Critical Cultural Skill

I came across this idea in a blog I follow:

"The secret of American’s collective success as a people is our ability to self-organize ourselves on both the small and large scale into highly effective teams The relative inability to self-organize into teams is why China and some other cultures have lagged behind in the modern world. Americans have long relied on activities like sports, theater, marching band etc to teach that one critical American cultural skill. ...

American culture is based on the seeming contradiction of extreme individualism combined with a near instant willingness and ability to join a team to accomplish any particular task. The way New Yorkers spontaneously organized to evacuate Manhattan on 9/11 represented a large scale and dramatic example of the type of self-organization that Americans reflexively engage in on a daily bases.

Germans and the Japanese also excel at organization and group work but they default to hierarchical, top-down organization. Absent leadership or a predefined structure, both Germans and Japanese have a relatively hard time organizing themselves. American organization, by contrast, is strongly bottom-up with very flat or even nonexistent hierarchies. No other people self-organizes to the degree Americans do."


Thoughts? Comments?

Agree.
Militarily it is true through out our history as the initiative and creativity of the soldiers allowed progress even if leadership was disabled or killed. Next person stepped forward.

My business experience and success was along the lines of Ronald Reagan(I am a liberal Democrat tho) and that was to find the best people, empower them and give them the resources necessary to have success.

Maybe still happening but the CEO's are keeping all of the money from the results.

That is a bunch of hooey.

Up until now we have not let science get in the way of religion.

We'd be backward fuc's like those third world countries had we.

I wrote that backwards btw so as not to offend our religious zelots

Their are many more reasons , like our relative isolation from threats, rich resources, bombing the factories of our competitors in WWII didn't hurt, and of course fake titties, we lead the world in big hair and big titties!

Reggie White is blogging?? Now...that's a neat trick!

I suppose there's a kernel of "truth" somewhere in each paragraph but it's hard to take those kinds of generalizations too seriously...

I'm not sure about the generalizations about other nations, but the contrapuntal nature of the American system - individuality within the community - is pretty well developed by historians and political scientists. In fact is was the basis of a history course that I took many decades ago. The professor won a Pulitzer for his book on the concept.

In fact, isn't that always the tension in our economic and political systems: Free markets vs. abusive profiteers, political principles vs. political pragmatism , states rights vs. federalism?

I read the following anecdote about thirty-five years ago, and it has always stayed in my mind; so I thought I’d drop it in here. Also, I still have the book and easily found the quote by referencing Japan in the index.

“If you have one German, you have a fine man; but if you have two Germans, they form a Bund; and if you have three Germans, well, they start a war. If you have one Englishman, you have an idiot; two Englishmen immediately form a club; and when you have three Englishmen, they create an Empire. One Italian is always a tenor, two Italians make a duet; three Italians and you have a retreat. As for the Japanese—one Japanese is a mystery; two Japanese is also a mystery; and three Japanese—three Japanese, well, that’s a mystery too!” Hermann Goering. (402-03, Mosley)

Mosley, Leonard. The Reich Marshall: A Biography of Hermann Goering. New York: Dell Publishing.1974. pp. 476.

I don’t think it is just an American attribute. Per catnipdipper’s remark, the Japanese and Germans do have a reputation for deferring to higher authority. However, many WWII GIs remarked on the resiliency of the people in both these cultures and how they immediately set themselves, as individuals and in small communities, to the task of re-establishing order in their respective societies. The GIs were impressed by how the German civilians began clearing debris and rebuilding and were unimpressed with how the French seemed to wait for help. My remarks—*read: “Please don’t flame me”*—are based on my reading, e.g., Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers (MAJ Richard Winters RIP), D-Day and Citizen Soldier; Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far and The Last Battle; John Toland’s Adolf Hitler, The Rising Sun, Infamy and The Last Hundred Days; and scores of other accounts about WWII. If you read Toland’s Rising Sun, you’ll discover that Japan’s junior officer corps was traditionally a rebellious lot. While giving obeisance to the emperor, these junior officers were very often quite disrespectful towards and disobedient to superior officers. Similarly, if you read David Fraser’s Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, you’ll see that the German army also encouraged and rewarded individual resourcefulness—it wasn’t just an American attribute.

After nearly 4 decades of observation I get the impression that too many of my fellow americans have developed the attitude that in any situation some one else is responsible and some one else should step in and correct the situation.

At the same time I acknowledge and admit to having great respect for the ones that deem it an obligation to take positive and corrective action when needed by one or many.

"Never tell people how to do something. Tell them what to do; then let them surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

"Never tell people how to do something. Tell them what to do; then let them surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Originally Posted by Gryphon

I agree. It never ceases to amaze me why people bicker about HOW to do something. They rarely disagree on the goal.

Since fundamental American culture and values are largely imported, i.e., came here with the immigrants who created and populated the US, it is hard to see how they can be all that unique or distinct from the cultures and values of other countries. Imo, while there are some elements of truth in the quote PJ posted, I think that there are many many other factors in play, some of which are probably more important.

-Ww

"Never tell people how to do something. Tell them what to do; then let them surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Originally Posted by Gryphon

Good one!

Hell is a place where the cooks are British,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
And everything is organized by the Italians.

Need to be careful, folks. DED might deem some of the above to be insulting to various nationalities.

Hell is a place where the cooks are British,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
And everything is organized by the Italians. Originally Posted by catnipdipper

Heaven:
Where the police are British,
The cooks French,
The mechanics German,
The lovers Italian,
And it is all organized and run by the Swiss. LOL

Need to be careful, folks. DED might deem some of the above to be insulting to various nationalities. Originally Posted by discreetgent

Senior moment: Who or what is DED?