It's a story I read in The Way of the World , the essential story drift Nicolas Bouvier. Cowherd Vernet and arrive somewhere near the Persian (I can not remember the country, but it was in that corner there, nearly 3000 terminals). There, in a godforsaken hole, they fall on a p'tite locality where an American NGO files enough to build a school. Cultural problem: Americans believe that the premises will build the school. The premises are only taking the stuff for their personal constructions. Both approaches are equally valid as the other. They might as well succeed fail. Just two different conceptions of life. Misunderstanding.
It is tasteful, in our countries, to deny Americans a common culture (some Americans deny themselves and I guess we've seen fish denying the existence of water). Admittedly, this is a great country little homogeneous, but some trends are found everywhere. If you want schematically a caricatured, the American belief in individual initiative and believes that each brings its own contribution to the Company. The idea: things happen because we decide to move yourself, without waiting for others. A sort of fundamental optimism, which could be mistaken for naivete, a way to count only on ourselves, assimilated often selfishness. It is always difficult to understand a different culture through his own eyes.
All this, I guess you all know (after all, in the formatted version, the Nike slogan says nothing else: it speaks directly to every American, it remains impossible to translate for others). Of course, all this does not exclude the naivete, selfishness, wickedness or stupidity, pure and simple, but it's the same for everyone. I'm just trying to define a state of mind. We will not land sliding: This mindset is what allows it to succeed in the States ? Besides, they really succeed? I do not know (and I'm typing).
Can we understand the approach Wikipedian if we neglect this aspect of culture? Wikipedia is everyone who comes to bring what he believes is best on its own initiative, without consulting anyone before. Everything is based on faith in hopeless "it'll work, just put it there." This is probably one of the projects most authentically American, the kind of thing that could never be carried out elsewhere, because elsewhere, it can not, it does not, we don ' will not believe or you do not even think. The problem
of all this: is it that Wikipedia can seriously work outside the U.S.? Not clear, in my opinion.
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