“Tiger Mom” Explains Which Groups Are Culturally Superior Remember Tiger Mom??? Well she’s back and still talking yang on who’s more culturally superior, and it’s not just the Chinese! Via NY Post: Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” who, in 2011, published a book arguing that Chinese women are superior mothers — thus their offspring superior children — has even more to say. In “The Triple Package,” Chua and her husband, co-author Jed Rubenfeld, gather some specious stats and anecdotal evidence to argue that some groups are just superior to others and everyone else is contributing to the downfall of America. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Chua and the Jewish Rubenfeld belong to two of the eight groups they deem exceptional. In no seeming order of importance, they are: – Jewish – Indian – Chinese – Iranian – Lebanese-Americans – Nigerians – Cuban exiles – Mormons These groups — “cultural,” mind you, never “ethnic” or “racial” or “religious” — all possess, in the authors’ estimation, three qualities that they’ve identified as guarantors of wealth and power: superiority, insecurity and impulse control. “That certain groups do much better in America than others — as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on — is difficult to talk about,” the authors write. “In large part, this is because the topic feels so racially charged.” Chua, a law professor at Yale, became a media sensation in 2011, when The Wall Street Journal published an extract from her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” She herself is an American, raised in the Midwest, but she used her heritage and all the worst stereotypes of Chinese women — cold, rigid Dragon Ladies, hostile towards their own children — to criticize the Western way of parenting, which she also said would be the downfall of America. On to the distinguishing factors that make these eight groups the best in America: 1. A superiority complex Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other, say the authors, has an advantage. They do not note that this is perhaps humanity’s oldest and ugliest flaw, the bottom-line cause of wars and genocide. In their estimation, it’s not nearly common enough in America, where “the Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking . . . the stuff of racism, colonialism, imperialism, Nazism.” This way of thinking, they write, has been a big boon to Mormons and Jews, though they also fail to note that believing in the superiority of a belief system is the driving force behind almost all organized religion. (Except the Amish. The authors freely note that the Amish are losers for this very reason.) 2. Insecurity Here are the authors sounding most like Malcolm Gladwell: Posit something, make a solid case for it, then immediately refute it with equal fervor. The result: Readers are so confused that they can only conclude that this book is so much smarter than they are. The authors are very impressed with their boldness in juxtaposing insecurity with superiority. “That insecurity should be a critical lever of success is another anathema, flouting the entire orthodoxy of contemporary popular and therapeutic psychology,” they write. In fact, insecurity has long been known as a prime motivator among actors, artists, CEOs, despots. “Imposter syndrome,” the term used to describe highly successful individuals who believe, deep down, they are frauds, was identified back in 1978. 3. Impulse Control Yet another hallmark of self-help, impulse control is considered to be a key factor in personal success — the ability to delay instant gratification in the service of a greater goal. But this isn’t really what the authors have in mind: “As we’ll use the term,” they write, “impulse control refers to the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.” You know who’s bad at this? Americans not among their eight groups. “Because all three elements of the Triple Package run so counter to modern American culture, it makes sense that America’s successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another,” they write. “Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if it doesn’t buy into — or hasn’t yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.” As curious as the groups that Chua and Rubenfeld elevate are the absence of ones they denigrate. Aside from the Amish (not big book-buyers), the only other group the authors take aim at are the Appalachian poor, noting, without irony, that “it’s far more socially acceptable today to insult and look down on ‘white trash’ than the poor of any other racial group.’” As for why African-Americans don’t make the list, the authors believe that the Civil Rights Movement took away any hope for a superiority narrative, and so the black community is screwed — even as they cite Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama as evidence of Mormon ascendancy. “In this paradoxical sense, equality isn’t fair to African-Americans,” they write. “Superiority is the one narrative that America has relentlessly denied or ground out of its black population.” Nigerian immigrants, they argue, are bolstered by the belief that they are better than other West Africans — much as the Lebanese believe, as descendants of Phoenicians, that they are superior, or that the Chinese believe that their 5,000-year-old civilization makes them superior. But feeling superior to other nations, races or religions is nothing more than that — a feeling. More info on Amy’s husband Jed HERE . Discuss… WENN
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