@BillRM,
pretty much none of the posts in this tread have anything to do with my question..NOW you care?
@hawkeye10,
We don't have a broken culture.
Maybe that's not an answer, but it is a response and the best you are going to get for a nonsensical question.
@maxdancona,
Quote:We don't have a broken culture.
Maybe that's not an answer, but it is a response and the best you are going to get for a nonsensical question.
Yes indeed we have some very large problems but none of them means we have a broken culture and we as a nation is the main driving engine for the rest of the world and it look like we are going to remain so for a long time.
@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:
We don't have a broken culture.
Maybe that's not an answer, but it is a response and the best you are going to get for a nonsensical question.
so the idea that a culture could be bad, maybe toxic and deadening to individual, is nonsense? I dont buy that.
@hawkeye10,
I am not talking about every culture. I am talking about American culture. It is the idea that American culture is broken that is nonsense.
American culture is as healthy as it has ever been. We continue to be leaders of innovation, make social progress and foster debate.
@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:
I am not talking about every culture. I am talking about American culture. It is the idea that American culture is broken that is nonsense.
American culture is as healthy as it has ever been. We continue to be leaders of innovation, make social progress and foster debate.
it looks to me like you are working to avoid the subject. It does not matter if you think American culture is fine because the question is "How Does One (or Many) Fix a Broken Culture?" Pick a culture that you think is broken (Congress? corporations? something else?) and tell me how it can be fixed....if you care to be helpful that is.
@hawkeye10,
Quote:t looks to me like you are working to avoid the subject. It does not matter if you think American culture is fine because the question is "How Does One (or Many) Fix a Broken Culture?" Pick a culture that you think is broken (Congress? corporations? something else?) and tell me how it can be fixed....if you care to be helpful that is.
BULLSHIT...............
I
Quote:f we wanted to fix the culture then what would we do?
The culture not a culture was your posting.
You was talking about American culture from the beginning of this thread not culture in general and only when you was back into a corner and found that you could not back up your claims concerning American culture you then wish to go to the subject of cultures in general!!!!!!!!
You got to be kidding me as this is the kind of nonsense I would expert from Firefly not from you..
@BillRM,
Quote:You was talking about American culture from the beginning of this thread not culture in general and only when you was back into a corner and found that you could not back up your claims concerning American culture you then wish to go to the subject of cultures in general!!!!!!!!
that is a bizarre conclusion given the tittle and that one of the three examples I gave was A2K, which is global. then there have been subsequent posts from me which further clarify that agreement or lack of agreement with the three examples has no bearing on the merit of the question, that their purpose was only to illustrate in concrete terms the importance of the question.
@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:
I would much rather have my kids in the American education system, then in the Asian education system.
The Asian education system focuses on precision and calculation and yes they have impressive test scores (although there are some problems with the test methodology). The American system consistently produces more innovators and creators.
A report about educational excellence from Pearson has as much value as a report on Mexican cousine from Taco Bell.
I imagine that all such rating services will put us far from first. Yes, we're still leaders in innovation, but that could just be a time lag which will disappear as our educational system produces more people with poor educations. We still have more capital than other countries, financing innovation, but that could also even out as other countries produce a better educated citizenry. As someone nearing 60, it seems obvious to me that standard of living and social mobility have declined since my childhood.
@Brandon9000,
Quote:imagine that all such rating services will put us far from first. Yes, we're still leaders in innovation, but that could just be a time lag which will disappear as our educational system produces more people with poor educations. We still have more capital than other countries, financing innovation, but that could also even out as other countries produce a better educated citizenry. As someone nearing 60, it seems obvious to me that standard of living and social mobility have declined since my childhood.
Yes and people was saying the same damn thing when we was kids back up with the same type of studies with special note of the panic when the USSR placed the first satellites in earth orbit as our attempts to do the same would blow up and the payload then rolling around on the ground.
Those claims was not true in the 1950s and are not true in 2013.
@Brandon9000,
Quote:As someone nearing 60, it seems obvious to me that standard of living and social mobility have declined since my childhood.
Have you considered the possibility that American society is as healthy now as it has ever been and it is you who have declined since your childhood?
In the late 1950's (during your childhood) there was a panic about how bad American Education was. There was another one in the 1970's and another in the 1980's.
So if there is a time lag to these things, it is a more than 60 year time lag. And, it seems like this long slow decline of American education includes landing a man on the moon and inventing the internet.
So we are 70 posts in and have not started on the subject. I would like to to do so.
I think that how I directed the building of the culture at my restaurant might lend some clues. The place runs itself culturally now, even if I am gone nothing changes because my staff, who did a lot of the heavy lifting in building the culture, keep it going. It was not thus earlier. I used to have to constantly say "at xxx we do xyz" or "I will not tolerate stp at xxx". I set the standard of how people were to behave and what they were supposed to do, and made sure that everyone knew both what the standard was and that there would be consequences for not meeting the standard eventually.
people who did not fit, at first not fitting my expectations and later not fitting my expectations AND in with the existing staff, I fired. I have fired a lot of people, usually for not doing the work well (drugged brains a lot of the time) but not always. I fired three people because they would make snide comments of disrespect towards me to me. I fired one because he was the instigator of one of my front of the house people making a false sexual harassment claim about one of my cooks...the cook stayed the other two did not (both the no unnecessary drama and dont throw your team members under the bus rules were violated here) . i fired one because even though she was perfect in every other way she was consistently 1-5 minutes late and sometimes more....which I eventually decided was a show of disrespect for xxx and the rest of her team so she had to go.
now I know that building a culture under a dictator is not like building a culture in education, Congress, or A2K but some things might be the same. for instance the daily drumbeat of expectations, the major dramatics of lopping off of heads of those who dont comply (in my case firings). the way that it took a long time to build the culture with a lot of work by me but now it mostly runs itself.
all of this might be of help in figuring out how to reform a broken culture.
