sees him as inferior, there is a great drive to right this 'wrong'.
Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc all had superior-inferior complex.
That's what fueled them. They felt superior but were on the bottom. This felt terribly unjust to them, and they about 'righting that wrong' with extreme drive and ruthlessness.

So, Chua isn't talking about racial or religious superiority per se. It's about a state of mind premised on an existential contradiction(or maybe duality).

It's bound to piss off a lot of people because PC tags 'supremacism' with some groups--Nazi Germans, wasp 'racists', and militarist Japanese--while tagging other groups as mere noble victims. It is rather incendiary to say that NON-WHITES could also have feelings of resentful superiority. Generally, the narrative would have us believe that the rise of non-white power(esp Jewish) has been a struggle against white superiority-ism. Chua says Chinese, Jews, and even blacks are driven by the desire to be superior themselves. Superiority-ism isn't limited to whites and to 'honorary whites' the Japanese.

Also, due to influence of Marxism and Freudianism, 'progressives' like to believe in resolution of problems. Marxism envisioned the left demolishing and abolishing the right. Freudianism has neurosis overcome by finding some magical harmony between the sex drive and social order.

Chua's contention is that power derives from contradiction and not from resolution. In other words, instead of purging or resolving our neurosis, we should embrace it as the negative and positive charges that spark electricity.

Look at homo elites.

http://www.criterion.com/films/1078-hobson-s-choice

In the BBC doc "The Hollywood Greats: Charles Laughton", a homo guy Christopher Isherwood said that society made people like him and Laughton feel inferior cuz they were homo, and they tried to compensate by showing how they were superior. Well, some homos did rise very high.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rKiSjD-Q1E

There is sort of a quasi-fascist element to Chua's point. Unlike Marxism that tried to create a perfect utopia one one class and one vision, fascism thrived on contradictions as natural and ineradicable. So, people are being freaked out by Nietchua.

Thus Spake ZaraChuastra.

Albrecht said...

Chua's omission of WASPs stands out until you remember we have had 300 years to stratify socially.

My WASP grandfather was the youngest of three. His sister was a kind of early 20th C. baby mama in the backwoods of New Hampshire. His brother never rose above honorable mediocrity. My grandfather, however, went to college on a full scholarship and went on to a successful career as a chemist.

This is how America worked. If it was in you to rise, you rose. if not, not. Today, of course, the game is skewed to favor the less able.

The point is that by the late 19th C. the old-stock had completely sorted itself into a semi-meritocratic caste system. That is until 1965 when our local Brahmins were forced once again to compete against world class social aggressors.

One reason certain immigrants succeed is that immigration serves as a filter. You have to have a certain amount on the ball just to get here. This is even true, though to a lesser degree, for Mexicans and South Americans.

(This would not apply to groups, like Somalis, "settled" here as "refugees" nor to those brought here involuntarily.)

And let us not forget that many of the groups Chua sites are notoriously clannish and oily rug merchant types.

Of course, for WASPs (aka Americans), clannishness is now effectively illegal.

Anonymous said...

Chua might have clarified thing a bit better if she put things more in historical perspective.

After all, Chinese attitudes changed over history.

At one time, Chinese were totally certain of their superiority. They felt their domain was the middle kingdom. They had nothing to learn from others. And the fact that even non-Chinese invaders--Mongols and Manchus--became absorbed into Chinese culture was further proof of Chinese superiority. Even when China lost, they eventually won. Even barbarians who invaded China 'surrendered' Chinese values and ways of doing things.

But this preening and overly confident superiority-ism made the Chinese complacent ans self-satisfied, as it had nothing to learn from the world. So, China stagnated. It became like the hare in the hare/tortoise story.

But then came the shock. British and others not only invaded but were obviously superior and more advanced in so many fields.
Suddenly, the superior-ist Chinese were loaded with the neurosis of inferiority. And since then, they've been trying very hard to catch up and even surpass the west. So, for Chinese to rise very fast, they needed a combo of superiority and inferiority complexes.

Of course, this needs to happen in relative freedom.
Mao's China and North Korea had superiority/inferiority complex(as well as deferment of gratification and impulse control), but as all the power was centered in the hands of a few, most people had no freedom or opportunity to be ambitious in business or creativity.

Anyway, it's not Chineseness per se but Chineseness as it was transformed in conflict with the west.

More problematically, in order for the superior-inferior-disciplined folks to succeed, there needs to childish suckers who will buy their populist-oriented vulgar products.
If everyone in America were driven-and-disciplined, far fewer would folks be mindless consumers of junk. and Hollywood would collapse. Those who make the films are disciplined but they rely on popcorn munching slobs to buy the tickets. Mexers will watch Fast and Furious 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
'I will pick your lettuce and watch your movies'.

For some to succeed, others must suck seed.

Maybe elites are pissed at Chua partly because she is spilling the beans of how power really works. These are trade secrets. You're not supposed to give them away, just like wolves and vamps in Twilight are supposed to be shhhhhh about their secrets.

http://youtu.be/3G52DGsJTCg?t=2m56s

http://youtu.be/znvrflLDttg?t=39s

Anonymous said...

Spelling probs:

"who never quite receives his just deserts"

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/04/the_war_over_wolf_of_wall_street/

Anonymous said...

But the black man is the original man! :) It's kind of clever how she selected examples from every racial group. I mean, we know that Nigerians kick ass all over the Japs!

Anonymous said...

Chua can come to a civilization the white man built and work and study hard at the institutions he created (universities, law, et al.) and now thinks her "culture" is superior. Half of China and more than half of India sh!t in the open but they are superior cultures because they can comes to white European Christian society study hard at its universities, get an engineering degree, and make a fast buck at a high-tech start up.

Yeah, these peoples will have as much success at a wonderful society after the white European Christian is off the stage as blacks did in post-Apartheid South Africa. Maybe less so.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Armenians...I remember listening to Adam Carolla a few months back and he was comparing/contrasting the Armenians in the Fresno (where had just done a show) and the Armenians from Glendale (where he broadcasts his podcast). Apparently, the Armenians in the Fresno area are relatively mild-mannered and assimilated but the Glendale Armenians were "Africanized Armenians". Just something that made me chuckle. I love it when Carolla is unpc, which is quite a lot. At least he is as unpc as anyone in media can be, though the comic Andy Kindler spent a half hour in Montreal calling Carolla a Nazi a few months ago.

Anonymous said...

All these opinion pieces ought to be called offendion pieces.

While people don't like to BE offended, they often like to FEEL offended.
It clarifies things as people don't like uncertainty and anxiety. It also makes people feel self-righteous. This explains the 'hate hoax' mania. Though the outraged groups don't want to be defamed, they like to feel defamed... so they cook up fake outrages to feel the feeling. Hatesturbation.

People prefer a feeling of certainty(even on false assumptions) than anxiety. Anxiety is complicated and forces one to think, which most people don'twant to do.
It's like a girl once came to me for console-ment after her boyfriend went into some crazy fit. The boyfriend asked her if she loved him, and she answered she likes him and may love him one day, but the silly jerk twisted this into 'you just wanna use me my money blah blah'. Why did he spin it into something so nasty?
There is certainty in love and there is certainty in hate. But 'like' and 'maybe' can mean a lot of things, all uncertain. So, he twisted her uncertainty into 'hate' and self-righteously acted the victim of a girl who only wanted to use a wonderful guy like hisself.
But girls act like this too. Consider Catherine in JULES AND JIM who turns everything into a micro-aggression slight and lashes out. She torments others but plays the tormented. Good thing she never wanted to play golf at a country club.

Jacob Black in TWILIGHT has this tendency. Bella doesn't mean to hurt him but he twists her words to make himself feel offended and righteous--though he eventually grows out of this petulance. (I still say Bella shouldn't have kissed the injun. I mean what the hell is that?)

Take Woody Allen in the beginning of Woody Allen. "Didya eat?" becomes "Jew eat?"
In HANNAH AND HER HER SISTERS, he's a hypochondriac who thinks his body is conspiring against him. If it's not his body, it's other people or the universe. A sociochondriac and cosmochondriac. Yet, as bad as he feels about this, it's also like a narcotic because the sense that everyone and everything is out to get him fills him with some kind of certainty.
This is why, when K is finally killed in the Trial, it is something of a relief because K knows for certain that the system was indeed out to get him. Prior to that, he wasn't sure if his 'crime' ha been serious or not. All anxiety. (To be sure, K could have been killed merely to cover up a bureaucratic mess-up that falsely accused him of a crime than for any real 'crime'.)

Anonymous said...

Or take Tommy in GOODFELLAS who turns 'you're a funny guy' into the macro-micro-aggressive insult of the century. Eventually, they all laugh about it, but had Henry played it wrong, it could have ended very differently.
And when the restaurant owner tells Tommy about the money owed, Tommy acts like he is the offended one again. Tommy offends everyone but loves to feel offended by everyone.

Same kind of mind-set prevails in the media. Chua's book may be no intellectual breakthrough, but it is thought-provoking and takes us into grey zones about power and success. Too much anxiety! Much easier to say CHUA OFFENDED US WITH HER 'RACISM'.
I suppose if Zimmerman can be a 'white hispanic' and blanket man at Oberlin can be the KKK, Chua can be the 'Chinese Nazi'--and her husband the 'Jewish nazi'.

The media still works in the manner of the 'good war'. There are good guys vs bad guys, and there should be no grey areas.
Same with Larry Summers and the 'gender iq' thing. He didn't mean to offend but it was turned into a case of misogyny. This was rather odd since the feminists didn't attack all the academic research that backed Summer's hypothesis.
So, data could support Summers, but Summers couldn't summarize the data into a suggestion. It's like how my mother let me complain about school and put it down, but she forbade me to say 'I hate school'. So, I could put forth all the evidence as to why school sucked--which amounted to 'I hate school'--but I couldn't sat those three words.

Cons pull the same trick. When John Kerry said something about American troops some year ago, cons turned it into an 'insult' at our troops. When Obama, in the mildest terms, criticized settlement building, it was turned into 'he threw Israel under the bus'.

Feeling offended sure feels good.

gubblez said...

Whatever value Chua's new book has, it's prolly only useful in the practical world for people with innate talent.

If a Mexican with an IQ of 90 reads the book and follows its advice, how far will he go?

"Maria, I got a book and it tell me how we gonna have mucho dinero. It say we need feel supremo, feel not so good, and have some control. So, from manana, I tell myself we mexicans so great cuz we make great tacos, the best in the world. But I also say maybe our tacos can be better. That way, I feel supremo and not so good at same time. And then, I control myself. If I want a gigante burrito, I make himself eat small one. My impulse to eat no longer so loco."

After a year.

"My belly not so big as last year, but why I still picking lettuce? That Chua just a chino chica puta who fool me real good, no?"

Anonymous said...

It does seem peculiar that she omits what has been by far the most dominant and successful group in human history of the last five hundred years - white, Western, Christians.

But I suppose that would be a bridge too far.

Jason said...

It is pretty funny, isn't it, the way the media is jumping all over Chua the way it is (I heard some ABC news reporter just last night while making dinner talking about how "controversial" Chua and her husband are, while - surprise! - not demonstrating exactly how they are really controversial). The thing is, I'm sure Chua knew this is exactly what would happen; indeed, I suspect she rather enjoys all the notoriety and attention she is getting. Good for her, I say. (Funny how her husband, as usual, seems to be basically ignored through all of this, except by your commentators.) I just hope that she - and her husband! - sticks to her guns and does not try to weisel out when the cannons really start to fire at her. She should take inspiration from the late Peter O'Toole and go all Lawrence of Arabia: "No prisoners! No prisoners!" which should not be too hard, since I suspect she and her husband have tenure at Yale.

Geoff Matthews said...

This sounds like "The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic, Part 2". Weber postulated why part of Germany did better than other parts (and expand to Europe in general).
There are a lot of holes in her argument, but the notion of delayed gratification is certainly something were looking at.
Of course, this isn't a novel idea (I'm sure Weber remarked on this, though its been decades since I've read him), and the notion that self-esteem and self-doubt play a balancing act lead to success sounds nice, but I'm pretty sure its garbage.

Robert What? said...

Nigerians? Am I missing something?

SFG said...

There's a lot of ethnic hairsplitting here, and I can see why that would be the case, but don't you think Chua has a point? That there really has been a decline in virtue among the natives and some groups of immigrants are more hardworking and enterprising?

It's not really an argument for ethnic replacement--you could argue instead the native population ought to be cured of its bad habits--but Ms. Chua is correct, and the variety of groups shows that if the genes aren't distributed equally around the world, at the least good genes can be found in many places.

Anonymous said...

The book is elitist than 'racist'.

But it focuses on elitism-with-climb mentality than elitism-with-resting-on-laurels mentality. The powerful who take their power for granted eventually lose out.

Anonymous said...

"It does seem peculiar that she omits what has been by far the most dominant and successful group in human history of the last five hundred years - white, Western, Christians."

The book is not historical. It's about which groups have those qualities RIGHT NOW in America. Those who have it now may lose it in the future, those who don't have might it now may have it in the future.

It's like when we talk of Romans, it depends on WHEN. Romans on the rise or Romans on the decline?
In Battle Hymn, Chua stated that she's worried about the rise and decline of groups and families.

ricpic said...

An aspect of belonging to a group that thinks of itself as superior is that you are expected to be successful, to be an achiever, and falling short of that standard you are judged, severely, and in effect are allowed to exist but in internal exile, you can never be "one of us." Talk about an incentive to be an achiever! This is what Chau is getting at concerning the importance of a sense of superiority in the culture of "chosen peoples." The flip side of her equation, what she calls insecurity, also makes sense. The terror of failing and living the rest of your life as a "loser," when one is born into a superior group, is so great that in school, or at work, or in any competitive activity, you make a gargantuan effort to avoid failure, you overcompensate, you are the student or the worker who is seen as "running scared," the insecure one.

Anonymous said...

(Funny how her husband, as usual, seems to be basically ignored through all of this, except by your commentators.)

Scroll up to comment by Dave Pinsen for explanation.

Anonymous said...

>> By the way, Chua looks amazing for 51


no - she has an amazing facility for following excellent advice from the derm's and plastic surgeons.

The elites do.

Anonymous said...

>> for WASPs (aka Americans), clannishness is now effectively illegal

Smooth operators are born, not made.


"I don't need a lawyer to tell me what I can't do - I need a lawyer who can tell me how to do it".
- J.P. Morgan

Anonymous said...

>> Was it Chua's idea to get her hubby onboard? Good move. That way, a Jew is 'guilty' too.

NO, I imagine it was her publisher, who of course is in complete control of the contents of the book and how it gets pitched.

If you were selling marked-up sneakers, you'd suck up to Blacks.

If you sell over-priced books, you'd tack a Rubenstein onto the cover.

Anonymous said...

The criticism of her piece ranges from people being offended because she dares to suggest that there are superior culture to outrage over which groups are on or not on the list.

To me the key is her line about buying into post-1960s liberal America. If your family holds firm to traditional values you'll do fine in this country. If your values are determinant on the latest fads from Jewish dominated media and Hollywood you're in trouble.

Truth said...

""Maria, I got a book and it tell me how we gonna have mucho dinero. It say we need feel supremo, feel not so good, and have some control. So, from manana, I tell myself we mexicans so great cuz we make great tacos, the best in the world. But I also say maybe our tacos can be better. That way, I feel supremo and not so good at same time. And then, I control myself. If I want a gigante burrito, I make himself eat small one. My impulse to eat no longer so loco."

"My belly not so big as last year, but why I still picking lettuce? That Chua just a chino chica puta who fool me real good, no?

Was grafting an "o" onto the end of, like, three words really necessary here?

Anonymous said...

Amish may be well off but they are not seeking power and dominance.

Also, they don't compete with others but live in cooperation on the farms. So, no matter how well-off they may be, their scope of achievement will be limited. No billionaires among them.

Anonymous said...

Spirit of capitalism is one of those truly delicious works whose authority is undermined by events in the authors country namely Bavaria. Honestly if Poland had gone Protestant and Germany remained catholic that book would have been called the catholic spirit of capitalism.

Anonymous said...

"Was grafting an "o" onto the end of, like, three words really necessary here?"

No spik ingles. Mucho necessito, senor negro.

Anonymous said...

Chua gives formula for success but success requires suckers.

Take PT Barnum. He was very successful cuz there's a sucker born every minute.

The music industry tycoons would be out of business if there weren't so many suckers for Smiley Circus.

For some to sell 'hope', others have to buy it.

This is the paradox of success/suckers that Chua overlooks. If everyone acted like responsible Jews and Chinese in America, rich Jews and Chinese would have made much less money from the mindless consumers.

For the shepherd to make the dough, he needs the sheep.

Anonymous said...

"It does seem peculiar that she omits what has been by far the most dominant and successful group in human history of the last five hundred years - white, Western, Christians."

Again, she's talking about NOW. It's not a history book. She didn't include most whites cuz she thinks they lost it through complacency and softness. (I haven't read the book but I'm guessing what she thinks.) She includes Mormons because Mormons are whites who still have an outsider-consciousness that makes them want to prove their worth. Mormons are both proud of their separateness and eager to be accepted by the larger community. It's this tension-filled paradox that motivates them.
Amish, in contrast, are just happy to be on their own. Mormons are universalist and tribalist. That gives them the edge. In contrast, episcos try to be so universalist that they've lost a sense of 'us and our power'; they just cave into the needs of other groups. And Southern baptists are so happy being slobs that they don't mind if they're ignorant and drooling saliva from the sides of their mouths.

If anything, this book should be a wake-up call for whites to regain their sense of grievance, and to regain their sense of superiority(cultural, historical, etc) and develop a sense of resentful inferiority(against smarter Jews, workaholic Asians, and tough Negroes). This is something feared by PC. They want whites to denounce any sense of white superiority and to make whites feel guilty of having too much 'privilege', thus negating any possibility of white resentment.

Chua is right in that resentment, while a negative emotion, is a driving force in the game of power. Jews often mock whites for their resentment of richer Jews and etc, but no group has been filled with more resentment than Jews have been. And China today is Resentment Inc.

White America rose fast in the 19th century due to superiority complex, inferiority complex, and Prot work ethic. Americans felt they were superior as free men with land, liberty, and opportunity. But they felt an inferiority complex in art and letters to the Europeans where all the high culture was.
So, Americans compensated with economic development. And from Twain to Hemingway, Americans tried to develop their own voice and verve to show that they had a culture too.

Today, too many white Americans have this notion of 'we are number one' while holding a can of beer.
KING OF THE HILL may be a decent show, but guys like Hank don't get anywhere.

The lib side has more groups with resentment: Jews, blacks, homos, feminists, and etc. So, they are feisty and aggressive.

The con side has more groups with complacency. Some are resentful but in a defensive than offensive posture, especially as the powers-that-be push the narrative that whites, with all their 'white privilege', have no right to be resentful.

Resent and Resist.

Anonymous said...

There's a lot of ethnic hairsplitting here, and I can see why that would be the case, but don't you think Chua has a point? That there really has been a decline in virtue among the natives and some groups of immigrants are more hardworking and enterprising?


I think the point is that the "decline in virtue among the natives" is something which has been aggressively promoted by "some groups of immigrants".

blogger said...

The Chua Paradox: superior cultures feel inferior; for a culture to be superior, its people must feel inferior.

To right this 'wrong', they have iron discipline and eyes focused on the goal.

Anonymous said...

Over at Racism Watch a.k.a. TheRoot.com, folks conclude that her book is "obnoxious but not racist": http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/01/amy_chua_s_new_triple_package_is_obnoxious_but_not_racist.html
The reason? "But there are black people included on Chua’s eclectic list: Nigerians"! Amy is no dummy - she knew how predictable all this is gonna be. So just call them 'cultural groups', include Nigerians and go on with the message.

Black Sea said...

Chua's first two books, about market dominant minorities and the rise and fall of empires, both sound more interesting than her latest effort. I think that after writing "Tiger Moms" Chua realized there was huge opportunity to cash in with a popular audience, and that now was the time to do so.

I predict that Chua's Triple Package will run as follows: breakthrough with Tiger Moms, cash in with this book, then clean up with a third book which will earn her a huge advance, but will bomb because by that time, people will have lost interest in her schtick.

Having said that, I'd like to take a look at her first two books, World on Fire, and Days of Empire. It may be that Chau has written something really worth reading, it's just that with the Tiger Mom thing she saw an opprtunity she couldn't pass up. Chances to become rich and famous don't come along that often, even for Yale professors.

In her defense, it does appear that this issue of market-dominant, high achieving minorities is a genuine, scholarly interest of hers, and not just a way to make a fast buck. I never had the slightest interest in reading Tiger Moms or this Triple Package stuff, but maybe she has written some earlier stuff worth reading.

Black Sea said...

Chua's first two books, about market-dominant minorities and the rise and fall of empires, both sound more interesting than her latest effort. I think that after writing "Tiger Moms" Chua realized there was an opportunity to cash in with a popular audience, and that now was the time to do so.

I predict that Chua's Triple Package will run as follows: breakthrough with Tiger Moms, cash in with this book, then close it out with a third book which will earn her a huge advance, but will bomb in sales because by that time, people will have lost interest in her schtick.

Having said that, I'd like to take a look at her first two books, World on Fire, and Days of Empire. It may be that Chau has written something really worth reading, it's just that with the Tiger Mom thing she saw an opprtunity she couldn't pass up. Chances to become rich and famous don't come along that often, even for Yale professors.

In her defense, it does appear that this issue of market-dominant, high achieving minorities is a genuine, scholarly interest of hers, and not just a way to make a fast buck. I never had the slightest interest in reading Tiger Moms or this Triple Package stuff, but maybe she has written some earlier books worth reading.

Anonymous said...

The most imaginative/innovative may not be the best at what they create.

Asians were most creative/innovative with martial arts, but other races--once they learned that stuff--couldn kick Asian butt.

Greeks and southern Europeans were initially more innovative/imaginative than northern Europeans, but the northerners eventually put the ideas to better use.

Whites were most inventive in creating ball games, but blacks play them better.

Anglos were best at creating a new order in the new world, but Jews did business and lawyering better.

You can found something but others can pound you with what you founded.

So, never think that just because your people founded something, you will own it by right. Greeks can take all the pride in their innovations but others took the prize. Pride of innovation or conquest doesn't guarantee prize of achievement and domination.

Never rest on your laurels. Always be 'paranoid' and competitive.

Gospace said...

saga "Asians were most creative/innovative with martial arts,"

Martial arts were developed out of necessity because non-warriors were not allowed to possess weapons of any kind. At least, that's what I've read of their origin.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Anglosphere-exceptionalism-7782

I Sing said...

She should call it the Power Triangle. After all, her point is that the three traits must work together or they won't work at all.
It's like a triangle needs three sides to join at the ends. Otherwise, there is no triangle.

Maybe such triangular thinking goes back to Chinese interest in I Ching and stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(underground_society)#Etymology

It seems that the Brits in Hong Kong noticed certain such symbols used by Chinese gangsters who were maneuvering for power.

http://www.wikihow.com/Consult-the-I-Ching-Using-3-Coins

And in the West, there is the notion of the Trinity, and maybe Triple Package sort of plays on that too.
Superior, Inferior, and the holy discipline.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Trinity-Secret-Power-Creation/dp/1601631456

Three is like a magical number. It's like 'Three's Company'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Dri_Motonari#Expanding_Territory

"In one instance, he is said to have handed each of his sons an arrow and asked each snap it. After each snapped his arrow, Motonari produced three arrows and asked his sons to snap all three at once. When they were unable to do so (according to a legend still taught today), Motonari explained that one arrow could be broken easily, but three arrows held together could not. It is not known for certain if this actually happened or if it is apocryphal legend."

And for some reason, people like 'trilogies'. It's like one or two is too few, four or five is too much. But three, just fine.

I suppose 'three' is sort of special in Goldilocks story too. Three allows for balance. If one is too hot, the other is too cold, the one in the middle is the balance of two.

Thus, in the triple package of Chua, superiority can get out of control(with too much arrogance), inferiority can get out of control(with too much depression), but the third element, self-discipline(and that imposed by parents), has a way of restraining the extremes of the other two while harnessing their power.

Anonymous said...

Churiad

Anonymous said...

http://youtu.be/jYqDS9i8zJw?t=23s

What were the THREE SECRET WORDS?

They weren't superiority, insecurity, and disciple, were they?