Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

I've been thinking on this. This is my fourth draft. I had decided that my first three got too rambling and unfocused. I'd write something quick and short. I had to continue the conversation. Alas, this is as long and rambling as the prior three.

For a prophet to attempt change, there seems to be two problems. First, you have to figure out what is going to happen. Cassandra had this part of the problem solved by magic. Second, you have to convince someone to do something about it. In the myth, this becomes impossible by magic.

While I'll try to get into your role playing exercise, my role is not that of powerful politician. I'm an INTP personality type, an introverted thinker, rather than a extroverted leader type. Thus, the best I can to is to come up with a good model of what is going on, and hope people might act on this knowledge. Thus, I focus on models like 'Waves of Civilization,' 'Cycles of History', 'Market Dominant Majorities' and 'Clash of Civilizations' rather than specific policies. Looking at past crises, there have been radicals who have anticipated the issues to be dealt with, have laid out the direction of change, but traditionally what happens is more fundamental even than the radicals anticipate this early in the unraveling/crisis cusp. I attempt to correct for this by erring on the side of boldness in presenting my views on what we are about to get into.

Specifics for Iraq of a few years back...

I would have tried to implement a policy that could be sustainable through a crisis, rather than deal with Iraq as a one time incident. I believe autocratic tyrants with WMD can be contained. US doctrine for WMD is use only when faced with a conventional threat that cannot otherwise be met. I anticipate most tyrants will use similar doctrines, thus using force against a WMD wielding tyrant is more apt to increase risk of use than make the world a safer place. I also think, as technology advances, that preventing tyrants from acquiring WMD is going to become difficult to impossible.

I am more concerned with reactionary fundamentalist terrorists than military dictators. I would have committed security forces accordingly.

I figure cooperation among the developed countries is more important than Iraq. NATO and the UN are more significant than Saddam. During the Clinton years, the global community was stumbling towards a policy of intervention when failed states generate genocide, ethnic cleansing, famine, or similar massive human rights violations. While the UN might focus on the human rights aspects of failed states, the ethnic, religious, territorial, cultural and economic aspects are not far beneath the surface. Bush 43 shifted the emphasis from protecting human rights, consensus, and cooperation to unilateral preemptive use of force.

I do not see the unilateral preemptive approach as sustainable, as a long term policy for resolving the crisis. The US alone does not have the resources to pacify and nation build every potential failed state. This will take a global effort and the equivalent of a war time economy.

In short, focus more energy on Afghanistan and Al Qaida. Contain Saddam. Build a world policy for resolving failed states. Use the political kickback from September 11th to build alliances and international consensus, rather than to destroy them.

A larger question might be asked. At this point, should we be trying to avoid a crisis, or win it. Someone asked if Amy Chua was a 'conservative'. Well, yes and no. Let me propose extending the two dimensional line somewhat, from right to left, reactionary, establishment, compromiser, then radical.

On the far right, we have the Agricultural Age tyrants, Bin Ladin and Saddam, rejecting democracy and other Industrial Age limits on absolute power. Bin Ladin is openly fighting to maintain an Islamic Agricultural Age value system, to prevent the development of a modern Middle East. While Saddam was not a classic hereditary Agricultural Age king, he follows the fascist - communist - military dictatorship pattern. Many leaders have attempted to embrace modern technology and economy while rejecting Industrial Age political structures in favor of absolute power. While we have two flavors of reactionary - religious and military - both are reactionary. Neither leader, nor any of their ilk, can possibly lead to a satisfactory resolution to the crisis.

Next major step would be The Establishment. On this scale, the US Red and Blue world views are so close together as to be indistinguishable. Both US parties have a policy of maintaining US prosperity, using force to defend against terror, with nation building where 'terrorist' governments must be removed from power. The poverty and ethnic strife of the Third World is remote, far away, and must not be allowed to impact the US economy. While generally not overtly imperialist, the establishment must maintain the expectations of the First World, and is not overly concerned about improving the situation in the Thrid World.

I would put Amy Chua next. Her perspective is that fundamental shifts must be made to avoid revolution and catastrophe. She would keep the dominant ethnic minorities in power, but institute reforms to avoid the crisis. I would classify Chua as a compromiser, similar to the congressmen who tried to avoid the US Civil War, and did manage to avoid it for a time.

Well to the left would be Arundhati Roy. She takes the perspective of the impoverished Third World majorities, and is advocating nonviolent revolution. If crises are driven by radicals who perceive injustice and strive to fix things, I am watching for people like Roy.

I am not yet seeing much in the way of radical violence at a global scale. At the moment, Al Qaida is doing most of the exporting of violence. As they are dedicated to a perversion of religious values, are (supposedly) attempting to return to more traditional culture, I would rank them as reactionary, to the right of the establishment. However, the repressed majorities in many failed states have resorted to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The underlying economic tensions are going to lead the repressed majorities to seek change. The choice is between reactionary change and radical change. I can't agree with everything Roy is saying or doing, but at this point in the unraveling / crisis cusp, I would rather see radicals with a new vision of the future and nonviolent means of reaching said future, rather than reactionaries striving to use violence to maintain agricultural age values and totalitarian government.

(This is not to say all religious values are evil. There is much to be admired in the old religions. It is quite possible that in the long run, the core values found in religion might help find positive resolution to crisis. Still, I won't let the good in people like Jesus Christ get in the way of my opinions of Bin Ladin.)

Mind you, there are lots of live possibilities. I see radical nonviolence, radical violence and reactionary violence as occurring at the same time, and blurring together. Reactionary nonviolence seems less likely. Those embracing the old value systems are less likely to be followers of Thoreau, Gandhi and King.

So, at one level, we have the reactionaries and establishment locked in a violent struggle. The Establishment originally declared they are not going to look at underlying issues, but there is an absolute need to nation build after overthrowing a government. Thus, in Afghanistan and Iraq at least, the underlying issues are being met head on. Can democratic structures overcome the economic, political and ethnic difficulties of these two states? Will the resultant states produce a solid economy and empower all the varied ethnic groups? Will Chua like compromises and concessions appease the oppressed majorities, or will the radicals demand more?

Roy is actively fighting the Iraqi Reconstruction. She is seeing a few US companies as getting the bulk of the contracts, and setting themselves up as market dominant minorities. She is seeing an element of imperialism, with military conquest leading to a zone of influence where the conquering nation and its agents gain political and economic power. I can quite agree that imperialism and dominant minorities are problems to be addressed, but there is also the basic question of whether one can build a better alternative. If Haliburton doesn't end up running a peaceful and prosperous Iraq, who else can get the job done?

But that's one other thing I'd do different. Bush 43 is pushing the theme that if our people are dying to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq, shouldn't our people make the profits? I would say no. We must avoid not only imperialism, but the appearance of imperialism. We must empower the various ethnic groups, and avoid setting up even the perception of ourselves as a 'market dominant minority' controling and profiting.

Or, if I were willing to play a double game, could the US act in such a way to empower and enable Roy and her non-violent movement? Would it be possible to demonstrate that non-violent radical change works, while reactionary violent change is counter productive? I'll leave this as an abstract question. I hardly believe Bush is steering contracts towards Haliburton as a means to empower Roy and her ilk. In previous for-fun role playing games, I've seen players being clever. I don't think Bush 43 is being clever. (My characters in political role playing games hate clever politics... but that's another story.)

I'm not sure entirely where I belong at this point. I don't see Chua convincing the establishment to moderate policies such that the radicals will be happy. I don't entirely agree with the radicals, but I would like to see a perspective that embraces the true underlying causes dominate. I see the Gray Champion as eventually falling in somewhere between Chua and Roy. He or she will have to address the concerns of both, while dragging the establishment along, perhaps kicking and screaming.

The ultimate resolution of recent crises generally involved the total destruction of the establishment. Both Radical and Establishment factions believed their ability to dish it out would exceed the other side's ability to take it. This belief was clung to well beyond the point of rationality. Think in terms of Atlanta 1865 and Berlin 1945. Thus, I keep repeating the phrase, 'terrorist delievery of weapons of mass destruction.'

I'm not entirely happy with this post. I'm not confident I've role played Xenakis' scenario sufficiently. Still, after 3 attempts, I figure I'd best post something.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

I've been thinking on this. This is my fourth draft. I had decided that my first three got too rambling and unfocused. I'd write something quick and short. I had to continue the conversation. Alas, this is as long and rambling as the prior three.

For a prophet to attempt change, there seems to be two problems. First, you have to figure out what is going to happen. Cassandra had this part of the problem solved by magic. Second, you have to convince someone to do something about it. In the myth, this becomes impossible by magic.

While I'll try to get into your role playing exercise, my role is not that of powerful politician. I'm an INTP personality type, an introverted thinker, rather than a extroverted leader type. Thus, the best I can to is to come up with a good model of what is going on, and hope people might act on this knowledge. Thus, I focus on models like 'Waves of Civilization,' 'Cycles of History', 'Market Dominant Majorities' and 'Clash of Civilizations' rather than specific policies. Looking at past crises, there have been radicals who have anticipated the issues to be dealt with, have laid out the direction of change, but traditionally what happens is more fundamental even than the radicals anticipate this early in the unraveling/crisis cusp. I attempt to correct for this by erring on the side of boldness in presenting my views on what we are about to get into.

Specifics for Iraq of a few years back...

I would have tried to implement a policy that could be sustainable through a crisis, rather than deal with Iraq as a one time incident. I believe autocratic tyrants with WMD can be contained. US doctrine for WMD is use only when faced with a conventional threat that cannot otherwise be met. I anticipate most tyrants will use similar doctrines, thus using force against a WMD wielding tyrant is more apt to increase risk of use than make the world a safer place. I also think, as technology advances, that preventing tyrants from acquiring WMD is going to become difficult to impossible.

I am more concerned with reactionary fundamentalist terrorists than military dictators. I would have committed security forces accordingly.

I figure cooperation among the developed countries is more important than Iraq. NATO and the UN are more significant than Saddam. During the Clinton years, the global community was stumbling towards a policy of intervention when failed states generate genocide, ethnic cleansing, famine, or similar massive human rights violations. While the UN might focus on the human rights aspects of failed states, the ethnic, religious, territorial, cultural and economic aspects are not far beneath the surface. Bush 43 shifted the emphasis from protecting human rights, consensus, and cooperation to unilateral preemptive use of force.

I do not see the unilateral preemptive approach as sustainable, as a long term policy for resolving the crisis. The US alone does not have the resources to pacify and nation build every potential failed state. This will take a global effort and the equivalent of a war time economy.

In short, focus more energy on Afghanistan and Al Qaida. Contain Saddam. Build a world policy for resolving failed states. Use the political kickback from September 11th to build alliances and international consensus, rather than to destroy them.

A larger question might be asked. At this point, should we be trying to avoid a crisis, or win it. Someone asked if Amy Chua was a 'conservative'. Well, yes and no. Let me propose extending the two dimensional line somewhat, from right to left, reactionary, establishment, compromiser, then radical.

On the far right, we have the Agricultural Age tyrants, Bin Ladin and Saddam, rejecting democracy and other Industrial Age limits on absolute power. Bin Ladin is openly fighting to maintain an Islamic Agricultural Age value system, to prevent the development of a modern Middle East. While Saddam was not a classic hereditary Agricultural Age king, he follows the fascist - communist - military dictatorship pattern. Many leaders have attempted to embrace modern technology and economy while rejecting Industrial Age political structures in favor of absolute power. While we have two flavors of reactionary - religious and military - both are reactionary. Neither leader, nor any of their ilk, can possibly lead to a satisfactory resolution to the crisis.

Next major step would be The Establishment. On this scale, the US Red and Blue world views are so close together as to be indistinguishable. Both US parties have a policy of maintaining US prosperity, using force to defend against terror, with nation building where 'terrorist' governments must be removed from power. The poverty and ethnic strife of the Third World is remote, far away, and must not be allowed to impact the US economy. While generally not overtly imperialist, the establishment must maintain the expectations of the First World, and is not overly concerned about improving the situation in the Thrid World.

I would put Amy Chua next. Her perspective is that fundamental shifts must be made to avoid revolution and catastrophe. She would keep the dominant ethnic minorities in power, but institute reforms to avoid the crisis. I would classify Chua as a compromiser, similar to the congressmen who tried to avoid the US Civil War, and did manage to avoid it for a time.

Well to the left would be Arundhati Roy. She takes the perspective of the impoverished Third World majorities, and is advocating nonviolent revolution. If crises are driven by radicals who perceive injustice and strive to fix things, I am watching for people like Roy.

I am not yet seeing much in the way of radical violence at a global scale. At the moment, Al Qaida is doing most of the exporting of violence. As they are dedicated to a perversion of religious values, are (supposedly) attempting to return to more traditional culture, I would rank them as reactionary, to the right of the establishment. However, the repressed majorities in many failed states have resorted to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The underlying economic tensions are going to lead the repressed majorities to seek change. The choice is between reactionary change and radical change. I can't agree with everything Roy is saying or doing, but at this point in the unraveling / crisis cusp, I would rather see radicals with a new vision of the future and nonviolent means of reaching said future, rather than reactionaries striving to use violence to maintain agricultural age values and totalitarian government.

(This is not to say all religious values are evil. There is much to be admired in the old religions. It is quite possible that in the long run, the core values found in religion might help find positive resolution to crisis. Still, I won't let the good in people like Jesus Christ get in the way of my opinions of Bin Ladin.)

Mind you, there are lots of live possibilities. I see radical nonviolence, radical violence and reactionary violence as occurring at the same time, and blurring together. Reactionary nonviolence seems less likely. Those embracing the old value systems are less likely to be followers of Thoreau, Gandhi and King.

So, at one level, we have the reactionaries and establishment locked in a violent struggle. The Establishment originally declared they are not going to look at underlying issues, but there is an absolute need to nation build after overthrowing a government. Thus, in Afghanistan and Iraq at least, the underlying issues are being met head on. Can democratic structures overcome the economic, political and ethnic difficulties of these two states? Will the resultant states produce a solid economy and empower all the varied ethnic groups? Will Chua like compromises and concessions appease the oppressed majorities, or will the radicals demand more?

Roy is actively fighting the Iraqi Reconstruction. She is seeing a few US companies as getting the bulk of the contracts, and setting themselves up as market dominant minorities. She is seeing an element of imperialism, with military conquest leading to a zone of influence where the conquering nation and its agents gain political and economic power. I can quite agree that imperialism and dominant minorities are problems to be addressed, but there is also the basic question of whether one can build a better alternative. If Haliburton doesn't end up running a peaceful and prosperous Iraq, who else can get the job done?

But that's one other thing I'd do different. Bush 43 is pushing the theme that if our people are dying to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq, shouldn't our people make the profits? I would say no. We must avoid not only imperialism, but the appearance of imperialism. We must empower the various ethnic groups, and avoid setting up even the perception of ourselves as a 'market dominant minority' controling and profiting.

Or, if I were willing to play a double game, could the US act in such a way to empower and enable Roy and her non-violent movement? Would it be possible to demonstrate that non-violent radical change works, while reactionary violent change is counter productive? I'll leave this as an abstract question. I hardly believe Bush is steering contracts towards Haliburton as a means to empower Roy and her ilk. In previous for-fun role playing games, I've seen players being clever. I don't think Bush 43 is being clever. (My characters in political role playing games hate clever politics... but that's another story.)

I'm not sure entirely where I belong at this point. I don't see Chua convincing the establishment to moderate policies such that the radicals will be happy. I don't entirely agree with the radicals, but I would like to see a perspective that embraces the true underlying causes dominate. I see the Gray Champion as eventually falling in somewhere between Chua and Roy. He or she will have to address the concerns of both, while dragging the establishment along, perhaps kicking and screaming.

The ultimate resolution of recent crises generally involved the total destruction of the establishment. Both Radical and Establishment factions believed their ability to dish it out would exceed the other side's ability to take it. This belief was clung to well beyond the point of rationality. Think in terms of Atlanta 1865 and Berlin 1945. Thus, I keep repeating the phrase, 'terrorist delievery of weapons of mass destruction.'

I'm not entirely happy with this post. I'm not confident I've role played Xenakis' scenario sufficiently. Still, after 3 attempts, I figure I'd best post something.

Dear Bob,

I think that I'm far more fatalistic than you are. I see the coming
"clash of civilizations" as huge ball rolling down a hill, with no
way to stop it. I don't see the Iraq war as having much effect one
way or the other.

If I were President, with the ability to see the future through
Generational Dynamics, I would have two goals:

(*) Knowing that America and its way of life are going to be in
danger, I would be careful to conserve America's resources. I
believe that America's greatest danger in the next few years is that
it might overextend itself, trying to do too much to save the world.
I believe that America's best interests are served by a kind of
international triage -- let other country's armies annihilate each
other for a while, and then walk in and pick up the pieces. I think
that's what we SHOULD do, but I don't believe that it's what we WILL
do, and I think America will be in great danger because of that.

(*) Knowing that history will paint me as either the next Herbert
Hoover / Neville Chamberlain or the next Franklin Roosevelt / Winston
Churchill, I would try to figure out a way to get history to make the
latter choice, rather than the former. (However, I'm not sure I know
how to do that.)

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

P.S.: Don't worry about rambling on. If it gets too bad, then you
can turn it into a book!!!

Dear Bob,

I think that I'm far more fatalistic than you are. I see the coming
"clash of civilizations" as huge ball rolling down a hill, with no
way to stop it. I don't see the Iraq war as having much effect one
way or the other.

If I were President, with the ability to see the future through
Generational Dynamics, I would have two goals:

(*) Knowing that America and its way of life are going to be in
danger, I would be careful to conserve America's resources. I
believe that America's greatest danger in the next few years is that
it might overextend itself, trying to do too much to save the world.
I believe that America's best interests are served by a kind of
international triage -- let other country's armies annihilate each
other for a while, and then walk in and pick up the pieces. I think
that's what we SHOULD do, but I don't believe that it's what we WILL
do, and I think America will be in great danger because of that.

(*) Knowing that history will paint me as either the next Herbert
Hoover / Neville Chamberlain or the next Franklin Roosevelt / Winston
Churchill, I would try to figure out a way to get history to make the
latter choice, rather than the former. (However, I'm not sure I know
how to do that.)

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

P.S.: Don't worry about rambling on. If it gets too bad, then you
can turn it into a book!!!

Dear Bob,

I think that I'm far more fatalistic than you are. I see the coming
"clash of civilizations" as huge ball rolling down a hill, with no
way to stop it. I don't see the Iraq war as having much effect one
way or the other.

If I were President, with the ability to see the future through
Generational Dynamics, I would have two goals:

(*) Knowing that America and its way of life are going to be in
danger, I would be careful to conserve America's resources. I
believe that America's greatest danger in the next few years is that
it might overextend itself, trying to do too much to save the world.
I believe that America's best interests are served by a kind of
international triage -- let other country's armies annihilate each
other for a while, and then walk in and pick up the pieces. I think
that's what we SHOULD do, but I don't believe that it's what we WILL
do, and I think America will be in great danger because of that.

(*) Knowing that history will paint me as either the next Herbert
Hoover / Neville Chamberlain or the next Franklin Roosevelt / Winston
Churchill, I would try to figure out a way to get history to make the
latter choice, rather than the former. (However, I'm not sure I know
how to do that.)

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

P.S.: Don't worry about rambling on. If it gets too bad, then you
can turn it into a book!!!

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity. One example:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 5

> My aunt's killing was just a pinprick in a world more violent
> than most of us ever imagined. In America we read about acts of
> mass slaughter and savergery; at first in faraway places, now
> coming closer and closer to home. We do not understand what
> connects these acts. Nor do we understand the role we have
> played in bringing them about.

> In the Serbian concentration camps of the early 1990s, the women
> prisoners were raped over and over, many times a day, often with
> broken bottles, often together with their daughters. The men, if
> they were lucky, were beaten to death as their Serbian guards
> sang national anthems; if they were not so fortunate, they were
> castrated or, at gunpoint, forced to castrate their fellow
> prisoners, sometimes with their own teeth. In all, thousands were
> tortured and executed.

This is exactly what happens in a crisis war, as history has shown
over and over. In fact, this is the kind of thing that separates
crisis wars from mid-cycle wars. People who live through a crisis war
understand this, and that's why they enter the austerity period
following a crisis war with a willingness to impose all sorts of rules
to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. The kids who are
born after a crisis war literally have no concept whatsoever of what
happens in a crisis war, and that's why there's an awakening and an
unraveling. People have to learn these lessons over and over again,
every 80 years.

I find her insights and analyses fascinating, largely because she's
willing tread on ground that other journalists and analysts avoid
like the plague. I was not aware, for example, of the depth of the
fault line within the Israeli Jewish community itself until I read
her discussion of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (pp 215ff). This
is important because this fault line may play a part in the next
Mideast crisis war. One thing I now want to know, for example, is
whether the dispute within the Israeli Jewish community over Gaza
Strip settlements is divided along the fault line that Chua
identified.

Another fascinating discussion is the identification of Chinese as
"Jews of the East." Chua quotes Thailand's King Vajiravudh (son of
the King portrayed in Roger's and Hammerstein's "The King and I"):

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 181 quoting King Vajiravudh

> In Siam ... there exists a situation analogous to the Jewish
> question in countries of the West. This is "The Yellow Peril."
> The danger arises solely from the Chinese from whom the Siamese
> are even more different than Europeans are from the Jews. The
> first similarity between Chinese and Jews is in the matter of
> "racial loyalty." No matter where they live, what nationality
> they assume, Chinese remain essentially Chinese. But theirs is
> race loyalty, not love of country....

I would have liked to see this discussed further, because there's an
enormous difference between the Jews and the Chinese: the Chinese
have a homeland, while the Jewish religion has evolved as a
Diaspora-only religion over two millennia.

However, Chua does highlight the importance of Chinese hegemony in
Southeast Asia. Americans tend to assume that everything, for good
or ill, happens because of decisions made in Washington, but Chua's
discussion makes it clear that it's China, for good or ill, that's
calling all the shots in Southeast Asia.

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it. Consider this paragraph:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 10

> When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a
> market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is
> backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The
> first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant
> minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by
> forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is
> violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the
> market-dominant minority itself.

Of these three types of backlash, the first two are awakening or
mid-cycle reactions and the third is a crisis period backlash. If
Chua had understood the generational paradigm, then throughout the
book, as she discussed the fault lines in country after country, she
could have related the backlashes to the countries' position on the
generational timeline.

As impressed as I am with the depth of research in Chua's work, I
have to disagree with the overall message of this book that America
is basically causing these backlashes by imposing democratic free
markets. All of the countries that Chua talks about have been having
genocidal wars for centuries, and presumably America wasn't
responsible for those, and yet Chua finds that all the recent wars are
America's fault. That doesn't really make sense.

In "The Political Consequences of Globalization," she writes:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 123

> Thus has the spread of global markets produced vast, inflammable
> ethnic wealth imbalances all over the world. But globalization
> has also had a crucial political dimension: namely, the American
> led worldwide promotion of free elections and democratization.

> That markets and democracy swept the world simultaneously is not
> a coincidence. After the fall of the Berlin Wall a common
> politIcal and economic consensus emerged, not only in the West but
> to a considerable extent around the world. Markets and democracy,
> working hand in hand, would transform the world into a community
> of modernized, peace-loving nations. In the process, ethnic
> hatred, extremist fundamentalism, and other "backward" aspects of
> underdevelopment would be swept away.

> The consensus could not have been more mistaken. Since 1989, the
> world has seen the proliferation of ethnic conflict, the rise of
> militant Islam, the intensification of group hatred and
> nationalism, expulsions, massacres, confiscations, calls for
> renationalization, and two genocides of magnitudes unprecedented
> since the Nazi Holocaust. The following four chapters will attempt
> to explain why.

> In the last twenty years democratIzation has been a central,
> massively funded pillar of American foreign policy. In the I990S
> the U.S. government spent approximately $ I billIon on democracy
> initiatives for the post-socialist countrIes of Eastern Europe
> and the former Soviet Union. At the same time, America
> aggressively promoted democracy throughout Africa, Latin America,
> the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Haiti alone received more than
> $100 million in democracy aid after 1994. With the glaring
> exception of the Middle Eastern states, there is almost no
> developing or transitional country in the world where the Umted
> States has not actively championed political liberation,
> majoritarian electIons, and the empowerment of civil socIety. As
> of 2000, an estlmated 63 percent of the world's population, or 120
> countries, lived under democrabc rule, a vast mcrease from even a
> decade ago.

This is remarkably bizarre. She talks about "two genocides ...
unprecendented since the Nazi holocaust," talking about the Balkans
and Rwanda in the 90s, ignoring huge genocides in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Burundi and others in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Although her historical sense is superb in most places, she appears
to go historically blind when she wants to make her political
message. The was a genocidal war in the Balkans in the 90s, but
there was also one in the 1910s. Was that democracy's fault too?
And the Hutus and the Tutsis have been fighting in Rwanda for 400
years. How did America cause those wars?

Unfortunately, she totally misses the point of her own research. When
she says (p. 10), "When free market democracy is pursued in the
presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result
is backlash," she ignores the fact that the fighting WOULD HAVE
OCCURRED WITH OR WITHOUT THE FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY. The fighting is
occurring because of the fault line between the market-dominant
majority and the poor minority.

She also has no idea of the forces of history. Free markets were not
invented by America and are not caused by America. Free markets
occur because nothing else is mathematically possible as population
increases. (Any attempt to limit free markets runs into the problem
that the bureaucracy has to increase exponentially faster than the
population, as the population grows.) The last major attempt to
control free markets with a large population was Mao's Great Leap
Forward in 1958, which ended up killing 40 million people in famines
and executions, and failed anyway in the end.

Having said that, another thing I like about her book is that she
firmly relates (without realizing she's doing so) economic crises
with crisis wars. For example, I've been contradicted over my
argument that America's Civil War was caused more by the Panic of
1857 than by slavery. Chua makes it clear that all of these
backlashes, all of these wars, come about because one side of the
fault line is wealthier than the other side.

This makes sense in an evolutionary way as well. Populations grow
faster than the food supply, and genocidal wars provide a means of
killing off the weaker populations, so that the fittest survive.
Since the Chinese are smarter than we are, I'd be concerned that
they'll kill us off in a century or two, if it weren't for the fact
that super-intelligent computers are possibly going to beat them to
it.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity. One example:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 5

> My aunt's killing was just a pinprick in a world more violent
> than most of us ever imagined. In America we read about acts of
> mass slaughter and savergery; at first in faraway places, now
> coming closer and closer to home. We do not understand what
> connects these acts. Nor do we understand the role we have
> played in bringing them about.

> In the Serbian concentration camps of the early 1990s, the women
> prisoners were raped over and over, many times a day, often with
> broken bottles, often together with their daughters. The men, if
> they were lucky, were beaten to death as their Serbian guards
> sang national anthems; if they were not so fortunate, they were
> castrated or, at gunpoint, forced to castrate their fellow
> prisoners, sometimes with their own teeth. In all, thousands were
> tortured and executed.

This is exactly what happens in a crisis war, as history has shown
over and over. In fact, this is the kind of thing that separates
crisis wars from mid-cycle wars. People who live through a crisis war
understand this, and that's why they enter the austerity period
following a crisis war with a willingness to impose all sorts of rules
to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. The kids who are
born after a crisis war literally have no concept whatsoever of what
happens in a crisis war, and that's why there's an awakening and an
unraveling. People have to learn these lessons over and over again,
every 80 years.

I find her insights and analyses fascinating, largely because she's
willing tread on ground that other journalists and analysts avoid
like the plague. I was not aware, for example, of the depth of the
fault line within the Israeli Jewish community itself until I read
her discussion of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (pp 215ff). This
is important because this fault line may play a part in the next
Mideast crisis war. One thing I now want to know, for example, is
whether the dispute within the Israeli Jewish community over Gaza
Strip settlements is divided along the fault line that Chua
identified.

Another fascinating discussion is the identification of Chinese as
"Jews of the East." Chua quotes Thailand's King Vajiravudh (son of
the King portrayed in Roger's and Hammerstein's "The King and I"):

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 181 quoting King Vajiravudh

> In Siam ... there exists a situation analogous to the Jewish
> question in countries of the West. This is "The Yellow Peril."
> The danger arises solely from the Chinese from whom the Siamese
> are even more different than Europeans are from the Jews. The
> first similarity between Chinese and Jews is in the matter of
> "racial loyalty." No matter where they live, what nationality
> they assume, Chinese remain essentially Chinese. But theirs is
> race loyalty, not love of country....

I would have liked to see this discussed further, because there's an
enormous difference between the Jews and the Chinese: the Chinese
have a homeland, while the Jewish religion has evolved as a
Diaspora-only religion over two millennia.

However, Chua does highlight the importance of Chinese hegemony in
Southeast Asia. Americans tend to assume that everything, for good
or ill, happens because of decisions made in Washington, but Chua's
discussion makes it clear that it's China, for good or ill, that's
calling all the shots in Southeast Asia.

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it. Consider this paragraph:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 10

> When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a
> market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is
> backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The
> first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant
> minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by
> forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is
> violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the
> market-dominant minority itself.

Of these three types of backlash, the first two are awakening or
mid-cycle reactions and the third is a crisis period backlash. If
Chua had understood the generational paradigm, then throughout the
book, as she discussed the fault lines in country after country, she
could have related the backlashes to the countries' position on the
generational timeline.

As impressed as I am with the depth of research in Chua's work, I
have to disagree with the overall message of this book that America
is basically causing these backlashes by imposing democratic free
markets. All of the countries that Chua talks about have been having
genocidal wars for centuries, and presumably America wasn't
responsible for those, and yet Chua finds that all the recent wars are
America's fault. That doesn't really make sense.

In "The Political Consequences of Globalization," she writes:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 123

> Thus has the spread of global markets produced vast, inflammable
> ethnic wealth imbalances all over the world. But globalization
> has also had a crucial political dimension: namely, the American
> led worldwide promotion of free elections and democratization.

> That markets and democracy swept the world simultaneously is not
> a coincidence. After the fall of the Berlin Wall a common
> politIcal and economic consensus emerged, not only in the West but
> to a considerable extent around the world. Markets and democracy,
> working hand in hand, would transform the world into a community
> of modernized, peace-loving nations. In the process, ethnic
> hatred, extremist fundamentalism, and other "backward" aspects of
> underdevelopment would be swept away.

> The consensus could not have been more mistaken. Since 1989, the
> world has seen the proliferation of ethnic conflict, the rise of
> militant Islam, the intensification of group hatred and
> nationalism, expulsions, massacres, confiscations, calls for
> renationalization, and two genocides of magnitudes unprecedented
> since the Nazi Holocaust. The following four chapters will attempt
> to explain why.

> In the last twenty years democratIzation has been a central,
> massively funded pillar of American foreign policy. In the I990S
> the U.S. government spent approximately $ I billIon on democracy
> initiatives for the post-socialist countrIes of Eastern Europe
> and the former Soviet Union. At the same time, America
> aggressively promoted democracy throughout Africa, Latin America,
> the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Haiti alone received more than
> $100 million in democracy aid after 1994. With the glaring
> exception of the Middle Eastern states, there is almost no
> developing or transitional country in the world where the Umted
> States has not actively championed political liberation,
> majoritarian electIons, and the empowerment of civil socIety. As
> of 2000, an estlmated 63 percent of the world's population, or 120
> countries, lived under democrabc rule, a vast mcrease from even a
> decade ago.

This is remarkably bizarre. She talks about "two genocides ...
unprecendented since the Nazi holocaust," talking about the Balkans
and Rwanda in the 90s, ignoring huge genocides in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Burundi and others in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Although her historical sense is superb in most places, she appears
to go historically blind when she wants to make her political
message. The was a genocidal war in the Balkans in the 90s, but
there was also one in the 1910s. Was that democracy's fault too?
And the Hutus and the Tutsis have been fighting in Rwanda for 400
years. How did America cause those wars?

Unfortunately, she totally misses the point of her own research. When
she says (p. 10), "When free market democracy is pursued in the
presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result
is backlash," she ignores the fact that the fighting WOULD HAVE
OCCURRED WITH OR WITHOUT THE FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY. The fighting is
occurring because of the fault line between the market-dominant
majority and the poor minority.

She also has no idea of the forces of history. Free markets were not
invented by America and are not caused by America. Free markets
occur because nothing else is mathematically possible as population
increases. (Any attempt to limit free markets runs into the problem
that the bureaucracy has to increase exponentially faster than the
population, as the population grows.) The last major attempt to
control free markets with a large population was Mao's Great Leap
Forward in 1958, which ended up killing 40 million people in famines
and executions, and failed anyway in the end.

Having said that, another thing I like about her book is that she
firmly relates (without realizing she's doing so) economic crises
with crisis wars. For example, I've been contradicted over my
argument that America's Civil War was caused more by the Panic of
1857 than by slavery. Chua makes it clear that all of these
backlashes, all of these wars, come about because one side of the
fault line is wealthier than the other side.

This makes sense in an evolutionary way as well. Populations grow
faster than the food supply, and genocidal wars provide a means of
killing off the weaker populations, so that the fittest survive.
Since the Chinese are smarter than we are, I'd be concerned that
they'll kill us off in a century or two, if it weren't for the fact
that super-intelligent computers are possibly going to beat them to
it.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity. One example:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 5

> My aunt's killing was just a pinprick in a world more violent
> than most of us ever imagined. In America we read about acts of
> mass slaughter and savergery; at first in faraway places, now
> coming closer and closer to home. We do not understand what
> connects these acts. Nor do we understand the role we have
> played in bringing them about.

> In the Serbian concentration camps of the early 1990s, the women
> prisoners were raped over and over, many times a day, often with
> broken bottles, often together with their daughters. The men, if
> they were lucky, were beaten to death as their Serbian guards
> sang national anthems; if they were not so fortunate, they were
> castrated or, at gunpoint, forced to castrate their fellow
> prisoners, sometimes with their own teeth. In all, thousands were
> tortured and executed.

This is exactly what happens in a crisis war, as history has shown
over and over. In fact, this is the kind of thing that separates
crisis wars from mid-cycle wars. People who live through a crisis war
understand this, and that's why they enter the austerity period
following a crisis war with a willingness to impose all sorts of rules
to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. The kids who are
born after a crisis war literally have no concept whatsoever of what
happens in a crisis war, and that's why there's an awakening and an
unraveling. People have to learn these lessons over and over again,
every 80 years.

I find her insights and analyses fascinating, largely because she's
willing tread on ground that other journalists and analysts avoid
like the plague. I was not aware, for example, of the depth of the
fault line within the Israeli Jewish community itself until I read
her discussion of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (pp 215ff). This
is important because this fault line may play a part in the next
Mideast crisis war. One thing I now want to know, for example, is
whether the dispute within the Israeli Jewish community over Gaza
Strip settlements is divided along the fault line that Chua
identified.

Another fascinating discussion is the identification of Chinese as
"Jews of the East." Chua quotes Thailand's King Vajiravudh (son of
the King portrayed in Roger's and Hammerstein's "The King and I"):

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 181 quoting King Vajiravudh

> In Siam ... there exists a situation analogous to the Jewish
> question in countries of the West. This is "The Yellow Peril."
> The danger arises solely from the Chinese from whom the Siamese
> are even more different than Europeans are from the Jews. The
> first similarity between Chinese and Jews is in the matter of
> "racial loyalty." No matter where they live, what nationality
> they assume, Chinese remain essentially Chinese. But theirs is
> race loyalty, not love of country....

I would have liked to see this discussed further, because there's an
enormous difference between the Jews and the Chinese: the Chinese
have a homeland, while the Jewish religion has evolved as a
Diaspora-only religion over two millennia.

However, Chua does highlight the importance of Chinese hegemony in
Southeast Asia. Americans tend to assume that everything, for good
or ill, happens because of decisions made in Washington, but Chua's
discussion makes it clear that it's China, for good or ill, that's
calling all the shots in Southeast Asia.

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it. Consider this paragraph:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 10

> When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a
> market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is
> backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The
> first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant
> minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by
> forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is
> violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the
> market-dominant minority itself.

Of these three types of backlash, the first two are awakening or
mid-cycle reactions and the third is a crisis period backlash. If
Chua had understood the generational paradigm, then throughout the
book, as she discussed the fault lines in country after country, she
could have related the backlashes to the countries' position on the
generational timeline.

As impressed as I am with the depth of research in Chua's work, I
have to disagree with the overall message of this book that America
is basically causing these backlashes by imposing democratic free
markets. All of the countries that Chua talks about have been having
genocidal wars for centuries, and presumably America wasn't
responsible for those, and yet Chua finds that all the recent wars are
America's fault. That doesn't really make sense.

In "The Political Consequences of Globalization," she writes:

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 123

> Thus has the spread of global markets produced vast, inflammable
> ethnic wealth imbalances all over the world. But globalization
> has also had a crucial political dimension: namely, the American
> led worldwide promotion of free elections and democratization.

> That markets and democracy swept the world simultaneously is not
> a coincidence. After the fall of the Berlin Wall a common
> politIcal and economic consensus emerged, not only in the West but
> to a considerable extent around the world. Markets and democracy,
> working hand in hand, would transform the world into a community
> of modernized, peace-loving nations. In the process, ethnic
> hatred, extremist fundamentalism, and other "backward" aspects of
> underdevelopment would be swept away.

> The consensus could not have been more mistaken. Since 1989, the
> world has seen the proliferation of ethnic conflict, the rise of
> militant Islam, the intensification of group hatred and
> nationalism, expulsions, massacres, confiscations, calls for
> renationalization, and two genocides of magnitudes unprecedented
> since the Nazi Holocaust. The following four chapters will attempt
> to explain why.

> In the last twenty years democratIzation has been a central,
> massively funded pillar of American foreign policy. In the I990S
> the U.S. government spent approximately $ I billIon on democracy
> initiatives for the post-socialist countrIes of Eastern Europe
> and the former Soviet Union. At the same time, America
> aggressively promoted democracy throughout Africa, Latin America,
> the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Haiti alone received more than
> $100 million in democracy aid after 1994. With the glaring
> exception of the Middle Eastern states, there is almost no
> developing or transitional country in the world where the Umted
> States has not actively championed political liberation,
> majoritarian electIons, and the empowerment of civil socIety. As
> of 2000, an estlmated 63 percent of the world's population, or 120
> countries, lived under democrabc rule, a vast mcrease from even a
> decade ago.

This is remarkably bizarre. She talks about "two genocides ...
unprecendented since the Nazi holocaust," talking about the Balkans
and Rwanda in the 90s, ignoring huge genocides in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Burundi and others in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Although her historical sense is superb in most places, she appears
to go historically blind when she wants to make her political
message. The was a genocidal war in the Balkans in the 90s, but
there was also one in the 1910s. Was that democracy's fault too?
And the Hutus and the Tutsis have been fighting in Rwanda for 400
years. How did America cause those wars?

Unfortunately, she totally misses the point of her own research. When
she says (p. 10), "When free market democracy is pursued in the
presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result
is backlash," she ignores the fact that the fighting WOULD HAVE
OCCURRED WITH OR WITHOUT THE FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY. The fighting is
occurring because of the fault line between the market-dominant
majority and the poor minority.

She also has no idea of the forces of history. Free markets were not
invented by America and are not caused by America. Free markets
occur because nothing else is mathematically possible as population
increases. (Any attempt to limit free markets runs into the problem
that the bureaucracy has to increase exponentially faster than the
population, as the population grows.) The last major attempt to
control free markets with a large population was Mao's Great Leap
Forward in 1958, which ended up killing 40 million people in famines
and executions, and failed anyway in the end.

Having said that, another thing I like about her book is that she
firmly relates (without realizing she's doing so) economic crises
with crisis wars. For example, I've been contradicted over my
argument that America's Civil War was caused more by the Panic of
1857 than by slavery. Chua makes it clear that all of these
backlashes, all of these wars, come about because one side of the
fault line is wealthier than the other side.

This makes sense in an evolutionary way as well. Populations grow
faster than the food supply, and genocidal wars provide a means of
killing off the weaker populations, so that the fittest survive.
Since the Chinese are smarter than we are, I'd be concerned that
they'll kill us off in a century or two, if it weren't for the fact
that super-intelligent computers are possibly going to beat them to
it.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Smart idea, but it doesn't fit into neo-imperialism. Perhaps something like this might come to pass during the regeneracy, depending on which grouping prevails.

(~*~)

Smart idea, but it doesn't fit into neo-imperialism. Perhaps something like this might come to pass during the regeneracy, depending on which grouping prevails.

(~*~)

Smart idea, but it doesn't fit into neo-imperialism. Perhaps something like this might come to pass during the regeneracy, depending on which grouping prevails.

(~*~)

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it.

Perhaps you could contact her?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it.

Perhaps you could contact her?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I wish that Amy Chua had been aware of Generational Dynamics,
because her entire book supports the generational paradigm, without
her realizing it.

Perhaps you could contact her?

************************************************** **************

************************************************** **************

************************************************** **************

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity.

I agree both with your complements on her research, and your criticism of some of her solutions. As I said earlier to Virgil, I value the book more for her explorations of the tensions in various parts of the world than for her specific recommendations for solutions or allocation of blame. I do think the US could do more for world stability if they sided more with labor than with the multi-nationals. Still, as you point out, blaming recent US policies for ethnic hatreds that have been going on for centuries is bunk.

Even if one rejects 96% of the blame she allocates to the US, and if one substitutes instead generational dynamics as an alternate cause of rising tensions, she is still correct in saying capitalism and democracy are uneasy bedfellows. They do not automatically coexist. There are many ways in which the two forms of power might interact. Many of them are not pretty.

Chau identifies the correct fault lines for the upcoming crisis, I'm reasonably sure. Still, as you pointed out, she seems willing to slant her data and telling of history to exagerate the clarity of quite questionable analysis. If Bush 43 'spun' intelligence to present Saddam as a greater threat than objective intelligence would say, Chua is spinning too. I would feel far more comfortable if I had a few other books covering the same ground but with different agendas. Still, Chua is covering the right ground.

The book should be read for her accounts of ethnic strifes about the world, and how she ties the ethnic and economic problems together. She deals with many of the same sort of trouble spots as Huntington. While Huntington puts the blame on "Clashes of Civilization," Chua emphisizes economic and US policy. Neither seem aware of Generational Dynamics. I'd sort of like to lock certain authors in a room together until they acknowledge each other's perspectives. There is some merit in all three perspectives. None of them alone are adequate without accepting elements from the others.

A quick google search picked up the following page on the Yale Law school web site. If you'd care to step into a room with her, I'll bring a lock. :wink:

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html...53/profile.htm

Originally Posted by Yale Law

Amy L. Chua Professor of Law

Contact Info

Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520
amy.chua@yale.edu

Subjects

Contracts; international business transactions; law and development; ethnic conflict; globalization and the law.

Education

A.B., Harvard, 1984; J.D. 1987.

Professional Positions

Exec. Ed., Harvard L.R. Law Clerk, Hon. Patricia M. Wald, U.S. Ct. of App., D.C. Cir., 1987-88. Assoc., Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, 1988-93. Assoc. Prof., Duke, 1994-2001. Visiting Prof., Columbia, 1999. Visiting Prof., Stanford, 2000; Visiting Prof., NYU, 2000. Prof., Yale since 2001.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity.

I agree both with your complements on her research, and your criticism of some of her solutions. As I said earlier to Virgil, I value the book more for her explorations of the tensions in various parts of the world than for her specific recommendations for solutions or allocation of blame. I do think the US could do more for world stability if they sided more with labor than with the multi-nationals. Still, as you point out, blaming recent US policies for ethnic hatreds that have been going on for centuries is bunk.

Even if one rejects 96% of the blame she allocates to the US, and if one substitutes instead generational dynamics as an alternate cause of rising tensions, she is still correct in saying capitalism and democracy are uneasy bedfellows. They do not automatically coexist. There are many ways in which the two forms of power might interact. Many of them are not pretty.

Chau identifies the correct fault lines for the upcoming crisis, I'm reasonably sure. Still, as you pointed out, she seems willing to slant her data and telling of history to exagerate the clarity of quite questionable analysis. If Bush 43 'spun' intelligence to present Saddam as a greater threat than objective intelligence would say, Chua is spinning too. I would feel far more comfortable if I had a few other books covering the same ground but with different agendas. Still, Chua is covering the right ground.

The book should be read for her accounts of ethnic strifes about the world, and how she ties the ethnic and economic problems together. She deals with many of the same sort of trouble spots as Huntington. While Huntington puts the blame on "Clashes of Civilization," Chua emphisizes economic and US policy. Neither seem aware of Generational Dynamics. I'd sort of like to lock certain authors in a room together until they acknowledge each other's perspectives. There is some merit in all three perspectives. None of them alone are adequate without accepting elements from the others.

A quick google search picked up the following page on the Yale Law school web site. If you'd care to step into a room with her, I'll bring a lock. :wink:

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html...53/profile.htm

Originally Posted by Yale Law

Amy L. Chua Professor of Law

Contact Info

Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520
amy.chua@yale.edu

Subjects

Contracts; international business transactions; law and development; ethnic conflict; globalization and the law.

Education

A.B., Harvard, 1984; J.D. 1987.

Professional Positions

Exec. Ed., Harvard L.R. Law Clerk, Hon. Patricia M. Wald, U.S. Ct. of App., D.C. Cir., 1987-88. Assoc., Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, 1988-93. Assoc. Prof., Duke, 1994-2001. Visiting Prof., Columbia, 1999. Visiting Prof., Stanford, 2000; Visiting Prof., NYU, 2000. Prof., Yale since 2001.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Bob,

I finally got Amy Chua's book, and I've been skimming through,
reading various parts of it.

This is an incredibly good book, mainly because of the extensive
research she's done. She has extensive knowledge of fault line
separations in dozens of countries throughout Asia, Europe and
Africa, and she provides detailed historical analyses with huge
amounts of insight. Her book is extremely valuable as a reference
book alone.

I also like her book because it presents what's going on in the world
with remarkable clarity.

I agree both with your complements on her research, and your criticism of some of her solutions. As I said earlier to Virgil, I value the book more for her explorations of the tensions in various parts of the world than for her specific recommendations for solutions or allocation of blame. I do think the US could do more for world stability if they sided more with labor than with the multi-nationals. Still, as you point out, blaming recent US policies for ethnic hatreds that have been going on for centuries is bunk.

Even if one rejects 96% of the blame she allocates to the US, and if one substitutes instead generational dynamics as an alternate cause of rising tensions, she is still correct in saying capitalism and democracy are uneasy bedfellows. They do not automatically coexist. There are many ways in which the two forms of power might interact. Many of them are not pretty.

Chau identifies the correct fault lines for the upcoming crisis, I'm reasonably sure. Still, as you pointed out, she seems willing to slant her data and telling of history to exagerate the clarity of quite questionable analysis. If Bush 43 'spun' intelligence to present Saddam as a greater threat than objective intelligence would say, Chua is spinning too. I would feel far more comfortable if I had a few other books covering the same ground but with different agendas. Still, Chua is covering the right ground.

The book should be read for her accounts of ethnic strifes about the world, and how she ties the ethnic and economic problems together. She deals with many of the same sort of trouble spots as Huntington. While Huntington puts the blame on "Clashes of Civilization," Chua emphisizes economic and US policy. Neither seem aware of Generational Dynamics. I'd sort of like to lock certain authors in a room together until they acknowledge each other's perspectives. There is some merit in all three perspectives. None of them alone are adequate without accepting elements from the others.

A quick google search picked up the following page on the Yale Law school web site. If you'd care to step into a room with her, I'll bring a lock. :wink:

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html...53/profile.htm

Originally Posted by Yale Law

Amy L. Chua Professor of Law

Contact Info

Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520
amy.chua@yale.edu

Subjects

Contracts; international business transactions; law and development; ethnic conflict; globalization and the law.

Education

A.B., Harvard, 1984; J.D. 1987.

Professional Positions

Exec. Ed., Harvard L.R. Law Clerk, Hon. Patricia M. Wald, U.S. Ct. of App., D.C. Cir., 1987-88. Assoc., Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, 1988-93. Assoc. Prof., Duke, 1994-2001. Visiting Prof., Columbia, 1999. Visiting Prof., Stanford, 2000; Visiting Prof., NYU, 2000. Prof., Yale since 2001.

John,

I also read Chua's book over the past week and have been waiting until I was finished to comment on all of this.

First, I, too, agree that Chua has done a masterful job of description of some of the issues raised by market dominant minorities in nations and their relations with indigenous majorities who are poor and underdeveloped. That was indeed the best part of the book.

I disagree with you that the Ashkenazi and Sephardic divide in Israel is going to be a major fault-line in an upcoming mid-east war. Unlike Chua's other descriptions of market dominant minorities, this "divide" is not very great. For one thing, the Ashkenazim do not see themselves as fundamentally separate or different than the Sephardim and vice versa. Also, there are other Jewish "ethnic" groups in Israel so that there is not one group that is on top and one that is on the bottom. (Some such groups are the "Oriental" Jews who are from Yemen, UAR, Saudi Arabia, Iran and India. Also, the Russian Jews who, although they are technically Ashkenazim, have lost much of their Jewish cultural identity due to 80 years of living under the oppression of Russian communism). This is not the divide to watch in Israel, although Chua wants to make it so because it fits her theory.

The real divide within Israel is the divide between the non-observant majority and the extremely religious minority. This is the divide that is likely to have the most impact in Israel and on any mid-east war. It has already had a huge impact on how Israel has dealt with the Palestinians.
The ultra-religious have undue influence on the government with respect to their numbers and they are exempt from military service and the men get state subsidies so that they do have to work but can spend their lives studying talmud. Through the parlimentary system, they have continually demanded more settlements in the West Bank because they believe Israel should have the borders that King David won back in 1,000 B.C.E. And yet they refuse to send their sons to occupation duty, leaving this to the non-observant minority. The non-observant Israelis (about 97% of the population) bitterly resent the priveleges and the undue influence that the religious parties have. Their subsidies for study and huge families are a burden on the economy, as are the settlements and the cost of occupation, which they support politically but not by doing military service.

This is the real divide in Israel and it has nothing to do with ethnic groups. There are Ashkenazim and Sephardim in equal numbers on both sides of it.

John,

I also read Chua's book over the past week and have been waiting until I was finished to comment on all of this.

First, I, too, agree that Chua has done a masterful job of description of some of the issues raised by market dominant minorities in nations and their relations with indigenous majorities who are poor and underdeveloped. That was indeed the best part of the book.

I disagree with you that the Ashkenazi and Sephardic divide in Israel is going to be a major fault-line in an upcoming mid-east war. Unlike Chua's other descriptions of market dominant minorities, this "divide" is not very great. For one thing, the Ashkenazim do not see themselves as fundamentally separate or different than the Sephardim and vice versa. Also, there are other Jewish "ethnic" groups in Israel so that there is not one group that is on top and one that is on the bottom. (Some such groups are the "Oriental" Jews who are from Yemen, UAR, Saudi Arabia, Iran and India. Also, the Russian Jews who, although they are technically Ashkenazim, have lost much of their Jewish cultural identity due to 80 years of living under the oppression of Russian communism). This is not the divide to watch in Israel, although Chua wants to make it so because it fits her theory.

The real divide within Israel is the divide between the non-observant majority and the extremely religious minority. This is the divide that is likely to have the most impact in Israel and on any mid-east war. It has already had a huge impact on how Israel has dealt with the Palestinians.
The ultra-religious have undue influence on the government with respect to their numbers and they are exempt from military service and the men get state subsidies so that they do have to work but can spend their lives studying talmud. Through the parlimentary system, they have continually demanded more settlements in the West Bank because they believe Israel should have the borders that King David won back in 1,000 B.C.E. And yet they refuse to send their sons to occupation duty, leaving this to the non-observant minority. The non-observant Israelis (about 97% of the population) bitterly resent the priveleges and the undue influence that the religious parties have. Their subsidies for study and huge families are a burden on the economy, as are the settlements and the cost of occupation, which they support politically but not by doing military service.

This is the real divide in Israel and it has nothing to do with ethnic groups. There are Ashkenazim and Sephardim in equal numbers on both sides of it.

John,

I also read Chua's book over the past week and have been waiting until I was finished to comment on all of this.

First, I, too, agree that Chua has done a masterful job of description of some of the issues raised by market dominant minorities in nations and their relations with indigenous majorities who are poor and underdeveloped. That was indeed the best part of the book.

I disagree with you that the Ashkenazi and Sephardic divide in Israel is going to be a major fault-line in an upcoming mid-east war. Unlike Chua's other descriptions of market dominant minorities, this "divide" is not very great. For one thing, the Ashkenazim do not see themselves as fundamentally separate or different than the Sephardim and vice versa. Also, there are other Jewish "ethnic" groups in Israel so that there is not one group that is on top and one that is on the bottom. (Some such groups are the "Oriental" Jews who are from Yemen, UAR, Saudi Arabia, Iran and India. Also, the Russian Jews who, although they are technically Ashkenazim, have lost much of their Jewish cultural identity due to 80 years of living under the oppression of Russian communism). This is not the divide to watch in Israel, although Chua wants to make it so because it fits her theory.

The real divide within Israel is the divide between the non-observant majority and the extremely religious minority. This is the divide that is likely to have the most impact in Israel and on any mid-east war. It has already had a huge impact on how Israel has dealt with the Palestinians.
The ultra-religious have undue influence on the government with respect to their numbers and they are exempt from military service and the men get state subsidies so that they do have to work but can spend their lives studying talmud. Through the parlimentary system, they have continually demanded more settlements in the West Bank because they believe Israel should have the borders that King David won back in 1,000 B.C.E. And yet they refuse to send their sons to occupation duty, leaving this to the non-observant minority. The non-observant Israelis (about 97% of the population) bitterly resent the priveleges and the undue influence that the religious parties have. Their subsidies for study and huge families are a burden on the economy, as are the settlements and the cost of occupation, which they support politically but not by doing military service.

This is the real divide in Israel and it has nothing to do with ethnic groups. There are Ashkenazim and Sephardim in equal numbers on both sides of it.

Another fascinating discussion is the identification of Chinese as
"Jews of the East." Chua quotes Thailand's King Vajiravudh (son of
the King portrayed in Roger's and Hammerstein's "The King and I"):

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 181 quoting King Vajiravudh

> In Siam ... there exists a situation analogous to the Jewish
> question in countries of the West. This is "The Yellow Peril."
> The danger arises solely from the Chinese from whom the Siamese
> are even more different than Europeans are from the Jews. The
> first similarity between Chinese and Jews is in the matter of
> "racial loyalty." No matter where they live, what nationality
> they assume, Chinese remain essentially Chinese. But theirs is
> race loyalty, not love of country....

I would have liked to see this discussed further, because there's an
enormous difference between the Jews and the Chinese: the Chinese
have a homeland, while the Jewish religion has evolved as a
Diaspora-only religion over two millennia.

However, Chua does highlight the importance of Chinese hegemony in
Southeast Asia. Americans tend to assume that everything, for good
or ill, happens because of decisions made in Washington, but Chua's
discussion makes it clear that it's China, for good or ill, that's
calling all the shots in Southeast Asia.

Unquote.

The way Chua depicts the USA is actually fairly similar to how China is described here. Americans are described as a market dominant minority (and militarily dominant as well)-with a homeland-but on a global scale.

(~*~)

Another fascinating discussion is the identification of Chinese as
"Jews of the East." Chua quotes Thailand's King Vajiravudh (son of
the King portrayed in Roger's and Hammerstein's "The King and I"):

Originally Posted by Amy Chua p 181 quoting King Vajiravudh

> In Siam ... there exists a situation analogous to the Jewish
> question in countries of the West. This is "The Yellow Peril."
> The danger arises solely from the Chinese from whom the Siamese
> are even more different than Europeans are from the Jews. The
> first similarity between Chinese and Jews is in the matter of
> "racial loyalty." No matter where they live, what nationality
> they assume, Chinese remain essentially Chinese. But theirs is
> race loyalty, not love of country....

I would have liked to see this discussed further, because there's an
enormous difference between the Jews and the Chinese: the Chinese
have a homeland, while the Jewish religion has evolved as a
Diaspora-only religion over two millennia.

However, Chua does highlight the importance of Chinese hegemony in
Southeast Asia. Americans tend to assume that everything, for good
or ill, happens because of decisions made in Washington, but Chua's
discussion makes it clear that it's China, for good or ill, that's
calling all the shots in Southeast Asia.

Unquote.

The way Chua depicts the USA is actually fairly similar to how China is described here. Americans are described as a market dominant minority (and militarily dominant as well)-with a homeland-but on a global scale.

(~*~)