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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...

... in response to Cultures, posted by MarkInTx on Jan 15, 2002

The current Japanese culture promotes creativity and inventiveness. It's just not the same as western ingenuity. Creativity and ingenuity are are encouraged and rewarded by all aspects of Japanese society and those individuals who display it are treated as stars and heroes. Compare that to American culture where some parts of society hold those individuals in disdain. In Japan they are considered stars, in America they are considered geeks, nerds, and eggheads.

-blm

... in response to Re: Actually..., posted by BarryM on Jan 15, 2002

Just finished reading, "Dogs and Demons, Tales from the Dark side of Japan", by Alex Kerr. He describes the Japanese culture as a bureaucrat moribund and declining one. I know we're off subject, and the book has an odd title, but it is a dam* good read about Japan.

... in response to Re: Re: Actually...actually, posted by NW Jim on Jan 15, 2002

The current economic depression, deflation, and collapsing monetary system in Japan reflects that. It seems that the people elected politicians who rushed European style socialism and monetary policies onto their productive society because of past corruption by industry leaders and politicians. Their restrictive trade policies and preditory international competiveness also had a hand in their problems.

I think Japan will bounce back from it's problems. Japan is a society that does well under adverse situations as it was proved by their recovery with US assistance after WWII. They are experiencing some moral problems within their society at present.

-blm