I believe this culture arose in 90's as a reaction to the 70's where in the US, the education system mainstreamed almost everyone and praise was nonexistent. T

I believe this culture arose in 90's as a reaction to the 70's where in the US, the education system mainstreamed almost everyone and praise was nonexistent. Today's 40-50 y/o so-called rocket scientist sat through exactly the same coursework, at the same pace, as the lowest passable student. Some schools even placed everyone in the same large room regardless of age. To make things worse, grading was heavily weighted on rote assignments being completed; boredom could turn a 99th percentile tester into a C student and nothing was done. Somehow though college admission was surprisingly objective. You could get into a respected public engineering school with any GPA if your SAT score was high enough. The opposite is true now, where GPA is who you are "intellectually," and "honors" courses that allow you to get a 5.0 on a 4.0 scale almost ensure that the valedictorian will have more than a 4.0/4.0 GPA. Compliant, hard workers can grow up thinking they're also PhD material. There is some validation in real life for the old system however. "Success" in real life is mostly just showing up consistently and having social skills to keep your customers (or bosses) happy. Like ideas, raw intellectual horsepower doesn't go far without execution.