Perhaps i didn't make myself clear enough. I don't think Chua's initial excerpt actually said anything meaningful. It was like some sort of bizarre Rorschach

Perhaps i didn't make myself clear enough. I don't think Chua's initial excerpt actually said anything meaningful. It was like some sort of bizarre Rorschach test, that said very little, and upset a lot of people. My point is, having read it the first time, i too went through the "yeah this kind of describes my childhood" thing, and then looked back at the claims, together with her caveats and noticed that there was precisely nothing one could take away from her article, except that it was an anecdote about her family, and how other people think she's a horrible person. There was no generalizable information in her piece, and thus it was ultimately sort of an inconsequential, and self-satisfying fluff piece. What does amaze me, is the amount of time and effort dedicated to discussing her and what she's said. Given that i don't think the substance of her comments was worthy of such discussion, all i can figure is that she is controversial because of who she is and the style of the comments.