>I think there is an element of truth in what you say, Walter, but I would suggest there is something else at work here - which is also cultural. There is a part of American culture which tends to put a lot of responsiblity on the individual rather than the group. and to seek solutions at a personal level rather than a writing of wrongs ouf of a sense of entitlement.
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>Often we look to the line in Shakespeare "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."

I've met this difference in attitudes, and read some about it from people who know those things better than I do.

The American "every dog to its own" goes so far to deem everyone deserving what they get. One gets fired, it's not the whim of the new guru in the management, it's one's own fault. One should not blame the "I'll reduce your costs by 15% - for one, fire 15% of the workforce" mantra, one should introspectively soulsearch why they got on the list. System is OK, it's me.

On the other end of the spectrum you got the lazy bums from socialist countries who are never wrong, it's always the system :). I've seen some who sit on their butts and wait for the state to do something for them. I know, they were shaped by their experience, which wasn't conductive for creativity or even hard labor - it was much more profitable to suck up to whoever was in charge, and parrot the party line. But then, it's often the case here, too.

So here we are, in a society where one doesn't expect much help from anywhere, and is made to feel a "straw among the winds" (Njegoš), where "if you're doomed to be screwed, your pants fall by themselves" (Serbian slang proverb). So the rationalization like "get over it, move on", paired with the worn out "writing on the wall" and other biblical references, serves only as a crutch. Hurts less, probably, and gives you a feeling you're smartly riding the river's flow, even though you're still going downstream. Having a bridge somehow wasn't listed as an option.

>And there are those of us who feel that it demeans an individual to think of him/her first as members of a group or ... class. < s >

This was wise of the upper class to keep their class identity to themselves, while instilling the feeling in others that belonging to a class is ugly. So you won't get class solidarity at the bottom, only at the top. Smart :).

>Maybe we just understand better how to predict the likely behavior of the folks in Redmond. And perhaps their behavior is indeed very culturally American. But then, so is much that has shaped our profession - and have included a great deal of its successes.

The guys in Redmond are just the regular corporate culture on steroids. Or, in 286-speak, in turbo mode.

>( as the to your observations about the Russian space program - that is just silly. By those standards we should look with amazement as North Korea's successes in developing a bomb with "limited resources". Russia's success with Sputnik may be a credit to Russian intellectual achievement but it was certainly at the expense of the Russian people. It was, however, an example of how a centrally managed economy misdirected resources )

There's that - though I wouldn't describe space program as wasteful. Weapons are a waste, and that is even more so here.

But there's another moment in Walter's limited resources angle, which I also saw as different across cultures. Programming may be a source of exceptions here (see the 300kg joke), but I've often seen people here just giving up, not even trying to accomplish something when facing limited resources. We can't do this because we don't have that. Don't know how much was the attitude different in Russia, but I know from home that carrying your 300kg without even bothering to measure them beforehand is quite a common attitude there. I expected to meet that spirit here more often, given the frontier culture and seeing it in movies quite often, but no, it seems to be more an exception than a rule. Again, programming is less prone to this, maybe because often you don't know how much will it take :).

>Cultures are rather complex, as I am sure you know, and when I see intelligent Europeans perhaps overstate their understanding of a culture as diverse of my own, I just want to offer a gentle counter-balance.

Likewise, from the other direction. That's why we're here :).

>( Frankly, I think the problem is the message headers re: MasFoxpro just looked like something in some strange foreign language so most Americans just felt out of their depth and decided if there was anything that looked like a non-English word it couldn't be very important so they passed it up. Now that kind of cultural blindness in this country I'll admit to immediately < s > )

My countrymen would either ridicule or praise anything foreign they don't understand, with very little middle ground. Never understood when would either behavior kick in. We seem to have some cool-meter, which flips to either side, and I gather I'm not your typical Serb by betting wrong on it most of the time :).