As we know, in a stable and efficient society, the tendency exists to build suitable models to each problem. The Americans consider generally that there is only one optimal way to solve a problem. The specialists will find this optimal solution and will impose it to everybody. Thus the population reacts suitably to any problem.
However the price for efficiency is XS1-type schizophrenia; if the situation is changed, the people have no suitable solutions anymore, and they are blocked as they are not prepared to build on their own new models in front of a new changing reality (this problem has been presented in several other ETAs). From here emerge the differences between the two cultural environments, the European and the American ones.
Example: In any country, included USA, there is a white line in front of any traffic light. If the traffic light changes to red and somebody stops after passing the line by 10-cm e.g., this is illegal in the USA and the driver is called in court. In Europe this 'illegality' produces at most smiles. Europeans will never accept 'perfection'.
The American success is given by perfection, and perfection is in contradiction with creativity and the European spirit. The European spirit is knowledge oriented, while the American perfectionist spirit is goal-oriented.
Let's see some examples of the competition between Europe and USA.
In Civil Aviation, the Europeans came to sell more planes than the Americans do. This shows that the European spirit is efficient in the more and more symbolic world we live in.
In Nuclear Physics, Europeans have discovered two subnuclear particles, "W" and "Z" (Nobel Prize), when the Americans had the needed equipment (high- energy particle accelerators), but did not do the necessary experiment. The Europeans continue to be creative and efficient.
Let's see the reverse as well. The Europeans wanted to build a fighter-plane, to compete the US ones. Then they discovered that they haven't got the technology to make it 'invisible', haven't got enough money to build it and haven't got the background infrastructure to support this weapon system. Even the navigation system (GPS) is American. This is an example of the European adventurous spirit. This spirit can be seen in the building of the A380 (the biggest airliner in the world). We will see in a few years the result of the competition between the American perfectionism and the European spirit.