A Bitter Clash: Comparing Motivation in Eastern and Western Culture

Imagine that you’re a 6-year-old elementary school student – this should be relatively easy for you. But, what is coming next might be a bit hard, especially if you were born and raised in a historical American family. Imagine your mom sits besides you while you’re playing piano, and all of a sudden she squawks, “Oh my God, you’re getting worse and worse.” Or even more harshly, “If the next time’s not PERFECT, I’m going to TAKE ALL YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS AND BURN THEM! (Chua, 28)” Scary? Unimaginable? Surprisingly, those words came from the mouth of Amy Chua, a Chinese-descent Professor of Law at Yale University, in her confession book, “Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother”. Many Western parents repulse Chua’s strategy in motivating her children, but whether you choose to believe it or not, it gets her kid into Harvard. In contrast, similar to many Western parents, in his book, “Drive”, Daniel Pink argues that motivation should come from individual internal locus of control, which means giving the person autonomy in order to gain mastery, and to provide a sense of purpose in every action they do. Pink’s theories of motivation seem to be overly simplified and lack of real world application. Disapproving Pink’s theories, I believe that pressure, dictation and painful experiences are also essential aspects of motivation.

According to Daniel Pink, threat is a form of Motivation 2.0, or better known as carrot-and-stick, and he clearly opposes it, but he does not realize that the pressure created from external motivator such as threat can be an extraordinarily effective energizer. He would argue it uses the concept of “if-then”, it turns play into work, and even, he would say it is a de-motivator. But is it true? Amy Chua’s experience proofs the otherwise. Thanks to her mother rough method of motivating her children, by the age of 9, Chua’s eldest daughter won a local piano award after hours of grueling and tenacious practice-and-practice to master the piece, perfectly. (29) Surprisingly, the threat, which Pink argues as a concept of “if-then” that could hamper one’s motivation, has turned into a “now-that” reward. In Chua’s eldest daughter scenario: Now that I have endured the pain and worked hard to master the piece, I got the recognition. Other than getting accepted into Harvard University, Chua’s eldest daughter, Sophie, turns out to be an accomplished pianist.

But, plethora of people, specifically Western educated people, might be in favor of Pink’s theories. Supporting Daniel Pink’s arguments, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan of University of Chicago rephrase external motivation and internal motivation, into what they called “autonomous” and “controlled motivation”, where they claim, “. . . controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that come from forces perceived to be external to the self. (Pink, 90)” And by giving the evidence from the experiment of investment bankers, Deci and Ryan insists that autonomous motivation results in “enhancement in job satisfaction, in turn, led to higher performance to the job (91)”, and controlled motivation will only destroy one’s creativity. However, one thing they fail to see: pressure drives people more effectively and efficiently than Deci and Ryan expected. How? For instance, let’s just say like writing this essay.

At this point, some readers would probably skeptical about Chua’s method of motivation and concern about the validity of my argument on Deci and Ryan’s theory. “Are Pink, Deci, and Ryan’s theories all wrong?” No! Nor would I say that we must use “controlled motivators” instead of internal motivators in order to motivate other people. But rather, pointing out that the internal motivators, such as autonomy, might only show their best results in several settings, and might not work in other environments. The same condition is also noteworthy in applying Chua’s method.

For the majority of Asian students, getting A means average, B stands for bad, C makes your parents cry, D stands for death, and F is not even considered as a grade – because Asian kids know, they must never get F – and honestly, there is nothing worst than death, hence, triggering the rage of their parents. Generally speaking, it is the Asian parents who are responsible for planting this mindset on their kids, and creating the stereotype among Asian students themselves. That being said – in Eastern culture, parents dictate their children on almost every single thing.

To the extreme, these are the things that Chua’s daughters were not allowed to do: (1) attend a sleepover, (2) have a playdate, (3) be in a school play, (4) complain about not being in a school play, (5) watch TV or play computer games, (6) choose their own extracurricular activities, (7) get any grade less than an A, (8) not being #1 student in every subject except gym and drama, (9) play any instrument other than the piano or violin, (10) not play the piano or violin. (Chua, 3) As mentioned earlier, this list might be a little extreme, because in reality, even majority of Asian parents are much more looser in dictating what their children can do, or cannot do. But basically, in a setting like parenting, dictation works. Although it may not be considered as a motivator, dictation holds a secret that Pink’s theory of autonomy fails to solve: human tendency to slack off.

The four essentials: task, time, team, and technique do not always work. Daniel Pink undermines human’s capability of doing evil when they are given too much autonomy. The question is: How much autonomy should be given? It depends. The best part of Motivation 2.0 is the presence of manager, a structurally powerful position that supervises and subordinates other employees. Manager itself is the raison d'être for preventing what Pink has underestimated.

But, how come companies like Best Buy, 3M, Zappos.com, and other companies work? Like the author of Tribes, and Purple Cow, Seth Godin puts it,

“. . . If I maintain [that] autonomy, I fail. I fail to ship. I fail to excel. I fail to focus. I inevitably end up either with no product or a product the market rejects. The art of the art is picking your limits. That’s the autonomy I most cherish. The freedom to pick my boundaries.” (Pink, 95)

The essence of Gordin argument is that, the authorities in one company should act like parents in one nuclear family. They need to set boundaries on how much autonomy over task, time, team and technique should be given to their employees, like parents dictate their children what to do, and what not to do. That way, autonomy works.

Both Chua and Pink are stubborn. Trying to convince them to meet their arguments halfway is like trying to convince Republicans and Democrats to agree on, basically, everything; it just wouldn’t work. But surprisingly, one thing they are both agree; gaining mastery and obtaining a sense of purpose is painful – but again, with a difference.

Daniel Pink is an agreement with Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University and the author of Mindset, that Mastery is a mindset. (120) They both believe that to gain mastery, a learning goal is needed, instead of performance goal. “Getting an A in French class is performance goal,” they say, “Being able to speak French is a learning goal. (122)” Moreover, mastery is also a pain. In order to gain mastery, researchers have found, “perseverance and passion for long-term goals (124)”, is the best predictor of success. As psychologist Anders Ericsson suggests, mastery requires effort (difficult, painful, excruciating, all-consuming effort) over a long time. Endorsing Ericsson’s suggestion, Dweck says, “ It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them. (125)”

Meanwhile, Amy Chua has a different opinion on mastery is a pain. She believes that “painful” must also includes insults and screams. Words like “garbage”, “humiliation”, and other cold-demeaning words are the sources of the pain, in which she insists that, “[I] was just motivating [my daughter].” Written in her book, she maintains that,

“. . . nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work,. . .which is why it is crucial to override [their] preferences. Once [they] starts to excel something – whether it’s math, piano, pitching, or ballet – he or she gets praise, admiration, and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun.” (Chua, 29)

In other words, what Chua’s belief partially contradicts with Pink and Dweck’s theories. In Chua’s arguments, she suggests that the goal will only come out after a reward is obtained, and the effort must be driven from external factor before we acquire the reward and turns it to internal factor.

But, based on my own skepticism on what Pink says and what Chua believes, I believe both concepts go hand-in-hand together, and do not exist arbitrarily.

Summing up, Amy Chua does not solely represent all of “Asian parents” with their demanding Eastern parenting style, nor does the word “Western” represent all permissive Western parenting style (e.g the non-spanking group). But rather, the reason why I’m comparing two cultures and disapproving Pink’s theories is because I feel like Pink is too utopian,. Additionally, I’m also not truly in favor of Chua’s method. Human beings are too complex, accordingly, both Pink and Chua’s theories must go hand-in-hand depend on the circumstances.

Health Care Reform: Is It Necessary?

Several years ago, after her company was acquired and her husband retired, Donna Dubinsky is left without an employer that could finance her family’s health insurance. Having thought that getting individual health insurance was easy, she naïvely decided to get her family health insurance. She discussed with the insurance broker for options, filled out a very long application, yet only to find rejection letters came in the mailbox. (Dubinsky) So, why was she denied? Was it because her long lists of ailments? Or was it because of the gambling side of insurance business? Her story represents millions cases that Americans have to face to get health care access and raises a question: Does it need to be changed?

It does.

What is the problem with our current health care system? The current problem is—not everyone is covered with health insurance—particularly in the present condition, where companies opt to lay off their employees to survive the recession. As a result, millions of Americans are left without jobs, and so without health insurance; yet, even if they were fortunate enough to get health insurance while remaining unemployed—too bad, the outrageously premiums rate would eventually force them to say goodbye to medical access.

Responding to individual health insurance, particularly in some states like New York, New Jersey and Vermont, Robert Bland, chief executive of online insurance broker called Insure.com claims, “Even young healthy men, who are the cheapest to insure, could be charged as much as $1,000 a month” (qtd in. Bradford). Basically, Bland is showing how expensive that individual health insurance could be.

This unfortunate problem, according to United State’s Institute of Medicine and Harvard University, has taken so many lives. In 2002, Institute of Medicine released a figure, which suggested that there were about 18,000 unnecessary deaths annually due to lack of health insurance. (“Harvard Study”) That is to say, happened before the 2008 world financial crisis. Now, back to the financial crisis scenario where millions of Americans are getting laid off and left without health insurance, how does it affect the statistics?

Answering that question, a study conducted by Harvard University in 2009, estimates that on average, roughly 20% of the total population in each states were uninsured, indicating approximately 45,000 cases of unnecessary death in the year of 2009. (“Harvard Study”) The number has gone up by more than doubled between the seven years period of the study.

The problem of people die needlessly seems bad enough, yet thinking how the overbearing insurance companies are able to deny the health insurance coverage for patients with cancer is as incredibly disturbing as dying needlessly. A national survey in 2007 suggest that as many as 12 million Americans were discriminated by insurance companies because they had pre-existing conditions or illnesses. (Obama) The wreckage in our broken market of health insurance seems to be dominated by business rather than human morality.

These concerns, however, are no longer burdens to the society. As March, 23^rd 2010, the health care reform bill, namely “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, or also known as “ObamaCare” has became a law that stamped out the previous health care system’s major weak spots; now, everyone is covered by health care insurance—low- and moderate-income families who are not qualified for Medicaid, or even people who were capable of gaining access to medical care, with or without insurance, but were not covered by health insurance from their employers can be relieved. The bill will require all Americans to purchase health care insurance. Yet, an annual fine of $695 will be charged to those who are reluctant to purchase the health care insurance, with exceptions for low-income individuals and families. (Jackson and Nolen)

But wait, how would “ObamaCare” expect the low-income individuals and families to purchase health insurance if they had no money? How are they going to pay the premiums? Thankfully, our government is not that foolish. According to CBS News, “Individual and families who make between 100-400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and want to purchase their own health insurance on an exchange are eligible for subsidies” (Jackson and Nolen).

In other words, there is nothing to worry about if you do not have the money to finance you, and your family with health insurance. As the president himself puts it, “ . . . if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family – coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job” (Obama).

Other primary benefits might include coverage of grown children until the age of 26. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance plans and companies to include the adult children into their parent’s insurance, despite financial dependency, employment, marital status, or even other eligibility requirements. As many as 1.2 million young adults, according to the administrator of the law, will obtain coverage and benefit from their parents’ insurance policies. (Hacker and DeTorres) This policy will give young adults the stability and security they need before they really are prepared to take off from their parents’ shadows.

Additionally one of the new health care reform major changes is fighting off the previous system’s downside; where life-and-death decision made by the insurers—not doctors, not even the patient. With the establishment of the new health care reform, Americans can actually mitigate the anxiety of seeing their family members or even themselves helplessly dying because pre-existing conditions—such as asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or other diseases that fulfill the requirement of pre-existing conditions—with no insurance. But rather, now they can sit and relax, because the new regulation of health care reform will ban insurance companies from excluding patients with pre-existing conditions. The law estimates about 31,000 to 72,000 children with pre-existing conditions will be covered by 2011. (Hacker and DeTorres)

“The new law prohibited insurance companies to deny you from coverage because of your medical history, or drop your insurance when you are sick.” The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, says U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services—Kathleen Sebelius, is freeing Americans’ anxiety if they run out of insurance benefits when they needed them the most. (Abelson)

Many others benefits have taken place, including the rebate for the “donut hole” in Medicare, discounts on medication for seniors, and subsidize small businesses so that they can provide insurance for their employees. So, if the Affordable Care Act seemed so great and beneficial to the Americans, why there are so many controversies about it?

After a long discussion and debate over the 1900-page bill, the Republicans unanimously decided to oppose the “ObamaCare” bill, complaining that the new health care reform will actually impede job creations and give the government too big role in the health care system.

By raising insurance costs to cover all Americans with health insurance, Republicans believe, it could hamper hiring, and job creation. Yet unfortunately, no real evidence has been published to supports Republican’s apprehension. Instead, 1.1 million private sector jobs and 207,000 jobs in health care industry have been created since the health care reform was enacted, according to the findings from Bureau of Labor and Statistics. (Triplett) Striking back to Republican’s argument, the Democrat argues that during President Bush regime, almost 673,000 jobs were lost.

In addition, Republican and other opponents of the bill address the concern of giving the government too much role in health care system would lead to a government take over of health care and ultimately, socialized medicine and ration health care. Writing for U.S News & Reports in response to the Affordable Care Act, Bernadine Healy, former president of National Institute of Health and former professor of medicine of John Hopkins University complains that the rationed health care in the new bill would not be caused by insurance companies capability to afford the necessary care, but rather because of the comparative-effectiveness study on whether the treatment cost is justifiable. (Healy)

Nevertheless, both Republican and other opponents like Healy overlook our current health care faulty: health care rationing is already existed in the current health care system. By denying pre-existing conditions and illnesses, charging different premium rates for coverage, and refusing to cover some applicants—insurance companies have already adhered the practice of health care rationing.

But, more questions should be asked: Are those concerns real? Or the Republican just made that up? Likewise, as award-winning Washington reporter and a contributing editor of U.S. News & World Report, John Aloysius Farrell asks the same question, “If this bill is such a political loser for the Democratic Party, why the Republicans fought so hard to defeat it?” (Farrell)

By extension, for the answer, we must look at a bit of history. Back when Bill Clinton tried to establish health care reform in 1993, although the Republicans found some faulty in the bill, they would cooperate to fix it together with the Democrats. Until William Kristol, a neoconservative political analyst and the founder of The Weekly Standards political magazine wrote in his memo, “The Clinton proposal is a serious threat to the Republican Party. Republican must therefore adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy designed to delegitimize the proposal and defeat its partisan purpose” (qtd in. Farrell). In making this comment, Kristol triggers the Republicans attitude towards Democrats’ health care reform for the next 20 years.

Another concerns that was brought up regarding the new health care law is because of the government fiscal irresponsibility. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which would cost a great portion of nation’s budget would eventually lead to an infamous fiscal policy by the government; raising taxes to finance the new health care reform bill.

And yes, this is a valid concern. Soon after President Barack Obama’s proposal passed the congress, a new regulation for taxing is created. Starting in 2011, individuals whose gross income exceeding $280,000 a year, and families with $350,000 a year will be charged additional tax rate with range from 1 to 5.4 percent, adjusting with the income. Meanwhile, families making $500,000 will be charged with additional $1,500 to subsidize the health care reform, and those who are making more than $1 million would have to pay for additional $9,000. (Pear and Herszenhorn) The new tax regulation is surely a burden for rich people, and there is no way to deny it.

Furthermore, some readers also might ask, “With the current recession and budget deficit, how are the states going to finance the new bill?” This is a legitimate concern that worth thinking about. The proponents of the “ObamaCare” believe that implementing the bill one step at a time until the health care reform is really effective in 2014 will reduce impact in our financial crisis condition.

Even the proponent of the bill, claims that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has made prediction and projects that the new health care reform would reduce the nation’s future deficit.

Recalling back Dubinsky’s ordeal, finally, she got three different insurance companies to cover her husband, daughter, and herself. Yet, like many other Americans, she eventually found herself stuck with incredibly high premiums to cover her family.

The laws might still have some flaws, but even Barrack Obama himself, as the president is open for suggestions, so that the bill would sustain the needs of all Americans. Besides, for decades, Barrack Obama’s predecessors acknowledged that something wrong had been going on in our health care system, and they had been trying to fix it.

Finally, we must admit, the purpose of the Affordable Care Act is undoubtedly noble, and the prognosis seems pretty good. But perhaps, the timing might not be perfect, and so causing so many controversies. According to Donna Dubinsky, and many others who have faced the same kind of problems, health care reform is necessary. What do you think?

Works Cited

Abelson, Reed. "Awaiting Health Law's Prognosis." New York Times 2 Feb. 2011: B1(L). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 15 Mar. 2011.

Bradford, Stacey L. “Buying Private Health Insurance.” Smart Money. Dow Jones & Company, 7 Jan. 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2011.

DeTorres, Carl, and Jacob S. Hacker. "The Health of Reform." New York Times 17 Feb. 2011: A31(L). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 15 Mar. 2011.

Dubinsky, Donna. “Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance.” San Jose Mercury News. San Jose Mercury News, 03 Mar. 2011. Web. 4 Mar. 2011.

Farrel, John A. “Why Republicans Fear Obama’s Healthcare Reform.” U.S News & World Report. U.S News & World Report, 19 March 2010. Web. 5 March 2011.

“Harvard Study Finds Nearly 45,000 Excess Death Annually Linked to Lack of Health Coverage.” Physicians For A National Health Program. Physician For A National Health Program, 17 Sep. 2009. Web. 16 Mar. 2011.

“Health Care Reform.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 4 March 2011. Web. 6 March 2011.

Healy, Bernadine. "Health Reform's Effect on You." U.S. News & World Report 146.7 (2009): 24-28. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Feb. 2011.

Obama, Barrack. “Why We Need Health Care Reform.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 15 Aug. 2009. Web. 17 Mar. 2011.

Pear, Robert, and David M. Harszenhorn. “House Health Plan Outlines Higher Taxes on Rich.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 14 July 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2011.

Thomas, Mark. “Who Benefits From Health Care Reform?” CBS Money Watch. CBS Interactive Inc., 22 Mar. 2010. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

National ID Card: A Mistake

Bali – October 2002. When a suicide bomber entered Paddy’s Irish Bar, and detonated a bomb, everybody who survived from the attack fled outside the club only to find a more powerful bomb, planted in a parked van opposite the club. As many as 202 lives were lost in the tragic accident, and 240 others were injured. Unfortunately, it was fellow Indonesians who carried out the attack, on their own soil (BBC News).

Even in countries which have a law requiring all citizens to carry the ID card at all times, the existence of terrorists is often missed from our awareness. Therefore, National ID Card is a ludicrous idea to provide national security.

As we all know, after the horrific tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the U.S government answered with a sharp and intense response to prevent such traumatizing incident from happening again: starting from metal detectors, camera surveillance, airport body scanners, to pat-down procedures, and most recently, they came up with the idea of National ID card. Wait! What? ID card, really? Is the government seriously kidding? As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) puts it, ”many of [the terrorist] reportedly had identification documents on them, and were in the country legally” (74). In other words, the ACLU believes that even with legal documents, individuals are still capable of terrorist acts. Moreover, whether we realize it or not, our attempts to secure the nation from terrorist acts have always been focused and attributed to protect us from foreign terrorists, but one thing we fail to remember; not all terrorists are foreign, and even Americans themselves have attempted terrorist acts.

For example, last year, a car bomb was parked in Time Square, New York, and Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani born-naturalized American, who had a clean legal history, was arrested for masterminding the attack (Rashbaum and Weiser). Likewise, a Pennsylvanian woman, Colleen LaRose, also known by the nickname of “JihadJane”, conspired to commit murder, and provided materials to endorse terrorism acts (Johnson). These examples show how the National ID card wouldn’t work in fighting local terrorists.

While it is true that our government is capable of checking people backgrounds, and legal histories before issuing the ID cards, I am not convinced if it really was the best alternative to protect us from all sort of threats, after all, the information that is in the National ID cards might have been outdated, which make the ID cards unreliable source of information.

After all, despite tremendous sufferings that Osama bin Laden had caused, I’m sure we are all in an agreement that he is not an imbecilic moron who would send a suspicious looking man with an unkempt criminal record to destroy other nations. But hey, this is not about judging one particular group, but rather just an illustration how legal documents might not reveal accurate information about one’s true self.

The issue of whether we are obliged to carry the National ID cards whenever and wherever we go inside our wallet is not important at all. Not because our bulky wallet already is filled with too many other cards: credit cards, ATM card, driver license, employee, or student ID card. But, because we are all in the same boat if we had to go back to an era of totalitarian, where “Your paper, please,” replaced the warmth of greetings by the authorities.

But rather, focusing on why the National ID cards are making ourselves accessible to a more wicked threat, identity theft, which is capable of destroying one’s existence without having to set up a bomb in an airplane. How many times have we seen or heard people who suddenly received thousand of dollars in credit card bills, while screaming, crying, and claiming they did not use it? Even with credit cards alone, the case of identity theft has terrorized us. What if someone stole our National ID card? Hmm, interesting.

As the ACLU points out, “A National ID [card] would require a government database of every person in the U.S, containing continually updated identifying information,” (74) but, the creation of database itself is not an effortless matter, as the ACLU also complicates matters further when the organization writes, “[The database] would likely contain many errors, any one of which could render someone unemployable and possibly much worse until they get their ‘file’ straightened out. (75)” In making this comment, the ACLU tries to show us how the National ID card is very susceptible to abuse if someone lost their ID cards, or their identities got stolen.

Of course, many will probably disagree by saying that the National ID cards will use bar codes and biometrics data; like a palm print, and iris scan, which make the ID impossible to be falsified. Yet, wasn’t the same concept is what the government was thinking when they first issued the current driver license? With the skyrocketed improvement of technology that we have seen, one day, any such thing will be possible. Who knows one day if the biometric ID card will be as easy to defraud as a handwritten card?

It is never wrong to find alternative ways to enhance our national security, yet bad ideas and mistakes seem to be our government’s favorite disease. If the U.S government would learn from Indonesia’s experience with National ID cards and terrorist acts, I’m sure experts would not waste their time to debate a moot point like this.

Besides, we must admit, our government reactions were always in response to the most recent terrorist incidents, and for that we know, Al-Qaeda and their ilk are always one-step ahead of us.

Works Cited

American Civil Liberties Union. “National ID Cards: Five Reasons Why They Should Be Rejected.” What Matters in America. Ed. Gary Goshgarian. New York: Longman, 2010. 72-76. Print.

Johnson, Carrie. “JihadJane, an American Woman, Faces Terrorism Charges.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2011.

Rashbaum, William, and Benjamin Weiser. “Time Square Bombing Suspect Appears in Court.” New York Times. New York Times, 18 May 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2011.

“Timeline: Bali Bomb Trials.” BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation, 08 Sep. 2008. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.