The Triple Package (31 page)

Lebanese American population
 . . . income numbers:
U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 509 – Lebanese).

foreign-born
:
U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 509 – Lebanese; 540 – Iranian).

probably only a half
:
See Nalf, “Lebanese Immigration into the United States,” pp. 159–60.

Sununu
 . . . Shaheen:
William Saletan, “Lawrence of Nashua: New Hampshire’s All-Arab-American Senate Race,” Slate, Oct. 16, 2002, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/ballot_box/2002/10/lawrence_of_nashua.html.

Japanese Americans
:
See U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 022 – Japanese) (median household income of $65,573).

Greek Americans
:
See U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 536 – Greek) (median household income of $62,552); Charles C. Moskos,
Greek Americans: Struggle and Success
(2d ed.) (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers, 1989), pp. 52, 112–15.

arguably the five most successful
:
No authoritative metric and no conclusive ranking exists for disproportionate group economic success in America. In terms of 2010 median household income, the Jewish figure of about $97,000 is probably the highest of any group; Indians (about $91,000) would be second-highest, with Iranians ($68,000), Chinese ($67,000), and Lebanese ($67,000) very close to the top as well. These five groups also rank at or near the top in percent of households earning more than $100,000 per year and percent of households earning more than $200,000 per year. (For median household incomes of all Census-tracked groups, see U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201 [2010 3-year dataset]; for percentages earning over $100,000 and $200,000, see ibid., Table DP03 [2010 5-year dataset]; for Jews, see the note on Jewish income above.) But income measures capture only a piece of economic success. Academic attainment among the young is a critical predictor of success in the next generation; corporate and business achievement is an important marker of conventional success in the American economy; and intergenerational mobility—the ability of children born to lower-income parents to rise to relative affluence—is another key measure of disproportionate group economic success in the United States as well. We tried to take into account all these factors in deciding which groups to focus on in this book
.

But our selection was necessarily restricted by time, space, and information limits. As mentioned, our book measures income only as of 2010. We also restricted our scope to groups with significant populations in America; we chose 100,000 as the cut-off. In addition, we ruled out certain Census-generated group classifications because of the way the Census Bureau acquires its ancestry information
.
The decennial census no longer asks all respondents about their ethnic or national origins (although it does ask about their “race”). Instead, the Census Bureau takes data from the American Community Survey (ACS), an annual sample population survey (also administered by the Bureau), which asks individuals open-endedly to state their “ancestry or ethnic origin.” More than one answer is permitted; an individual’s first two responses are recorded. As a result, some Census-generated classifications are simply too amorphous for our purposes (e.g., “European”), while others are of uncertain validity. For example, Census data show about 1.1 million “British” Americans with a median income among the highest in the country; but Census data also show 27 million “English” Americans with a significantly lower median income. See U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 520 – British; 529 – English). While there is some reason to think that self-identified “British” Americans may form a distinct cultural group (quite possibly a Triple Package group), this hypothesis could not be verified, and we ultimately chose to exclude “British” Americans from our analysis.

Two Asian groups we decided not to include were Korean and Filipino Americans, although in certain respects both groups are quite successful. Koreans are an extremely interesting but bimodal case, displaying both extraordinary achievement and relatively high poverty levels. See Renee Reichl Luthra and Roger Waldinger, “Intergenerational Mobility,” in David Card and Steven Raphael, eds.,
Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality
(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013), pp. 169, 182 (Korean Americans have high percentages of both educational attainment and households in poverty). Overall, by standard income metrics, Korean Americans are not nearly as disproportionately successful as the groups we study; for example, their median household income is barely distinguishable from that of the U.S. population as a whole (both being around $51,000). See U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 001 – total population; 023 – Korean). Unlike the Koreans, Filipino Americans are more homogeneous and have a very high median household income. But on individual income measures, Filipino Americans rank surprisingly low; for example, working Filipino men earn a median income of about $45,000—actually below the national average. See ibid. (population group code 019 – Filipino). By contrast, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, and Lebanese Americans are all in the top tier in terms of both household and individual income.

CHAPTER 3: THE SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

“one’s own group (the in-group) as virtuous and superior”
:
Ross A. Hammond and Robert Axelrod, “The Evolution of Ethnocentrism,”
Journal of Conflict Resolution
50, no. 6 (2006), p. 926. Sumner wrote that “[e]ach group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders.” William Graham Sumner,
Folkways: A Study of the Sociolological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
(Boston: The Athenaeum Press, 1907), p. 13; see also Paul C. Rosenblatt, “Origins and Effects of Group Ethnocentrism and Nationalism,”
Journal of Conflict Resolution
8, no. 2 (1964), p. 131.

For Adler
 . . . a “superiority complex” was in every case:
Alfred Adler,
The Science of Living
(Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing, 1929), p. 79 (“if we inquire into a superiority complex . . . we can always find a more or less hidden inferiority complex”), p. 97 (“the superiority complex is one of the ways which a person with an inferiority complex may use as a method of escape from his difficulties”).

coining the term
:
Adler apparently first used the terms “inferiority complex” and “superiority complex” in 1925 or 1926. See Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacher, eds.,
The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler
(New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 256. But both terms were already in use in 1922. See, e.g., “Calls Our Women Superior: French Philosopher Declares Americans ‘Will Go Far,’”
New York Times
, Jan. 30, 1922 (“In Europe Freud declared women are handicapped by an inferiority complex . . . but it is certainly not true here. They have what I would describe as the superiority complex”).

New England
 . . . Cromwell:
Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz,
The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), pp. xiii, 65–72; Harry S. Stout,
The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England
(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 8.

the New Testament
:
1 Peter 2:9 (“Ye are a chosen generation, . . . an holy nation, a peculiar people”).

“did not set his love upon you, nor choose you”
:
Gitlin and Leibovitz, pp. 15–16.

“Blessed art Thou”
:
Hayim Halevy Donin,
To Pray as a Jew: A Guide to the Prayer Book and the Synagogue Service
(New York: Basic Books, 1991), p. 326 (prayer for festival days); see also ibid., p. 52 (Torah blessing) (“chosen us from among the nations”), p. 325 (Sabbath blessing) (“chosen us and sanctified us above all nations”).

“contaminated”
:
See Jon D. Levenson, “Chosenness and Its Enemies,”
Commentary,
December 2008, p. 26 (quoting José Saramago); see also Paul Berman, “Something’s Changed: Bigotry in Print. Crowds Chant Murder,” in Ron Rosenbaum, ed.,
Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism
(New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 17–9.

“the root of evil”
:
Levenson, “Chosenness and Its Enemies,” p. 26; The Associated Press and Haaretz Service, “Israel Complains About Greek Composer’s Anti-Semitic Remarks,”
Haaretz
, Nov. 12, 2003; Jeff Weintraub, “Theodorakis’s Jewish Problem (2004),” July 15, 2005, http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2005/07/theodorakiss-jewish-problem-2004.html. Theodorakis has stated that his remarks were taken out of context (and that his later declaration, “I am an anti-Semite,” was a “slip of the tongue”). Mikis Theodorakis, Letter to the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, May 16, 2011, http://www.kis.gr/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=421:mikis-theodorakis.

Jewish philosophers
:
See, e.g., Menachem Kellner, “Chosenness, Not Chauvinism: Maimonides on the Chosen People,” in Daniel H. Frank, ed.,
A People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 51–76; David Novak,
The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 31–108.

Spinoza
:
Benedictus de Spinoza,
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
, trans. Samuel Shirley (Boston: E.J. Brill, 1991) [1677], p. 100; Steven Nadler,
Spinoza: A Life
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 120–32.

Mendelssohn
:
See Paul Johnson,
A History of the Jews
(New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 301 (“tightrope”); Moses Mendelssohn,
Jerusalem: A Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism
, trans. M. Samuels
(London: Longman, Orme, Brown, and Longmans, 1838), vol. 2, pp. 89, 102 (“Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of immutable truths . . . no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually taken. Revealed
religion
is one thing; revealed
legislation
is another”); but cf.
Allan Arkush,
Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), pp. 218–9 (suggesting that Mendelssohn nevertheless embraced a concept of Jewish election).

“To abandon the claim to chosenness”
:
Arnold M. Eisen,
The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 3–4.

Reconstructionist Judaism
:
See Avi Beker,
The Chosen: The History of an Idea, and the Anatomy
of an Obsession
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), pp. 23–4, 72–3. Reconstructionism is by far the smallest of the four major denominations of American Jews. As of 2013, only 1 percent of American Jews identified themselves as Reconstructionist; 10 percent identified themselves as Orthodox, 18 percent as Conservative, 35 percent as Reform, and 27 percent as “just Jewish.” Pew Research Center,
A Portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a
Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews
(Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2013), p. 48.

“mission”
 . . . “witnesses to God’s presence”:
Pittsburgh Platform, Union of American Hebrew Congregations (November 1885); “A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism,” Central Conference of American Rabbis (Pittsburgh, May 1999), http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/platforms/statement-principles-reform-judaism.

deemphasizing if not rejecting
:
For a highly influential Reform rabbi’s declaration that Reform Jews “believe we have a mission to perform,” but “reject” the concept that “[Jews] are
the
Chosen People,” see Jacob R. Marcus, “Genesis: College Beginnings (1978),” in Gary Phillip Zola, ed.,
The Dynamics of American Jewish History: Jacob Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Jewry
(Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2004), p. 144. Other Reform leaders have retained the idea of chosenness. See Beker,
The Chosen
, p. 77.

“There is no doubt”
:
Sigmund Freud, “Moses and Monotheism,” in James Strachey, ed. and trans.
The
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud
(London: Hogarth Press, 1986), vol. 23, pp. 105–6.

“nobler past”
:
Louis Dembitz Brandeis, “The Jewish Problem, How to Solve It” (speech delivered in June 1915), reprinted in Steve Israel and Seth Forman, eds.,
Great Jewish Speeches Throughout History
(Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1994), p. 74.

“Persecution
 . . . deepened the passion for righteousness”:
Brandeis, “The Jewish Problem, How to Solve It,” p. 77; see also Adam Garfinkle,
Jewcentricity: Why Jews Are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Just About Everything
(Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009), p. 58 (some Jews became “convinced of their own moral superiority to non-Jews, in rough proportion to their suffering at their hands”).