<p>Mine comes from America. Yours?</p>
<p>Hmmm, I’d say mine comes from America, also, although it arrived here by ship at one point.</p>
<p>This issue is very interesting to me. I would say that many “Westerners” think that there are differences between actions that are similar on the surface, if they undertaken for different motives–not in the sense that the end justifies the means (not at all!), but that the underlying reason for the action counts. It seems to me that this idea is embedded in a lot of European literature. If you do not acknowledge the importance of the underlying reasons for an action, Canuckguy, then I can see why you would conclude that the difference in the journalistic reaction to the child “singing” at the Olympics in Beijing and the Sydney Orchestra “playing” at their Olympics was simply a matter of hypocrisy or prejudice. But to many “Westerners,” these two circumstances appear to be quite different.</p>
<p>In fact, there is an element of Christian thought that assigns absolute primacy to motive–or thinking–even in the absence of an act. Here, I am thinking of the Biblical story of the woman taken in adultery, and the reaction of Jesus when he came upon the men who were about to stone her. A number of people laughed at Jimmy Carter when he admitted to a Playboy interviewer that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust,” but people who knew the Biblical reference beforehand knew exactly what he meant. I admire Carter a great deal.</p>
<p>I don’t deny that there is prejudice against Asian-Americans. I have been troubled in the past by the disparity between the fraction of a scientific field that is Asian-American and the fraction of speakers at the corresponding Gordon Conferences who are Asian-American. In the CC context, I think it is well-established that Asian-Americans who are admitted to the top schools tend (generally) to have higher standardized test scores and stronger curricula than the average admitted student.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I think that Chua’s book will have negative impact on the treatment of Asian-Americans in college admissions and elsewhere, because it will cause some people, at least, to discount exceptional accomplishment on the grounds that it is simply the natural outcome of having a “Tiger mother,” and not an indication of actual superiority or even promise for the future.</p>
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<p>That’s a valid concern and is unfortunate/unfair to AAs. </p>
<p>A “Tiger Mother” is more of a poor family’s problem because they were unable/unwilling to hire private college counselor, go to private schools/boarding schools, hire private tutors, etc.</p>
<p>^^So you come at it from the Christian perspective. It certainly is not my default setting.;)</p>
<p>My philosophical position comes from American Pragmatism. It is not so much that I do not believe in motives, but that they are not observable or measurable. I do believe, however, real motives result in concrete actions that are consistent with those motives. Those actions I can trust and respond to because they are observable and measurable.</p>
<p>I dont know what the real motive of the Chinese, the Australians, or the journalists were, but if people do what they believe, then their actions tell very different stories. That is the reason I find Potters article so compelling. IOW, I may not be able to look into their collective heads for motives, I can surmise what they are by their collective action.</p>
<p>My sense is that Amy Chua is also driven by fear. She knows she has not reached the professional heights of her father. If this process of regression were to continue, there is a good chance that her children may not be as successful as her and her husband. Unless the girls are fortunate enough to look white, they may still have another cross to bear. </p>
<p>I suspect this is where the tiger mother comes from, driven by a peculiar mixture of love for her children and fear for their future. Since I cannot walk in her moccasins or peek into her motives, I cannot, of course, be sure.</p>
<p>BTW, Amy Chua was on CBC radio early this afternoon.</p>
<p>^^So, you are a constructive empiricist, Canuckguy? Or something similar? That is a self-consistent worldview, I think, and indeed a lot of quantum mechanics hinges on the idea that one can only make statements about observables. But you are correct, it’s not my take on things.</p>
<p>Your comments allude to a dilemma faced by highly educated parents from Chinese families–it definitely seems to be true that their children have to perform exceptionally well, to have the same chances of admission to “top” universities as other students. This creates a lot of pressure, if having the next generation attend a top school is among the goals. </p>
<p>I am part of a large group on CC that doesn’t think there is any necessity for an outstanding student to attend a “top” school, to be successful in the future. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, I do think that the top schools offer a more certain quality of education, at least in some fields. And I can understand that it is difficult for a parent to go against a culturally ingrained feeling that it is vital to attend a “top” school. So I do empathize with their circumstance.</p>
<p>A couple of random, but related thoughts:
I think often of Stonewall Jackson’s maxim: Never take counsel of your fears.
And I think that in a way, Amy Chua has imbibed the Puritan ethos of New England to a much greater extent than most, at least if you follow H. L. Mencken’s definition of Puritanism as the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”</p>
<p>So, you are a constructive empiricist, Canuckguy? Or something similar? That is a self-consistent worldview, I think, and indeed a lot of quantum mechanics hinges on the idea that one can only make statements about observables. But you are correct, it’s not my take on things.</p>
<p>I was deeply impressed by David Hume, that immortal infidel, in my schoolboy days. This is probably where my skepticism, empiricism, and inductive thinking came from. I find the combination of Christianity and physics highly unusual. Do you have to isolate your professional life from your private life to achieve that balance? As you can guess, I need make no such compromise.</p>
<p>The greatest mistake in Amy Chuas thinking, I think, is the idea that anything is possible if you only work hard enough. Too many folks, Asians more so, seem to think and believe this. At a simpler time it might have worked, but no more. Can I become a theoretical physicist if I study hard enough? It is not that I wasnt given the opportunity; it is simply because I am not smart enough. It is what it is. We dont live in Lake Wobegone.</p>
<p>Parents, of course, do have a role to play. While our potentials are restrained by genetics, there is nothing to prevent us from making the most of what we do have. We may be dealt a certain hand in life, but that should not prevent us from playing that hand to the best of our ability.</p>
<p>My sister told me once that parenting is the hardest job she ever had. I agree it can be if you let it. We have to understand ourselves and understand our children. There are times to be tough and there are times to be gentle. It is an art that some of us are clearly better at than others, but we can all becoming better with experience if we approach it with a craftsman tools, and not a battle axe.</p>
<p>Great statement, Canuckguy, which I am happy to endorse–for the most part, anyway. </p>
<p>I work on atoms, molecules, and condensed matter, all pretty amoral topics. I am not one of the physicists involved in the search for the “God particle.” Of course, I wouldn’t have called it that, either. There are actually quite a few Christians in the sciences; generally speaking, we are not evangelical, not right-wing, and definitely not creationist. </p>
<p>There are people who find my philosophical stance inconsistent. I think we do not yet understand how the world works, in the sense of actually understanding the physical principles that govern it. I don’t hide God in “dark matter” or “dark energy,” but since our exclusively physics-based understanding is quite incomplete, I am not bothered (much) by the apparent inconsistency.</p>
<p>Canuckguy, I think that you definitely could become a theoretical physicist, if you were deeply enough interested in theoretical physics, and encountered a reasonably good set of professors. You are quite right that it is not possible to bulldoze one’s way into theoretical physics, by sheer dint of hard work. In the context of music, musicparent has referred to the analogous approach as trying to “horse” one’s way through. Having looked at a number of career trajectories over time, I think what is needed is good intelligence (but not necessarily brilliance) coupled with a burning desire to understand and discover, in this particular arena. Throw in the willingness to persist despite looking stupid (often), and the willingness to try the curving path, rather than butting into rocks. Of course, being really, really smart would make it a whole lot easier journey for the first 25-30 years–not that I’d know that from experience!</p>
<p>Your last two paragraphs contain a lot of wisdom, beautifully put.</p>
<p>^^It’s so nice to see two divergent people converge on a topic in an intelligent and civilized manner. Doesn’t seem to happen much on CC.</p>
<p>Kudos to both of you for keeping it sane.</p>
<p>Xr calico posted (sorry, I haven’t figured out how to get the msg box quote on the screen)></p>
<p>“But that is not even the type of culture Chua is supporting, is it? According to her, it’s the most important for an individual to be the best in everything, and I can’t see anything group/conformity based at all in that. Are we talking about the book Battle Hymn at the moment, or the actual traditional Chinese culture? The two overlaps of course, but they are not exactly the same.”</p>
<p>(She was responding to my post where I said that creativity and innovation come out of the individualistic rather then the communal). </p>
<p>I was talking about Chua. She talks about the individual being the best in everything, but that is most definitely not celebrating the individual or respecting it, that is making the point that the only things worth doing are where the person is ‘best’…</p>
<p>More importantly, look at what Chua did with her kids, one of the things about respecting the individual is respecting their choices, something she didn’t do with her kids, she planned everything for them, she made all the decisions about what they should be doing. Sorry, but telling them they have a choice to play an instrument, as long as it is piano or violin, is not respecting the individual, forcing them to do things she thinks are important with everything is not respect for the individual, reminds me more of the old communist government style of thing, where they took kids and said “you will b e a doctor”, “you will be an engineer” and so forth. When you basically dominate the kids lives like that, when you tell them everything they have to do, it is as disrespectful to the kid as the opposite, basically telling them to do what they want, that is your job, it is just as bad IMO. Children aren’t property, they are their own people, and they have the right within bounds to find their own calling, which doesn’t mean laxing off or not caring, it means helping them explore and within those bounds, demand that they try. If they try playing the guitar and don’t like it, the experience is valuable; if they play baseball and aren’t a star, they still learn things that can be valuable. </p>
<p>One of the factors of creativity is exploration and when that has been cut off, it has trouble. Someone in a post brought up someone being religious and being a scientist, and it is a good example, someone who is a fundamentalist of any kind is going to have trouble, because their faith cuts off certain things as being unexplorable, because it conflicts with faith or revealed teaching. The annals of creativity and innovation are full of accounts of people who were goofing around, or exploring well outside the bounds of their normal job (post it notes and polymer plastics came from such things), wandering, something Chua would probably call 'a waste. If someone is in an environment where that is not allowed, where it is a ‘waste’, they aren’t going to go on those paths.</p>
<p>More importantly, creativity and innovation often comes from being able to put together disparate things, past experiences, thoughts, putting together absolutely unrelated images to come up with an answer. Einstein daydreamed about the trolley car on the street speeding up to the speed of light, and in doing so helped come up with his theory of relativity; others played with a child’s toy, then suddenly got an insight into a problem; a chemist, reputedly after a night of partying, dreamed of a snake eating its tail and it gave him the insight into the Benzene ring, something that was fundamental to the development of organic chemistry. </p>
<p>Chua’s kind of parenting doesn’t allow that, there is no individualism there, in the sense that her kids were on a proscribed path to the mom’s vision of success. It might lead them to an ivy league education, getting good grades and so forth, but will that lead them to develop something new? Will they ever get out of doing what they need to do to get a good grade on a test, and do something simply to learn it for their own sake? When you learn that “X is success, head for that” or “You can do this, but not that, because that is worthless” you close doors to the kind of things that lead to creativity. </p>
<p>BTW, this is not an “Asian” thing or an “Any” Thing, there have been parents like Chua in all cultures, there were Jews who pushed their kids into doing things that would get them on the path to be a doctor or a lawyer, there were people caught up in materialism who were WASP, Jewish, Indian, and who the heck knows what, and they were just as restrictive.</p>
<p>Quant-</p>
<p>You forgot something else about being a theoretical physicist, being afraid not to be goofy:) (Said with all sorts of admiration, being a physics groupie). Anyone who can play around with supersymetry, string theory, entanglement (one of my favorites), and can name particles like a gluon have to be somewhat warped (in a good way).</p>
<p>I think someone else hit the nail on the head, when someone like Chua assumes that to do anything, all you have to do is work hard at it, grind through it. With physics, not only do you have to work hard to achieve mastery of difficult concepts, you also have to have a passion for it, and a different way of looking at things…and you can’t grind through that.</p>
<p>My brother years ago had dealings with audio broadcast equipment with a Japanese company, and he was talking to one of their senior project engineers, who proudly showed him some projected project plans for new products and such, and on the timelines they had, I kid you not, at a certain point items labelled “breakthroughs”. My brother, puzzled by that, asked them how they could plan for breakthroughs, which after all by definition are unknowns, and the engineer told him that based on how many man hours the guys doing the research would have worked, that the breakthrough was likely to happen there (consequently, said company didn’t come up with the stuff on the timeline in that timeline or even fashion)…they believed you could determine breakthroughs by horsing through them, and in reality you cannot, they happen at their own pace IME.</p>
<p>*Kudos to both of you for keeping it sane. *</p>
<p>To paraphrase another great Western thinker, it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. While I have misgivings about the Brits, they have provided me with two things of great value: manners and education. I do get annoyed, however, when people try to package their self-interest and pass it off as pure reason. That, I find insulting.</p>
<p>*I am part of a large group on CC that doesn’t think there is any necessity for an outstanding student to attend a “top” school, to be successful in the future. *</p>
<p>I believe you. If somebody, however, tells me an elite education is unnecessary and then promptly send his child to an elite school, I would trust his action and question his motive. How is that for empiricism?</p>
<p>The reason why Asian parents so desperately want their love ones in the elites is worthy of further analysis. Looking in from afar, what they are trying to do makes eminent sense to me if the Lauren Rivera study is truthful, and I have no reason to question it. We also know from other studies that minorities benefit from an elite education the most, and I am sure Asian parents are hoping that a diploma from an elite school will counterbalance the negative impact of being Asian when they are out in the working world.</p>
<p>What they fail to realize is that the elites only want minorities and working class folks in small dosages. Their mission is to educate and socialize the scions of the ruling class. Gladwell mentioned in his recent article a study by Terenzini and Pascarella that showed trivial relationships between traditional measures of institutional quality and student growth. It is, I suspect and have always maintained, mainly a flagging device and it tells future employers that this candidate is one of us, or has been approved by us. Unfortunately, too many folks seem to think of them as meritocracies, and I am sure the elites would like to encourage this perception.</p>
<p>*I think often of Stonewall Jackson’s maxim: Never take counsel of your fears.
And I think that in a way, Amy Chua has imbibed the Puritan ethos of New England to a much greater extent than most, at least if you follow H. L. Mencken’s definition of Puritanism as the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” *</p>
<p>I always say that in a pinch, you can put a physics/math guy in front of a humanities class, but I shudder at the thought of putting a humanities guy in front of a physics/math class.</p>
<p>Thanks, Canuckguy. I have to admit that the one time I attempted to comment on Wittgenstein, drawing on my largely contextless private reading, my remark drew a burst of laughter, followed by a rather pointed comment. So, the physics/math guy to be put in front of the humanities class would have to be someone else.</p>
<p>Your comments on Chua’s possible motives have enabled me to see her actions from a different perspective (somewhat ironic, really), and to develop a more sympathetic understanding. I have to admit that I had not fully taken into account the impact of the discrimination that Chua knows her children will almost certainly face.</p>
<p>And also, thanks, musicprnt, for your posts, which have been very thought-provoking. You are right that “goofiness” seems to be extremely helpful to physicists. Advances hinge on looking at things in a way that no one else has, and then having the technical knowledge to convert the insight into recognizable physics. You’ve mentioned Feynman a couple of times. I recall an excerpt from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, about the time when Feynman was starting out on the faculty at Cornell and was concerned that they’d be disappointed in his work. For a while, he had a hard time getting to work. Then at one point, while in the dining hall, he watched a spinning plate. He started thinking playfully, and the rest was history–i.e., physics.</p>
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<p>Perhaps her background from an ethnic Chinese family in Southeast Asia may have something to do with it. Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia can be resented and discriminated against in ways that make what happens in the US to ethnic Chinese extremely mild by comparison.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it is hard to see how stuff like “you must practice piano or violin every day, and you must not play any other instrument” can be helpful, especially if it hits all of the stereotypes that a university admissions committee probably sees hundreds of times every year (“oh, here is another tiger child…”).</p>
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<p>While SE Asian Chinese do face discrimination, it is not the same kind as ethnic Chinese/Asians faced here in the US. </p>
<p>While SE Asian Chinese were discriminated against in areas such as political participation, civil service, etc, they also tended to dominate the business/economic sectors of their respective SE Asian nations. This domination was rooted in the European colonialist powers’ efforts from the 1500s onwards to use overseas Chinese in SE Asia as tax collectors, merchants, and other positions where they gained strong economic dominance. </p>
<p>Their placement into that position was to not only serve the colonialists and later, the indigenous ruling elite, but also to serve as a handy scapegoat to distract the majority indigenous population from the fact the root of all the economic and other troubles are at the hands of the ostensibly indigenous ruling elite. While this has many similarities to how the European Jews were positioned in European society from medieval times to the late 1930s, there are also many critical differences which makes the SE Asian Chinese positions far more complicated as to whether they’re an in-group or out-group than their European Jewish counterparts. </p>
<p>In short, while Chua’s family are an out-group because they are resented by the indigenous majority in the Philippines, they are also part of the in-group as the dominant economic group in that country with great socio-economic privilege which causes much resentment about how “foreigners” are allowed to dominate their nation’s business/economic sectors and how their feelings about it being due to political corruption/design by some corrupt elements in their ruling elite are correct. Lost in this from the resentful majority is the fact they’re really being distracted by the fact the whole system put into place by the European colonizers and inherited/adapted by the indigenous ruling elite is the actual problem…and not just the players within that system…whether it be the SE Asian Chinese minority, resentful indigenous majority, and most importantly, the indigenous ruling elite who run and manipulate the entire system for their own benefit. </p>
<p>Interestingly, enough…Chua actually covers this dynamic on some level in one of her more scholarly books. </p>
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<p>Being proficient at a classical musical instrument used to be perceived a mark of a well-cultured upper-middle class family in the last century or so by the lower and lower-middle classes hoping to advance on the socio-economic ladder. It was one thing to check-off to ensure you fulfilled the prereqs of “making-it” into the upper-middle class at the very least. It was present in my more Westernized mother’s side of the family in China and was the case in those of older friends whose families were immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. </p>
<p>It was one reason why I often view the obsession by parents to force their kids, come hell or high water, to master a classical instrument as a manifestation of social climbing.</p>
<p>I think being able to read music is a good thing…useful in many instances as well as good training for the brain.</p>
<p>But I don’t feel that classical music is the be-all, end-all of musical training. If you want to use your musical knowledge to be a jazz pianist instead of classical, or to play rock guitar instead of piano, or even a band instrument or just sing, that’s all good. Lots of kids “hated” music until they discovered the genre–and the instrument-- that spoke to them.</p>
<p>What a boring world this would be if we all played only piano or violin!</p>
<p>And I firmly believe our concert halls would be filled if the symphony would jazz it up with some Radiohead now and then. :)</p>
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<p>Glad you didn’t forget this part QM. </p>
<p>I enjoy these allusions to the books by Feynman. My father was a physicist who attended Caltech in the 1950s. He later became a big fan of Dr. Feynman. I recall a map showing the Isle of Tuva prominently displayed on the wall of his study. </p>
<p>Of course we have to remember that not everyone is a Feynman. For many students the study of Physics is necessarily a bit more prosaic than that depicted in the later Feynman popular literature. Although I earned an undergraduate degree in Physics I hardly consider myself a Physicist (I actually decided to work at an easier job as an electrical engineer). Like most of my compatriots at college, I struggled working my way through Physics problems, and I suspect most people are like that, even most intelligent people.</p>
<p>In fact, Feynman alludes to this fact in the preface to his lectures on Physics, where he posits that likely most of the freshmen taking his classes did not learn the required grunt work as well as they should have, based on their performance on exams. This appears to have been a disappointment to him, at least with respect to the material after the classical mechanics section of the course. </p>
<p>The Lectures are wonderful books, I have a collection. But I also have a collection of the problem sets, and with the exception of a few geniuses, I suspect that to answer the problems you would need to already know some physics, or have access to significant additional resources or instruction. Sure, maybe a number of the kids and parents on CC would fall into this “genius” category, but that is a distinct minority in real life, even among those individuals who eventually become scientists.</p>
<p>Feynman himself sums it up pretty well when he quotes the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - “The power of instruction is seldom of more efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous”. </p>
<p><a href=“http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Knjige/Opca%20Fizika/Feynman%20Lectures%20on%20Physics/Vol%201%20Ch%2000%20-%20Preface.pdf[/url]”>http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Knjige/Opca%20Fizika/Feynman%20Lectures%20on%20Physics/Vol%201%20Ch%2000%20-%20Preface.pdf</a></p>
<p>And of course, it is possible to put in the necessary work without getting to a point where you are distending your bladder and gnawing on wood, and while getting some enjoyment out of the beauty and symmetry of the whole thing.</p>
<p>Sorry for the detour.</p>
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<p>I just have to laugh, because the most elite and well-to-do people I know couldn’t care less about classical music or whether their children play instruments or not. Indeed, that’s part of what makes them elite – they don’t need to care about these markers.</p>
<p>Well, Chua to Feynman–the detour becomes more enjoyable (to me, anyway) than the main road. I knew one of the students who took introductory physics from Feynman. The Lectures on Physics are beautiful to read–although I am not sure how they would strike someone if those lectures were their first exposure to the material. I’ve heard it claimed that Feynman started out with classes full of freshman and sophomores at his lectures (the intended audience), but as he went along, the class morphed until it contained a lot of grad students and post-docs, and even faculty. </p>
<p>In the interests of getting off this detour, and back to Chua, I’ll repeat my earlier statement that becoming a physicist takes the willingness to look/feel stupid (often). Chua’s insistence that each of her daughters should be the “top student” is not helpful when the student is wrestling with hard problems, because the focus needs to be on the problems themselves, and not on the relative standing of the students.</p>
<p>I don’t think electrical engineering is easier than what I do. My work can be done by most people with good intelligence and burning curiosity. I might have an unusual level of frustration tolerance, though.</p>
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Yeah, I should have put a little winky thing so as not to offend any of my EE brethern. All of these things are challenging.</p>
<p>Back to your normally scheduled program.</p>
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<p>Precisely because they have “already made it” and are not poor, working, or middle class on the make to “better their station”. They often also have many well-connected friends in influential positions to help maintain and even advance their elite status further (a.k.a. The good old boys/girls network.). More importantly, their ancestors probably secured their elite positions well enough that they have little to worry about barring some cataclysmic disaster…</p>