This week we've been assigned to discuss articles on our blogs. The article I chose is titled "What Drives Success?" by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld for The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?emc=eta1&_r=1
The article discusses why certain ethnic and religious groups living in America have much higher household incomes than the average American. These groups include Indian-, Lebanese-, Chinese-, Iranian-Americans, and of course, Jews. Jewish people are widely known to be highly successful and to often hold important positions in our society despite only making up two percent of the population. What all the successful groups share are three traits: a superiority complex, insecurity, in the form of the desire to always do better, and the third is impulse control.
I realized that these traits sound very familiar, that many Jewish kids I know possess them exactly. Jews, like many other groups are told they are chosen and expected to be successful, giving rise to the superiority complex. Impulse control, or the ability to resist temptation, is something I also see among my peers. It seems to me that Jewish students are much more likely to avoid harmful substances, like alcohol and drugs, for fear that it will affect their future. But students who are not members of one of these groups often don't think about this, perfectly exemplified by a popular phrase used by tons of high schoolers: YOLO, standing for "you only live once." People use this as a reason to live it up, and disregard the consequences. Perhaps the most prevalent of these three traits in Jewish youth that I see, is insecurity. Not that Jewish people are doubtful of themselves, but that it seems to me lots of Jewish students always expect the most of themselves, and no matter how well they do on things like tests and grades, they desire better.
It makes perfect sense to me that Jewish people are often successful if these three characteristics are in fact what contribute to prosperity.
Other reasons that Jewish people and the other ethnicities you mention find success is twofold: first, all these groups share in common having often overcome adverse circumstances in the countries of origin, come to the USA as immigrants, and then strive to make a better life for themselves and their familes; they hope to give the generation after them a better quality of life than one filled with hardship and the difficulties they faced before coming to the land of opportunity. Second, Jews (and the other groups mentioned) highly prize education, and emphasize the value of knowledge and learning as a means to succeed. As Jews, we are known as 'people of the Book.'
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, and I like the way you articulate the connection between the article and the Jewish people. I definitely see the same strive for success among Jews as you point out, and I agree that Jews always desire more, for better or for worse. The way the author boiled down his entire argument into three crucial pieces, as you pointed out, was also very interesting.
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