America's Getting Sloppy

US News and World Report's cover story this week was on the US
slipping in its competitiveness in comparison to the rest of the
world. While I'm not a big fan of America-bashing, and I'm leery of
articles that pick a few disparate data points and tell an overarching
story, I have to say that I agree with the sentiment. What's worse
about our slippage is the clueless attitude that both causes the
slipping and insulates us from knowing that we're slipping. In my
opinion, there are two characteristics of this all-too-American
attitude, which we will live to regret harboring if this goes any
further.

One, we think the world revolves around us. We're so used to being
the biggest and the best that we've completely lost our
entrepreneurial hunger and our willingess to learn from others. Too
many Americans speak only English, while many in the rest of the world
have mastered English and another language to go with the language or
languages they need to use to get by in their country. Eastern
Europe, East Asia, and of course China and India are kicking our tail
in terms of entrepreneurial hunger, the desire to get better and
better, faster and faster. There is an openness to learning, both in
terms of gaining technical knowledge and cross-cultual fluidity, that
you just don't see in our country. Meanwhile, we speak as if there is
no other world outside our borders -- witness how all our sports
winners are declared "World Champions," and we discuss business and
economic matters on national rather than global scales.

Two, we think it's good to be fat, lazy, and happy. People scorn the
mechanical approaches recent immigrants to this country have towards
the education of their children, but that's because (see above point)
they're hungry. Americans, for the most part, are full, and I mean
that in every sense. I understand that you can go too far -- witness
the Todd Marinovich's and other burnt-out child prodigies -- but I
believe you can not go far enough. There's a time for play and for
fun, but also a time for us -- as families and communities and a
nation -- to get our act together. Why are we afraid to push
ourselves in exercise, in the sciences, in entrepreneurship? Because
we're not hungry, we're plenty full. Well, the rest of the world is
plenty hungry, and pretty soon, they're going to eat our lunch.