Sowell: A Tiger of a Book

Creators Syndicate ^ | March 18, 2014 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law school is better known as a "Tiger Mom" because of her take-no-prisoners, tough love approach to raising children. She and her husband Jed Rubenfeld (a fellow Yale law professor) have written what may turn out to be the best book of this year.

It is titled "The Triple Package" because it argues that three qualities are found in spectacularly successful groups in America. These three qualities, they say, are a superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control.

Whether you buy their theory or not, you will be enormously enlightened by their attempts to prove it. In the process they shoot down many of the popular beliefs about upward mobility in America and about the kinds of people who succeed.

At a time when so many in academia and the media are proclaiming that the poor are no longer able to rise in America, Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld point out that a major research project on which that conclusion has been based left out immigrants.

In their own words, "Although rarely mentioned in media reports, the studies said to show the demise of upward mobility in America largely exclude immigrants and their children. Indeed, the Pew Foundation study most often cited as proof of the death of upward mobility in the United States expressly cautions that its findings do not apply to 'immigrant families,' for whom 'the American dream is alive and well.'"

Some immigrant groups have risen spectacularly, even when they arrived here with very little money and sometimes with little knowledge of English. "Almost 25 percent of Nigerian households make over $100,000 a year" in America, the authors point out, compared to just 11 percent of black American households.

[Albion Wilde]

Oh. There are no words...

[Albion Wilde]

merican blacks HATE the African immigrants.

Their hard work and morality put the lie to the entitled victim posture.

[redgolum]

Quite honestly, the Africans are viewed as not black. Remember that is what was thrown at Obama in the last election.

Being successful is viewed as worse, being white. The kids are stuck. They look different than whites or Asians, and they culturally outside the norm for those they most resemble (Nigerians are not of the same race as most of the African Americans here, and both sides know it). So the kids often choose to join the groups they most resemble.

The same happens with kids who are Latino, but more American. Even if their parents are successful, in school they often are forced to conform to the norm.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Those in the media, in politics and in academia who seem determined to blame American society for individuals and groups who do not rise would be hard-pressed to explain why immigrants of various colors come in at the bottom and proceed to rise, both in the schools and in the economy — on both sides of the Atlantic.

It's those very people who are complaining, the media, in politics and in academia who are creating this illusion of a barrier for their own benefit.

T. Roosevelt said that “It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena” (taking risks in an effort at accomplishment). In 1910 when he said that, that was what liberalism meant.

By the time the socialists got through with the word in the 1920s, they had inverted the meaning of “liberalism” to mean, in my own formulation, “Nothing actually matters except PR.” Obviously that is the precise opposite of TR’s formulation - and just as obviously, it favors the journalist/critic and sets the “man in the arena” at nothing.

Giving “the credit . . . to the man who is actually in the arena” promotes striving for virtue and excellence, leading to progress. The attitude that “Nothing actually matters except PR” saps the incentive to strive for excellence and leads to finger-pointing and an attitude of helplessness. And failing to strive for excellence causes not only stagnation but actual regression.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

People post articles every day without even a “barf alert” from authors who are notorious for always being wrong. My experience has been that I have essentially always agreed with Thomas Sowell after I read his piece, tho not always before.

After all the many hundreds of truly acute articles from Thomas Sowell, I finally see one that I disagree with - and I am supposed to write him off on that basis? Pickings for authors would get mighty slim for me real quick if I adhered to that standard.

I think even if he really went off permanently off the rails I would have to continue reading him just out of respect.

[Timber Rattler]

You need to do some follow-up...Sowell not only attacked Cruz personally, but doubled-down with two more anti-TEA Party screeds once the blow back came in.

He's done.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Those in the media, in politics and in academia who seem determined to blame American society for individuals and groups who do not rise would be hard-pressed to explain why immigrants of various colors come in at the bottom and proceed to rise, both in the schools and in the economy

My 6th grader granddaughter suffered some problems in her math scores, due to changing schools. So, her parents sent her to "Mathnasium", a tutoring program. The programm (at $200/mo) is FILLED with Asian and Indian students who are NOT having trouble with their scores -- their kids go there for FUN!

[jazusamo]

Thanks for trying. :)