Does American Culture Venerate Mediocrity?

A while ago, one of Vivek Ramaswamy’s posts on X kicked off a contentious debate around why top-notch tech companies are more likely to hire foreign-trained engineers over “native” Americans. Ramaswamy attributes this to American culture, which, in his opinion venerates mediocrity over excellence.

His solution includes things like, “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’”

As an Asian immigrant who cherishes American ideas, I strongly disagree with Ramaswamy’s assertions. I feel he badly misses the mark.

Though a tech firm’s preference may indeed indicate that American-educated engineers are less proficient than others, that incompetence may not be the result of American culture. Otherwise, why have millions of people from all over the globe made such costly efforts to get here – including Ramaswamy’s own family? Why isn’t that trend declining? Why don’t we see people immigrating to the countries that have produced those competent engineers? After all, who wants to sacrifice so much to move to a country that venerates mediocrity?

Perhaps a better way to assess American culture is to compare her way of life to that of other cultures. For the sake of argument, and because it’s what I know best, Asian culture will be the focus.

Eastern Cultures

Asian immigrants know firsthand that, by and large, the main difference between their culture and the one in the U.S. is “we” vs. “me.” In Asian culture, the concept of individual value is buried under the importance of group interest. Within a group, whether a family or a country, relationships are knotty and challenging with an intricate hierarchical system. Parents view their children as extension of themselves, so they often impose their own wishes about education on their children, and do so without considering their children’s desires or natural ability. If a child’s predilection aligns with the parents’ demands, the child is happy to oblige. More often than not, however, the pressure laid on young children is too much for them to bear.

Here in the U.S., we sometimes hear criticisms about parents of child prodigies who force them to endure tremendous pressure in order to remain famous. Now imagine a whole country doing that! That will give you an idea of what it’s like to grow up in an Asian culture.

For instance, after the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government refocused its efforts on developing scientific and technological fields. This reorientation made science majors more popular than humanities studies for university students. It became an unspoken assumption that those who majored in a science were smarter than those who studied humanities. So parents – with good intentions — often pressured children to pursue a scientific major regardless of whether it suited their natural talent. The whole country became a factory, mass producing the same kind of people to meet the government’s ambition.

The problem is obvious: Humans should never be treated as products. God gives us each different gifts and unique dispositions. Forcing children to become the same product only distorts and robs them of their sense of self.

We First

In any Asian country, tradition and social trends outweigh individual longing and aspiration. The crux of the problem is the absence of individual value and rights in the thought world of the collectivist Asian culture.

Many years ago in China, one of my friends complained that his father, without consulting him, declined an offer from a prestigious college because the major they offered was less popular with the government than other fields. Should he have been given permission to choose, my friend would have picked that college in order to study that subject. Years later, this still bothers him, even though his father meant well. By no means is he the only one.

Even recently in China, after living conditions have been spectacularly improved, this practice remains. As soon as a child reaches school age, he begins to compete with other students at his grade level. A responsible parent would spare no effort to make their own children get ahead. If a child does well in one school, they would try to transfer him to a better school — so the level of competition escalates, and with it, the stress on the child. As in Ramaswamy’s recommendations, those children’s lives include “more math tutoring, more weekend science competitions, more books, more creating, and more extracurriculars.” Many children in Eastern cultures have never experienced a normal childhood, and they have never been given a chance to let their natural talents develop and flourish.

Oddly, I never reflected on all this while living in the “we” culture. It was only after I immigrated to the U.S. that I begin to rethink it.

Me First

America’s quintessential “me” culture places remarkable emphasis on an individual’s value and freedom. I noticed this when I first arrived in the U.S., seeing how free-spirited my husband’s young nieces and nephews were. They each exhibited their individuality and were not shy about expressing their thoughts and feelings. That was quite shocking to me.

I also noticed that Americans’ emphasis on individual value and rights has allowed them to choose a career that they are good at and enjoy, apart from their parents’ wishes. Many years ago, I met a cheerful young man. He was the son of the attorney, but was studying to become a chef. I was astonished and profoundly moved upon hearing that. In China, an attorney’s son is not permitted to become a chef, even if he wants to pursue that career. The invisible social pressure on the family would force him to surrender his interest for the greater good of the group. Should he do so anyway, society would deem his parents irresponsible; clearly, they failed to discipline him enough to attain a better career. In a “we” culture, a person’s preferences are usually last things to be considered.

But in this environment, each person’s God-given talent is unhindered by external obstacles. When a person is doing what he is good at, he’s given opportunities to maximize his potential. Therefore, under normal circumstances, America should produce the most proficient workers, whether in manual labor, education, health care, or the tech industry. This has generally proven to be true. America has produced the best kinds in each field, from arts and music to science and technology.

So why are our engineers lagging behind those from other cultures?

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Over the past few decades, the progressive left has fundamentally changed the landscape of our educational system, replacing a merit-based system with radical social justice ideologies based on race, gender, and sexual identity. It has turned learning institutions into a mass progressive woke machine. Affirmative action, DEI, and the like have denied the competent but given opportunities to those of the “right” race, gender, or sexual orientation. Together, they have wreaked havoc on our educational system, producing mediocre students and incompetent employees.

To fix the issue, what we need is educational reform, raising our education standards by removing wokeness from our schools and reestablishing a classical learning curriculum and merit-based system.

It’s odd that Ramaswamy has missed the obvious.

Nonetheless, he is not unique. He represents many Asian Americans whose families have been in the U.S. for years, yet who have never fully grasped the true spirit of America. They came for the results American freedom brings, and even acknowledged the importance of freedom — yet have failed to align their lives with the American spirit.

Why do they come here if they refuse to relinquish the things they have left behind? They remind me of the Galatians who had been saved by Jesus and received the Spirit, yet were lured back to Judaism to keep the law. To them, Paul thundered, “Who has bewitched you?”

Ramaswamy inadvertently proves that American culture is so exceptional that integration into American culture is still a tangible challenge for many immigrants.

But his assertion is wrong: American culture does not venerate mediocrity. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. And if we want to keep our exceptionality, immigrants must embrace the American spirit of individual liberty.

Chenyuan Snider was raised in Communist China and majored in Chinese language and literature in college. After immigrating to the U.S. and studying at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, she became a professor at Christian colleges and seminary. She and her husband live in northern California and have two grown children.