I'm surprised by the supposedly ultra-rational hacker news crowd to be swayed by this feeble defense of a theory, charitably being called "culturalism"... (but which is basically a rehashed version of oriental exoticism made slightly more palatable for the highly educated, western upper middle classes he's pandering to.)
My simple question to Gladwell is this: If Korean culture explains the bad safety record of Korean air, what explains the excellent safety record of the japanese airlines. All Nippon (No fatal accidents in more than 40 years) and JAL (last fatal crash in 1985 and even that due to mechanical failure) ?
Does that record prove that Japanese culture is not only completely different from Korean culture (in-as-much as respect for elders and superiors is concerned) but it would also imply that Japanese culture is somehow better for air-safety than that of all the other national airlines of the world who've had a far worse safety record than those two airlines.
I'd be really interested in hearing how Gladwell's cockamamie, quasi-racist theories explain the above. Either directly from Gladwell or anybody else who might care to defend him in this matter.
I'm not a Gladwell fan, but surely the idea that people in different cultures behave differently is not too surprising, is it? After all, you said yourself that the HN culture is ultra-rational. Or maybe I misunderstood what you are upset about.
The idea that I'm objecting to is that the culturally prescribed behaviour is somehow the root cause of so many plane crashes.
The argument I've presented is that Korean and Japanese (and indeed, most Asian cultures -- and just to be clear, Asia includes India too.) are very similar when it comes to deference towards elders, teachers and other people considered socially superior. And yet there's a large gap between the airline safety record of these two cultures. The japanese airlines I mentioned are not just safer than their Korean counterparts, but actually two of the safest airlines in the world. Any theory pinning Korean airlines' safety record on the Korean (really, Asian) culture must also include an explanation of the exactly contrary observation seen in japanese airlines.
Ah okay. Well, Asia is a really big place so let's just say East Asia.
I don't know anything about the culture at Japanese airlines vs. the culture at Korean airlines. Obviously they are different? Maybe the deference becomes more of a problem in Korea due to other cultural issues. I agree that blaming it on deference alone doesn't make sense. Wild guess is that Japanese people are more perfectionist? But I don't have any evidence for this, not even anecdotal.
Wild guess is that Japanese people are more perfectionist?
...
But I don't have any evidence for this, not even anecdotal.
In that case, may I suggest another wild guess? Maybe Japanese pilots are and have been better trained? You know, just to get away from another instance of unnecessary stereotyping.
Well it's obvious that they are better trained, because there are less crashes. The question is, what factors lead to them having better training? More money? Japan's relationship with America?
As for "perfectionism" being an unnecessary stereotype, if you're looking for a cultural explanation you're necessarily dealing with stereotypes. It's just as stereotypical to argue that all of East Asia shares the same culture of deference, just this time it works to your advantage because it means it isn't a factor. It's even relying on stereotypes to talk about the training across an industry. Who's to say that the lives of the individuals in charge aren't fully responsible?
Stereotypes can be okay, as long as they are accurate and not applied indiscriminately. I know that Japan has a culture of perfectionism (Google "Japan perfectionism" to start), I just don't know about Korea and what the differences might be.
"As for "perfectionism" being an unnecessary stereotype, if you're looking for a cultural explanation..."
Who is looking for cultural explanations ? I pointed out the difference between Japanese and Korean air-safety records specifically to point out the cultural explanations are devoid of any credibility in this case.
Ahh right. I get it. You must be of white northern European ancestry. There seems to be a cumpulsive cultural need among your people to explain away performance difference between different human beings based on where they come from.
Training programs are cultures. Japanese pilots are better trained because the culture of their training program is different. What other explanation do you have?
If you don't believe culture has an effect on behavior, why do you think my ancestry has anything to do with my behavior?
You're also picking and choosing bits of my posts to hear what you want to hear. I specifically asked, "Who's to say that the lives of the individuals in charge aren't fully responsible?"
"Japanese pilots are better trained because the culture of their training program is different"
This statement is basically devoid of any informational content. You can just insert the word "culture" in any similar statement. Watch:
"Google search is better because google has a superior culture oriented around search"
"Italian espresso is tastier because of the superior espresso-loving culture of Italy"
"If you don't believe culture has an effect on behavior, why do you think my ancestry has anything to do with my behavior?"
-----Whoosh----->
"I specifically asked, "Who's to say that the lives of the individuals in charge aren't fully responsible?"
Another nice sounding statement that's irrelevant for the topic at hand. The whole debate is about Gladwell specifically blaming Korea's national culture of deference on the airline's safety record.
I agreed with you about Gladwell and deference. I agreed with you about the Japanese having better training. I'm not sure what you want out of this. It seems like the idea that culture influences behavior is deeply offensive to you. How come?
My reason is that I just don't like sloppy reasoning to spread dangerous tribalist memes.
What's your reason for continuing to insist on using the word "culture" after you had already agreed on the non-factor of deference and importance of training ?
I believe culture is a real thing that influences behavior. The word simply refers to group norms around behavior and attitudes. Any group of any size will have a culture.
I believe that culture is a poor explanation for events in some cases. As you pointed out, it is probably not a good explanation in the case of deference (although I am not well-versed in the differences between Japanese deference and Korean deference), but that doesn't mean that cultural explanations are invalid altogether.
In particular, a training program will have a certain culture (set of attitudes and behaviors that get inculcated in the trainees), partly influenced by the national culture (including financing levels, collaboration with foreigners, etc.), and partly evolved on its own.
If not for culture, how do you explain the differences in training? I'm not saying your view is invalid, I just haven't heard what you think about this yet.
He is just saying that the larger power distance[1] in some cultures sometimes lowers one of the benefits of having two pilots.
There are, of course, a number of different ways for an airline to handle this. They can for example encourage an organizational, occupational or situational culture where the "normal" cultural "rules" are temporarily relaxed or suspended - making it ok to speak up to your superiors.
Well you seem to be defending the "cultralism" hypothesis without actually committing to any sort of an explanation of the extreme differential among the Japanese and Korean airline performances. Again, note that the Japanese airlines are among the safest in the world. It's not just a marginal difference.
The vague point you seem to be making is that the Japanese pilots are trained to "suspend" the culture somehow. Soo... it's just training then, isn't it ?
I didn't read this before. Training to suspend the influence of culture makes sense, if that's what happens. That sounds like Japanese pilots are trained such that Japanese pilot culture overrides Japanese national culture. Best explanation I've heard for the differences in training.
Off-topic, there's no space between the last word of a question and the question mark. Also, you're being overly aggressive in many of your replies about this topic.
I'm getting tired of this thread. In particular, I'll simply ignore personally directed snide remarks. I'll instead focus on the one sentence that actually addresses the topic at hand:
"That sounds like Japanese pilots are trained such that Japanese pilot culture overrides Japanese national culture."
I see an an insidious assumption implicit in that sentence. Do you spot it? Let me help you by changing the context a little bit.
"Qantas has an excellent flight safety record. Sounds like Australian pilots are trained such that Australian pilot culture overrides Australian national culture."
Those readers of this thread who're actually trying to understand the problems with "culturalist" explanations for professional performance should get my reasoning by now. For the others, I'm not going to waste anymore time going around in circles on this thread.
Australian national culture does not include deference of the kind seen in Japan and Korea. I do not understand the point of the substitution. What is the assumption you are referring to?
As for snide remarks, the bit about the question mark was correcting a repeated and minor punctuation mistake, and I genuinely thought you might want to know about it. However, in the context of this thread it was a bit of a passive aggressive cheap shot, and I apologize.
That said, you're still being overly aggressive and your incivility throughout most of this thread is against the guidelines.
My simple question to Gladwell is this: If Korean culture explains the bad safety record of Korean air, what explains the excellent safety record of the japanese airlines. All Nippon (No fatal accidents in more than 40 years) and JAL (last fatal crash in 1985 and even that due to mechanical failure) ? Does that record prove that Japanese culture is not only completely different from Korean culture (in-as-much as respect for elders and superiors is concerned) but it would also imply that Japanese culture is somehow better for air-safety than that of all the other national airlines of the world who've had a far worse safety record than those two airlines.
I'd be really interested in hearing how Gladwell's cockamamie, quasi-racist theories explain the above. Either directly from Gladwell or anybody else who might care to defend him in this matter.