“Tiger Mom” Amy Chua is successfully trolling for book sales again. Her new thesis is that some “cultures” are just better than others. Because anecdotes.
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.”
Here’s another sample:
On to the distinguishing factors that make these eight groups the best in America:
1. A superiority complex
Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other, say the authors, has an advantage. They do not note that this is perhaps humanity’s oldest and ugliest flaw, the bottom-line cause of wars and genocide. In their estimation, it’s not nearly common enough in America, where “the Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking . . . the stuff of racism, colonialism, imperialism, Nazism.” This way of thinking, they write, has been a big boon to Mormons and Jews, though they also fail to note that believing in the superiority of a belief system is the driving force behind almost all organized religion. (Except the Amish. The authors freely note that the Amish are losers for this very reason.)
I’m going to stop there. You know why Jews succeed? Because we come from a long line of people who imbued our culture with the idea that learning was desirable. Because rabbis have been arguing over how to interpret the Torah for thousands of years, learning how to defend their opinions from the time they start studying as children. Because our parents insist that we buckle down in school and bring home good grades. Because intellectualism is appreciated, not denigrated. Because you are expected to have fun in sports in school, but not think of them as a career.
And you know what this Jew hates? A non-Jew who thinks she knows all about Judaism because she married a Jew.
STFU, Amy. You don’t speak for us. And when you do, you look like an ass.