Imagining backwards, and thinking inside out

This is how I view cats

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/kittycat.php

I've been trying to think about the way people think and how we teach people to think.

I not to long ago read this article some place that was talking about the professional America vs the managerial America.

Professionals, at least for the context of this (my) article are people who went to college because they were upper middle class and had no identity and felt they needed to do something with their lives. These people majored in Painting, Writing, Theatre, interior decorating, and other such things.

Managers are people who are lower income to very high income and go to college because "they want to succeed in life". They often view the professional community as being lazy and unproductive because they do not directly contribute to solving problems. This the demographic which says: Oh, those professors don't know anything! Or something as equally paradoxical. You can also call this group problem solvers, because engineers would fit into here also.

Did you know that the majority of people in this country who are college educated vote Republican? I've often wondered why that is the case. In America we have essecntially two ways of teaching. The first is to take a specific problem and solve it. The second is to think about the problem and try and prevent it from occurring or instigating a certain out come.

Lets take engineering. American engineers are handed a specific problem which needs completion by a certain date under certain specifications. They then break out their math books and rulers and set to solving this problem. When complete you have a Pontiac Grand Am. German engineers take a specific problem and try and think about how to economize it. Often they are said to be "imagining backwards" or "thinking inside out". Ergo we have BMW. Pontian Grand ams are good cars. I have one and I like it. It's not a beemer, not even close.

It's probably more costly to produce any item the German method in the short term then it is the American method but in the long term it has it's benefits, like say, your car won't have a 1.5K repair bill after 47K miles normally. I can't be certain on that assumption that it is more costly, but it seems logical on the surface. However, with a few exceptional products, usually ones which we have a monopoly on as a country, the goods produced in the US are simply not as good as ones produced over seas. I would hazard a guess that this is due to how the revenue system works and how corporations respond internally. In other words some people sat around in some focus and determined it is probably more profitable in the long term to continue producing goods the way we currently are.

This is all well and good for end consumer products, but what about commodity goods? Firms will naturally always want to purchase the cheapest steel by quality that they can. If other countries produce steel which is higher in quality and cheaper then naturally Americans will lose jobs so that other American companies can continue producing goods at a low cost which American consumers can buy at a lower cost.

Ok, that was a tad complicated and I got into international trade issues more so then I wanted to illustrate my point, but on to the second half.

There is no shortage of American intellegencia. Take a glance at Hollywood, the many book publishers, are racks upon racks of magazines about every subject imaginable, practically every major city has it's own orchestra if not at least part time and many have full time orchestra's, our modern music scene, and the list just goes on and on. Of course, we can debate seperatly about how good any of it is.

Why is it that we are so good at producing things of the mind rather then just things. It didn't' always used to be this way. Americans for a long time had to gaze over to Europe or Japan for cultural influence and often imported it, right up until the mid to late 1900's I would say. Up until about that same time American ship building, steel, Car manufacturing, Televisions, etc, were world famous for their quality above all others.

Why is it that we have reversed roles? Is it possible to live in a world with both. Is any of this at all important.

I personally believe it is.