I don't see the contradiction; competent engineering knowledge has little correlation with political thinking, and is only limited to a small subset of the popu

I don't see the contradiction; competent engineering knowledge has little correlation with political thinking, and is only limited to a small subset of the population. It says nothing about the millions of unemployed and underemployed people, the housewives, and politicians. The aspects in health care and same-sex marriage are not and have not been particularly controversial in Western Europe as a matter of social policy in that time span. They are interesting points of policy but by themselves nothing special when compared to the number of forward-thinking policies most countries in Western Europe have. What I have seen, from both personal experience and an amount of anectdote that goes beyond mere personal recollections, is a remarkable lack of interest and knowledge in foreign cultures, and an incredibly regressive management culture in the workplace. All countries have technological outliers. The point is that they're exactly that, outliers.