The Value of the Best

          After discussing a classmate’s blog today about the American value of winning and being the best, I began to ponder that idea and really wonder. What do people really think about being the best? So I took an anonymous survey of 20 people I know. I asked them if they would rather work really hard at something and get a bad result from it, or would they rather not work hard at something but get a good result. For instance, would they prefer to work really hard in a class and learn a lot but get a C or would they prefer giving minimal effort and get an A? At the end of the survey, I tallied the results and counted 17 students preferred to get the A with minimal effort, only 3 preferred working hard and not always getting a positive outcome.

          After that survey, I was able to come to the conclusion that based on those results, we as humans prefer the more positive outcome. However, how could I saw that this view was truly American? I had taken views of only American people. To solidify my conclusion, I needed an outside opinion. So I asked my tennis coach, who happened to be born and raised in Israel. I asked him the same question, phrased it the same way, and the response I got supported my claim that the desire to be number one is an American point of view. My coach then went into specifics, telling me that in Europe in general, there is a stronger desire to work hard and perhaps end up succeeding. For instance, he said that a lot more tennis players in Europe go pro, even if they don’t know if they will be able to make it into the top 10 in the world. However, in America, much fewer player turn pro, and the ones that do only turn pro because they have experts telling them they will succeed. After hearing him talk about that I was certain that the value of being the best was completely American.

          Now I know that after asking a few people a simple question can’t validate a cultural view as only American, however I do know that it does create a stronger claim that this view is more American. Although I cannot say with absolute certainty that the desire to be the best is completely American and no other country, I can say that it most definitely is not a view of all humans. There is definitely a societal impact, and I can say with the utmost confidence that American society has engrained this belief right into the stitches of our identities.