The Tiger Mom Superiority Complex

[The Real]

The article is also saying that attributing success to culture is racist, false and not supported by academics, yet you cited culture as a reason for the success of America so your post contradicted the main thrust of the article

So if you agree with the article I would suggest taking back your assertion that a culture that rewards mavericks made America successful

I didn't say that you said that one was better than the other, I said that according to the article attributing success to culture is racist, false and not supported by academics so therefore asserting that America's success is because of a culture that rewards mavericks contradicts the article

Apparently you are back peddling now, but again the article is opposing tiger mom, so now you are just playing the fence, figures, in reality you don't know what the hell you are saying or what you think

Did you read the article?

Which is not to say culture is meaningless--even if "bad culture" is a convenient way to throw blame at struggling groups, as opposed to dealing with the structural causes behind those groups' disparate outcomes. We all have a linguistic, religious, racial, ethnic or national culture that shapes much about us. The cultural values of a group are an important part of the answer to the question of why certain groups seem to do better, at particular times, than others.

But cultural values are never the whole answer--even as we've come to privilege them over all other explanations for success and failure, such as political and economic ones. And culture is rarely either an unambiguously good force or an unambiguously bad one. Thus, Confucian values of education and family fealty certainly are one factor in explaining why Chinese students from low-income backgrounds do better than their peers. But as we've seen, that's not the whole story. Meanwhile, many in China would like to see less conformity in their culture, believing that it inhibits much of the freethinking that powers creativity and innovation in America and that it results in a citizenry that passively tolerates suppression of dissent and censorship of the Internet.

 

[Robbie3000]

I didn't say that you said that one was better than the other, I said that according to the article attributing success to culture is racist, false and not supported by academics so therefore asserting that America's success is because of a culture that rewards mavericks contradicts the article

Apparently you are back peddling now, but again the article is opposing tiger mom, so now you are just playing the fence, figures, in reality you don't know what the hell you are saying or what you think

Do you have sand in your Vagina this morning? The article did not discount culture entirely. Just that it is not the only reason for the success/failure of a group.

Which is not to say culture is meaningless--even if "bad culture" is a convenient way to throw blame at struggling groups, as opposed to dealing with the structural causes behind those groups' disparate outcomes. We all have a linguistic, religious, racial, ethnic or national culture that shapes much about us. The cultural values of a group are an important part of the answer to the question of why certain groups seem to do better, at particular times, than others.

But cultural values are never the whole answer--even as we've come to privilege them over all other explanations for success and failure, such as political and economic ones. And culture is rarely either an unambiguously good force or an unambiguously bad one. Thus, Confucian values of education and family fealty certainly are one factor in explaining why Chinese students from low-income backgrounds do better than their peers. But as we've seen, that's not the whole story. Meanwhile, many in China would like to see less conformity in their culture, believing that it inhibits much of the freethinking that powers creativity and innovation in America and that it results in a citizenry that passively tolerates suppression of dissent and censorship of the Internet.

You fukking dweeb.

 

[Robbie3000]

Did you read the article?

You beat me to it.

 

[Richard Wright]

I think the biggest thing we can take away here is to be careful about how we shape our perception and mental conception of people as both individuals and groups. Take the indians and cubans for example. They are represented by an elite subset in America, which makes illogical people deem them as superior. Then look at us, if you only took the top 10 percent of AA we would also be the most successful group.


I love the term racialist. People should not be lazy in reaching conclusions. What this fox news, anti human sort of rhetoric sung by people like tiger mom is doing to people is disgusting. Time and time again these types say that it is largely freedom which makes people fail in life. They want people to turn into robots making six figures, nothing more, nothing less.

Thats what people dont understand about america. We have the right to choose our own path to happiness. The idea that the best path for anyone is to simply mimic the actions of another person is ridiculous for groups and at the individual level unfulfilling.
It is good to have role models, but once we get into the role-culture discussion we immediately are taking an issue as complex as every decision made in world history(literally, everything that has ever happened shapes the state of cultures and civilizations today) and reducing it to an issue of XIao doing 5 hours of math a day while Jamaal plays 2k.

Ill finish with an anecdote. I made a chinese friend in my discrete math class last semester. On the surface we should have been very different. He was sent over to learn. According to the fox news mindset I only got into college because I am black. It turned out me and this guy had a lot in common, interest in co eds, basketball, kindness, pride, and being accepting. Inside, we were both just young men. He was a chinese immigrant and I was a black kid from the inner city. I got an A and he got a C. I wonder what tiger mom thinks about that. I know it doesnt make me think less of him. There are other ways to value your fellow man besides the size of his wallet.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Nice Read. I have always thought America's greatest strength was a culture that rewards mavericks. If Bill Gates was an Indian or Chinese immigrant, he would have followed in his father's footsteps and became a corporate lawyer. Zuckerberg would not have dropped out of Harvard and would now be an engineer making a six figure salary.

The country would have been worse of for it. That's the problem with this whole 'Tiger Mom' parenting style. It may succeed in creating decent paid professionals, but it's not going to create truly exceptional people that change the world.

Its to early to say that, friend.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

It's crazy how this sophistry is viewed as legitimate social science even when the experts cited think it's laughable themselves.

The results dont lie.

 

[The Real]

The results dont lie.

I was talking about explanations of the results, not the results themselves, friend.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Culture has a lot to do with it.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

Nice Read. I have always thought America's greatest strength was a culture that rewards mavericks. If Bill Gates was an Indian or Chinese immigrant, he would have followed in his father's footsteps and became a corporate lawyer. Zuckerberg would not have dropped out of Harvard and would now be an engineer making a six figure salary.

The country would have been worse of for it. That's the problem with this whole 'Tiger Mom' parenting style. It may succeed in creating decent paid professionals, but it's not going to create truly exceptional people that change the world.

Your don't know that though, you're going off assumptions based on what you'd like to be true. Wasn't the USB created by an Indian?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajay_Bhatt

 

[Azam]

Your don't know that though, you're going off assumptions based on what you'd like to be true. Wasn't the USB created by an Indian?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajay_Bhatt

There's plenty of entrepreneurs who are the kids of immigrants. That line of thinking is just as bad as the Tiger-Mom argument itself.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

There's plenty of entrepreneurs who are the kids of immigrants. That line of thinking is just as bad as the Tiger-Mom argument itself.

It's just another form of American exceptionalism. I bet the Europeans who were running around exterminating Indians and enslaving Africans considered themselves "mavericks" too.

 

[Robbie3000]

There's plenty of entrepreneurs who are the kids of immigrants. That line of thinking is just as bad as the Tiger-Mom argument itself.

Yeah but they probably didn't grow up under the 'Tiger Mom' parenting philosophy - meaning they were given the freedom to choose and explore passions. Chances are they were not driven to certain occupations based on prestige it could bring the family.

 

[Azam]

Yeah but they probably didn't grow up under the 'Tiger Mom' parenting philosophy - meaning they were given the freedom to choose and explore passions. Chances are they were not driven to certain occupations based on prestige it could bring the family.

You suggested a Gates or Jobs wouldn't happen if he were an Indian/Chinese immigrant. This is patently false and goes against the evidence of huge numbers of immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S.( including Indians and Chinese).

Heck I just googled immigrant entrepreneurs and just today Forbes wrote an article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/techono...-entrepreneurs-vital-for-american-innovation/

 

[The Real]

Your don't know that though, you're going off assumptions based on what you'd like to be true. Wasn't the USB created by an Indian?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajay_Bhatt

The people who come here are generally more likely to assimilate Western values already, which is part of why they come (or even otherwise, it's hard not to absorb it.) But I don't think it's false that certain Asian communities enforce certain career paths and ways of thinking. It's part of why they succeed, but also a weakness. I know many Indians and Chinese who wanted to do veterinary medicine, human rights law, history, econ, etc, but who were forcibly steered into the usual med school, engineering, or whatever and were threatened with everything from having to pay for school themselves to being disowned.

And when I was in China, I got a gig teaching a special session at high school and university levels, at a few of the top schools in the country, and I was surprised by how little free thinking there was. Mostly, they just memorize and their career paths are planned out since when they are too young to properly decide. The latter is def true for India, too. I had 2 Indian exchange students as roommates when I was doing my MA, and both told me their career paths were decided in HS and neither wanted to do the track they chose back then when they were too young to really know, but that it was too late to change and they would suffer major obstacles to even getting a basic job if they did.

 

[DEAD7]

Immigrants, claim Chua and Rubenfeld, are wary of "an excessively permissive American culture"--the bogeyman that haunts the dreams of so many who see the U.S. as losing the vigor of a former age. But isn't that permissiveness exactly what makes America work: this messy mix, this barbaric yawp, this redneck rondeau, this rude commingling? Isn't that what permeates its films, movies, books? And isn't that the principal product it can still export? It is American culture's permissiveness, its new world energy, that still attracts the masses to the "golden door."