‘Success Sequence’ a path worth taking
Universal truths are sometimes inconvenient.
There are certain universal truths that have pushed society along over the years.
Value education; don’t engage in criminal behavior; get a job, then get married and have a family.
University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax referred to those as “bourgeois culture” in a 2017 op-ed and took a lot of blowback for espousing what were criticized as old-fashioned 1950s-style white society values.
Interestingly, though, Wendy Wang, director of research at the Institute for Family Studies in Charlottesville, Virginia, wrote that she was encouraged in a very similar set of values ... while growing up in working-class China!
“For the vast majority of young adults in Asia,” she wrote in a March op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “the path to success clearly runs through education, work and marriage — in that order.”
That has been dubbed “The Success Sequence” — and the Chinese-born Wang wondered why that isn’t emphasized to a greater degree in the American environment. It’s a fair question. Just because society has tilted a certain way doesn’t mean that tilt is necessarily good for society.
We no longer stigmatize out-of-wedlock births and that’s understandable — because nearly 50 percent of U.S. births are out of wedlock. And yet, statistics tell us, according to Wang, “that the probability of ending up poor was reduced by 60 percent for millennials who married before having children and by about 90 percent for millennials who followed all steps of the sequence compared with those who missed all three.”
We have lost the “war on drugs” in this country — or perhaps we have forfeited it. The reality of our epidemic is that while the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population, we consume 75 percent of its prescription drugs, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
We’re in the midst of an “opioid crisis” ... and yet we’re also on the road to legalized marijuana. Between illegal behavior and financial opportunity, legalization seems to be the path of least resistance.
I wrote an editorial for the Journal-News 20 years ago saying it was worthwhile to consider medical marijuana. That remains true today. But legalized pot? So much for “just say no.” (And who’s asking the philosophical question — why do we have so many dopers in this country?)
Are there examples of people who have skipped the Success Sequence and done just fine? Yes — every day. But doubtless that required some serious boot-strap efforts on their part as opposed to a more secure glide path.
We seem to have an aversion to societal value judgments in this country. A lot of finger-pointing instead of thumb-pointing. Personal responsibility is the bottom line. Universal truths are sometimes inconvenient truths.
I tend to sum it all up in two words: “Act Right.”
Wendy Wang writes, “We need to teach the Success Sequence in our schools ... (and target) the message that some ways of entering adulthood are more prudent than others. In this way, the U.S. could learn a thing or two from the wisdom of the East.”