"We are better than them."

• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article
  
  It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.
  
  Any individual, from any background, can have what we call this Triple Package of traits. But research shows that some groups are instilling them more frequently than others, and that they are enjoying greater success.
  
  It’s odd to think of people feeling simultaneously superior and insecure. Yet it’s precisely this unstable combination that generates drive: a chip on the shoulder, a goading need to prove oneself. Add impulse control — the ability to resist temptation — and the result is people who systematically sacrifice present gratification in pursuit of future attainment.
  
  Ironically, each element of the Triple Package violates a core tenet of contemporary American thinking.
  
  We know that group superiority claims are specious and dangerous, yet every one of America’s most successful groups tells itself that it’s exceptional in a deep sense. Mormons believe they are “gods in embryo” placed on earth to lead the world to salvation; they see themselves, in the historian Claudia L. Bushman’s words, as “an island of morality in a sea of moral decay.” Middle East experts and many Iranians explicitly refer to a Persian “superiority complex.” At their first Passover Seders, most Jewish children hear that Jews are the “chosen” people; later they may be taught that Jews are a moral people, a people of law and intellect, a people of survivors.
  
  That insecurity should be a lever of success is another anathema in American culture. Feelings of inadequacy are cause for concern or even therapy; parents deliberately instilling insecurity in their children is almost unthinkable. Yet insecurity runs deep in every one of America’s rising groups; and consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children.
  
  A central finding in a study of more than 5,000 immigrants’ children led by the sociologist Rubén G. Rumbaut was how frequently the kids felt “motivated to achieve” because of an acute sense of obligation to redeem their parents’ sacrifices. Numerous studies, including in-depth field work conducted by the Harvard sociologist Vivian S. Louie, reveal Chinese immigrant parents frequently imposing exorbitant academic expectations on their children (“Why only a 99?”), making them feel that “family honor” depends on their success.
  
  
  >>> This is exactly it.
  
  This reminds me of how Max brings up the TN Brahmins' traits of scholarship and "rolling with the punches."
  
  You will find Jews who feel that they are chosen people and very proud that they have contributed enormously to science and arts. This kind of feeling empowers one to succeed further both individually and as a group.
  
  This is true of Tamils in SL as well. My Tamil friend who is from SL claims that it was his forefathers who built Sri Lanka. They were excellent civil servants, he said. His mother told him that every railway station from Jaffna to Colombo had a Tamil as the station master during the colonial days. And he also claims that unlike the Sinhalese who like to party, Tamils are more self-disciplined and they apply themselves in school.
  
  It is also true that feelings of being exclusive as a group and being better than others also helps some groups to stay out of trouble. "We are not like them who get drunk, loiter around and break the law" kind of thinking helps to avoid trouble.
  
  Btw feelings of being proud of their origins and being "superior" what helped East Indians in Trinidad to suvive and do better than the black population.
  
  At least that is what Richard Feynman thought when he visited Trinidad.
  
  http://books.google.com/books?id=vbMIlkpQXEkC&pg=PT58&dq=richard+feynman+Indian+getting+ahead+negro&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
  
  Visit this link and scroll all the way down to the chapter titled "Getting ahead."

Rishi wrote:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article
  
  A central finding in a study of more than 5,000 immigrants’ children led by the sociologist Rubén G. Rumbaut was how frequently the kids felt “motivated to achieve” because of an acute sense of obligation to redeem their parents’ sacrifices. Numerous studies, including in-depth field work conducted by the Harvard sociologist Vivian S. Louie, reveal Chinese immigrant parents frequently imposing exorbitant academic expectations on their children (“Why only a 99?”), making them feel that “family honor” depends on their success.