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Why are some people brilliant and successful, while others are gullible losers? Tiger Mother has the answer! … The Triple Package. Click to enlarge. Photograph: Matt Blease  

John Crace
 
@JohnJCrace

Sunday 16 February 2014 18.59 GMT   Last modified on Tuesday 3 June 2014 07.00 BST  

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It is one of humanity's enduring mysteries why some individuals, such as ourselves, rise from unpromising origins to such dizzy heights when so many others, like you, are failures. This book aims to answer that question for the first time – by drawing on bits of research that happen to fit our thesis, emails sent to our daughter and Google searches.
So why do some groups outperform each other in America? What has made us both brilliant lawyers, bestselling authors (and one of us a devastatingly attractive Tiger Mother), while you struggle along on welfare benefits? One simple answer is that we are both shameless, publicity-hungry individuals who pretend to court controversy, while you are gullible, reactive losers. But that is not an area we intend to explore too deeply.
What links the Mormons, the Jews, Cuban Americans, Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Nigerian Americans and Scientologists? They are all more likely to be high-status individuals. It is our contention that all these groups share the Triple Package – a superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control – that allows them to be enormously successful.
At this point, we would like to make it clear that we entirely dissociate ourselves from any racial or eugenic subtext. We firmly believe that many unsuccessful groups or cultures may or may not have superiority complexes, may or may not be insecure and exercise impulse control – and even if they do or don't, the absence of these qualities in no way reflects adversely on them. And if the effect of this is that our book turns out to be just a series of generalisations, rather than a theory with predictive qualities, then so be it.


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As we don't have much to say beyond superiority, insecurity and impulse control, it is necessary to keep repeating them. First, the superiority complex. There is no need for the superiority complex to be based on any concrete data. While it is obvious that the Jews and the Chinese have much to be superior about, it's self-evident that many parts of Nigeria and Cuba are complete dumps. What matters is that a culture should be arrogant enough to believe it is superior to all others.
Insecurity. All the groups we've mentioned have at some time felt insecure about their existence. This is perhaps not the time to mention that almost every group and culture has felt insecure at some point in their history. So we will move on. The key issue is how to maintain that feeling of insecurity. That is why we went to great lengths to tell our daughters how useless they were, even though they were musical and intellectual prodigies. Happiness and self-esteem are a curse to social mobility.
Perhaps the most controversial element of the Triple Package is impulse control. Why are Scientologists so successful? Because they are prepared to deny themselves a vacation to the planet Theta. Why are our daughters so successful? Because we refused to let them out of the house to mingle with lesser mortals until they had mastered Bach's Partita in D minor and found a single solution for string theory. And if they still hadn't come up to scratch, we'd have had them put down.
Obviously, we would in no way wish to suggest that those groups who fail to exercise basic self-control are in any way primitive or inferior. Some groups have had enormous difficulties that have proved insurmountable. Though it might help if some people – no names! – got off their fat butts, did some work and stopped pigging out on supersized McDonald's meals. Only saying.
There is an underside to the Triple Package. Material success does not always make you happy. So if you are content to be poor and jobless, like the people of Appalachia, we wish you all the best. Personally, we quite like our five-bedroomed Manhattan apartment. There are also signs America may be changing. It's becoming clear the Jews are becoming complacent, as they are no longer imposing a huge sense of guilt on their children. Decades of therapy is undermining their sense of angst and insecurity. Carry on like this and they will end up losers, like some other groups we are too polite to mention. Don't say you haven't been warned, Jed.
Digested read, digested: Impulse control – resist this book.

Реч захвалност долази од „хвала за”. Слично је и са речима за захвалност у другим језицима. Тако је, на пример, енглеска реч gratitude изведена из латинског gratia – хвала.

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