The new book by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld (The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America) is stirring controversy, as it was meant to do. The authors are nothing if not successful marketers.

I don’t agree with critics like Sekuta Mehta who argue that exploring the relationship between cultural traits and prosperity is racist. If a culture is a cluster of norms, preferences, habits, and values, than each culture will be more or less consistent with the culture of capitalism. Consistency with capitalism will confer advantage, and we should understand that.

Chua and Rubenfeld should not be condemned just for arguing that culture matters. But I think they fail in two other ways, and these weaknesses bother me less for ideological reasons than because I don’t like to see senior academics ignoring complexity and rigor in order to publish best-sellers that would not pass even the most ideologically open-minded peer-review process. In other words, I am not offended by the conclusion but by the methods.

First, their empirical argument is deeply problematic. They identify eight prosperous US ethnic groups and, after rejecting other explanations for their economic success, insist that the essential reasons must be three cultural traits (a sense of superiority, a sense of insecurity, and impulse control). This is the kind of method that persuaded physicians, for many centuries, to use leeches to bleed patients. Look at my eight most successful medical cases–people who recovered from mysterious illnesses. What do they have in common? I bled them all. Ergo, leeches work. You don’t have to be a fool to think this way, but the scientific method works much better.

When studying the impact of culture on prosperity, the scientific gold standard (an experiment) may not be possible. But one must at least avoid selection bias to choose large and representative samples, measure each case using independent data, and rigorously consider multiple explanations. In this case, you would look at all US ethnic groups (poor as well as rich) and treat their median income or wealth as a function of many plausible explanations that can be reliably measured. Cultural factors might or might not emerge as significant predictors in a multivariate model. You won’t find out from Chua and Rubenfeld.

The second problem is their very thin moral (or normative) framework. Assume that having a sense of cultural superiority conveys competitive advantage in a market economy–what of that? The authors do raise the point that striving for material success may not be the best way of life, but that is an aside. Surely, each of the grand ideas in their book–a sense of superiority, insecurity, delayed gratification, and wealth itself–is problematic.

More rigorous research than theirs brings into focus other ways in which fitting well with capitalism can be morally troubling. For instance, Annette Lareau finds that middle-class siblings are quarrelsome because they are raised to see each experience as an investment in their own success. If Brother has to wait during Sister’s violin lesson, that is a waste for him, and he acts out. Working-class children are much better at cooperating and more cheerful about it, because they are expected to make their own entertainment together. Sister is a potential playmate for Brother.

This is just one small example of the ways in which fitting well with capitalism can deform the soul. Capitalism may also uplift, liberate, and improve. The moral impact of capitalism is a complex and challenging topic, on which Chua and Rubenfeld have little to offer.

That said, we ought to have this conversation and not treat it as inherently offensive. Mehta, for example, decries as racist the claim that culture affects prosperity and ends with his uncle Vipinmama, “who lived every day of his life in the pursuit of happiness” and was wise enough not to fit with capitalism. But that just underlines the importance of capitalism as a culture with which a person may fit–or not. If you live like Vipinmama, you may be happy, but you will not long be rich. We ought to recognize that fact before we decide what to do about it.

Eight years ago, I proposed that we might think of three axes of debate: whether cultural norms affect success; whether material success is a worthy goal; and whether state action can enhance welfare. All combinations of answers to those three questions are tenable. I think I am with people like Pierre Bourdieu and Annette Lareau who emphasize the economic impact of culture while doubting that it is morally good to be materially successful under capitalism. They want to use the state to change the relationship between culture and wealth, thus falling at the front top of this cube (which I explain more fully here):

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(On the DC-Boston Shuttle) One day in DC, three meetings, three views of “service.”

First, I enjoyed a gathering of leaders who engage at-risk teenagers and young adults in community service as a way to improve their academic success, job skills, and psychological wellbeing. The best of these programs, such as YouthBuild USA, transform lives for the better.

I think that the service component of this kind of program is necessary but not sufficient. It is necessary because the whole rationale and spirit of the organization is colored by the ideal of serving communities (in YouthBuild’s case, by building low-income housing). That gives a moral purpose to the work.

But service is certainly not a sufficient condition of success. These programs also provide caring adults, positive interactions among peers, experience in collaborative decision-making, academic skills, career counseling, personal counseling, and many other benefits. It is possible that a different demanding rationale–not service but rather science, art, or God–might also work. That is no criticism of these service-oriented programs, which create pathways to success. But we should not conclude that by offering service opportunities (alone), we can help at-risk kids succeed. This is my own view, but I sense it’s consistent with the main stream of opinion in the service world today.

Second, I was in the Pentagon–indeed, in the executive suite of the Secretary of the Navy–to witness my dean, Alan Solomont, receive the Navy Award. He got it for his work as US Ambassador to Spain, when he achieved an agreement that allows us to base certain military forces on Spanish soil, dramatically increasingly their value for operations in Europe and Africa. An ambassador negotiating an international agreement serves his country in a very different way from a YouthBuild student constructing a house. Different still are the uniformed officers and NCOs who stood near me in the Pentagon, witnessing the ceremony. But it is all service.

Third, I was with my colleagues at the National Conference on Citizenship, discussing how to use data to assess the “civic health” of American communities. Now the focus broadens to behaviors beyond volunteer service–activities like belonging to associations and attending meetings. And the scale expands from the individual to cities, states, and the nation. But again, it is all part of the same story. At the risk of repeating my formula one time too often, I think the core ideals are deliberation (deciding together what we should do), collaboration (actually doing it, whether for pay or not), and the civic relationships that result. These three components are present in a YouthBuild construction site, a US Navy ship, or pervasively in a community like Minneapolis/St Paul that scores high on measures of “civic health.” They benefit the individuals and the common good.

The post what it means to serve: three takes appeared first on Peter Levine.

Sometimes two ideas appear to be in conflict.

And not just two ideas held by two different people with wildly different backgrounds and life experience. Sometimes one’s own ideas don’t quite line up with each other.

I may be tired of the rain, but glad there’s not a drought. I may wish I had fight instinct when I actually had a flight instinct…or vice versa. I may crave other’s approval, but be determined to be myself – unmoved by what other people think. I may hold freedom in the highest esteem, but be willing to curtail my own and other’s freedom to things that would cause harm.

Life is complicated, and context is everything.

One of my favorite metaphors is light. Going back at least as far as the Greeks, there have been arguments over whether light is a particle or a wave. Aristotle envisioned light as a disturbance of air – a wave, while Democritus argued for discrete particles.

Experiments in the 19th and early 20th century provided conflicting results. Sometimes light acted like a particle and sometimes it acted as wave. Eventually, physicists pieced together an understanding of electromagnetism that explained how it was both a particle and a wave.

But wave-particle duality is no metaphor. It’s not just light that exhibits this duality – it is all matter. All matter. Everything. I am a particle and wave.

The metaphor, of course, is saying there is a duality. We understand waves and we understand particles, so while it may be confusing and complicated to say there’s a duality…that’s still easier than really understanding some third thing, just outside our mental grasp, that behaves like a particle and behaves like a wave.

I go on this tangent about wave-particle duality, because if all matter has this duality, isn’t reasonable to assume that ideas have a certain duality, or perhaps multi-ality, to them as well?

We think of morals as fixed, concrete things – perhaps with some flexibility or fluid properties – but essentially as particles, as discrete quanta that can be somehow measured and defined.

But if we look closer, perhaps we’ll see the wave interference patterns. We’ll see the seemingly inexplicable conflicts that make sense in our own minds, though we can’t begin to articulate it to others.

Perhaps if we look closer we’ll discover our own duality and embrace this so-called conflict. Not everything can be neatly defined as a particle. Sometimes, we must recognize the wave.

At least once a year I read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. Sisyphus is immortalized by his punishment in the underworld – “ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.”

The gods had thought, Camus explains, “that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”

And one can imagine why such an existence would be punishment. Futile and hopeless labor. Pushing with all your might to accomplish something. And accomplishing nothing. Trying again, perhaps more forceful than before. Aiming for that peak. Fighting to meet that goal. And accomplishing nothing.

How long could you go on?

Camus is interested in Sisyphus’ decent. “That return, that pause…That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering.” That moment, Camus says, “that is the hour of consciousness.”

And consciousness is what makes Sisyphus tragic. Alas, he “knows the whole extent of his wretched condition.”

Yet consciousness is also Sisyphus’ victory.

“At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock…His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing.”

According to Camus, that long decent, with its moments of pause, of thought, of reflection, those are his moments of victory.

I like to take it further.

There are two moments for Sisyphus that interest me. At the top of the hill, Sisyphus turns to watch his rock effortlessly fall down the slope he effortfully just pushed it up.

Then he goes down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill, Sisyphus looks up at the peak he and his rock just returned from.

Then he sets himself, and begins to push.

Those are the moments that interest me. The story of Sisyphus has no villains. No harpies plucking out his eyes or monsters threatening his fate. There is only Sisyphus and his rock.

The gods think they forced Sisyphus to this fate. They decreed his punishment and so it must be so.

But Camus is right – his fate belongs to him. Sisyphus chooses to push his rock. Neither man nor god can force it upon him. The rock is his alone to chose.

I imagine Sisyphus to know the wretched state of his condition throughout his struggle, not only in those subtle moments of silent decent. He sets his shoulder against the stone knowing the outcome. Knowing the rock will fall. Knowing it will happen again and again and again.

And Sisyphus pushes anyway.

Indeed, “these are our nights of Gethsemane.”

We all of us have our burdens to bear, our rocks to push. And while at times these burdens may feel forced upon us by a merciless or unjust world, they are ultimately ours to choose.

But the alternative is far worse. “There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

To avoid our rocks is to avoid the world. To shut ourselves off from all that is around us. To will ourselves into the inky void of unconsciousness, where the weight of the world can’t follow.

Camus’ Sisyphus chooses consciousness. He pushes his rock, embracing the pain and hardship that come with his toil. “There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn,” and indeed, Sisyphus scorns his so-called punishment – reveling in the blood, sweat and tears which tell him plainly that, in the underworld though he may be, he is very much alive.

So, yes, we “must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

As he stands on that peak, watching his rock roll away, I imagine him taking a deep breath, narrowing his eyes, and gritting his teeth. Then, hardened and focused, prepared for his descent and the grueling ascent to follow, I imagine Sisyphus says himself, a wry smile on his lips, “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”