Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web
>> of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the
>> voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and
>> planning futile.....
>>
>
> C) Can't wait until he realizes that you could -- with as much
> justification -- say the same thing about Catholicism and Judaism, and use
> them as explanations of say, why Italians accept a mafia or Israelis are so
> bloodthirsty for revenge.
>
I mulled this one over for a day, but am still not entirely sure, as an Italian-American in Crown Heights, that the examples you choose are the best to disprove Brooks' claim. Are you familiar with the basic thesis of David Hackett Fischer's *Albion's Seed*, or the research Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in *Outliers* on Southerners and our unwillingness to take guff? Culture does cast a long shadow ...
Which is not to say that Brooks' claim concerning Vodou is correct. I studied the Afro-Caribbean religions in college, and probably know a bit more about them than the average white American, but haven't thought much about how they might relate to Weber's Protestant ethic. My first thought on the topic is that Santería doesn't seem to have held the Cuban-Americans back.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."