Cultural Success Indictors

Tyler Cowen lists three indicators for cultural success:

1. If a kid does badly in school, does the parent genuinely get mad at the kid and withhold affection?

2. Can people wait in an orderly line?

3. Can people stay in their designated lane when driving a car?

So how does India fare? Your guess is as good as mine. Of course, fierce loyalists will protest the choice of indicators and choose the ones we fare good on. Mind you, these indicators can be tested within each nation as well.


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  • N

    Yes, yes and yes. Everyone can, but no one doesn’t. And of course, in India the queue starts where I stand and why restrict to a lane when you can drive on the whole road (literally, not just the left side)!

    Happy I Day :-)

  • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

    N, ah! Nice job of exploiting the language. We can but we do not :)

  • http://windyskies.blogspot.com Anil

    Interesting points, those indicators, however limited they might actually be as identifying criteria.

    However I’ll take it one step back. Cultural success or the lack of it is what a person chooses to do when he/she knows they can get away with it.

    Now apply this across the world and we might get interesting answers :)

    Note: Policing and accountability for one’s actions will condition responses. Some might call it ‘cultural success’, others will call it ‘enforcing success’.

  • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

    Anil, in that case cultural success can also be extended to why law and order succeeds someplace and not elsewhere. But I think civic and personal responsibility counts.