Critical, individualistic thinking is what the west does best. The east seems to be better at implementation and improvement once provided with a new idea. That’s where we currently stand atleast, who knows how China will do in the future. Maybe they’re the total package but that remains to be seen.
Why conflate critical thinking with individualistic values?
It seems you are unnecessarily muddying the water.
In my opinion there is a correlation there. I think individualistic societies are better at thinking of new paradigm shifting ideas.
Hmm. I'll think more about this.
It makes sense to me that a culture that values collectivistic cohesion would shy away from paradigm shifting ideas (disruption). I also see the correlation between disruptive ideas driven by principled critical thinking over conventional thinking.
I guess on some level my assumption is that they are adjacent. Those embedded in a collectivistic culture can think critically but can run into walls within a sandbox of convention. This is how they can be great at iterative improvement and engineering but struggle with paradigm shifting ideas.
I think you have a point, but there's definitely some nuance here I'm still untangling.