Before the war, status alone was respected. People obeyed men who occupied the post. The respect was for the post, who occupied the place was immaterial. And that social milieu puffed up the head of men who occupied the post. Man rises to a high post. His Ego expands in all directions. Society approves of it and offers its submissive consent, called adoration. Demography, statistics, management, computer, etc. are sciences today. America is their home of birth and field of nurture. The American Management Association was in existence even in the 50s. One who occupied its presidentship rose to the post by a rule that everyday he would learn something new. At the farewell meeting after his retirement, he said, "I have organised AMA my way, I ran it all these years my way, the ways of AMA are my ways, to this last day I have executed everything my way."
It was an egoistic speech in full display. Today, one cannot hear such self adulation. Men will be ashamed of speaking so, not in being so. One is considered civilised or cultured to the extent he disregards his own ego. No European would have ever delivered the speech of AMA President. Culture apart, business has found out the secret of profits. It lies in the satisfaction of the customer. When man respects the other man, his own income increases. For the sake of profit, business humbles itself and pampers the customer. No one can exist successfully in business in the West if he is not humble before the buyer. A girl in America is treated as a queen in all her adolescent life. Children are treated as adults and their views are respected. Of course the women are fully liberated, maybe to the point of male submissiveness. "My way" is no longer civilised or acceptable public behaviour.
To a spiritually awakened man, "My way" would hurt his inner spiritual sensibilities. Otherwise, he could not make spiritual progress." One may think of the tapasvis of India before whose wrath everyone trembled. In the days of the Rishis, the domain of the ego extended to Spirit. The Rishi wielded his weapon of curse with great relish and even threatened to use it. Today not only the customer is respected, but in a class it is the student who rules today, at least in the West. What matters is his understanding. At the elections, it is the voter who must approve of the candidate. Man, the Individual, is coming into his own now a days. Even as a strategy, ‘my way' will not pay now or even earlier. At the above farewell function, the succeeding President who had borne the brunt in the previous regime stood up and said, "My President, from today onwards, AMA will function my way," and raised a hilarious laughter in the entire audience.