I read this somewhere once:
Heaven:
Where all food is cooked by the French,
All cars are built by the Germans,
The Policeman are all Irish
Hell:
All food is cooked by the Irish
The Cars are built by the French
And the Police are German
Point is...
All cultures are different. And there is good and bad.
American culture does not escape this... nor does Russian culture. So discussions where one culture is denegrated as inferior is hardly useful.
Every coin has a flip side.
Take the Japanese. Their culture greatly inspires good engineers. This has been true forever.
There is a story of the first time a british officer rode a horse in Japan. The locals were astounded by the concept of a horseshoe. The military ruler called one of his people to find out why the british officer used a horseshoe, and how it worked.
Later that afternoon, the Japanese nobleman proudly rode down the street, his horse now had horseshoes, created by his own people.
On the other hand, the culture inhibits creativity. That is why the Japanese have made no major contributions to the software world. And why they have actually begun hiring Amricans to lead their R&D.
Their culture enables them to take an idea and improve upon its design -- but not to come up with the idea in th efirst place.
So.. which cutlure is better?
That really depends on what you need. A cheaper and better product? Or a new product.
I don't know if these ramblings mean anything... bt I was thinkin gon it lately after all of the debate over Russian vs. American culture...
