We often hear that Europeans don’t have, like Americans, the "success culture." Those examples, and there are many more, prove the opposite. Europeans like success. But they often don’t consider "winning against the whole society" as one. Instead, they tend to consider success a collective endeavour. Success is when your work is recognized long after you are gone, when it benefits every citizen. Europeans dream big: they hope that their work will benefit humankind as a whole!
Simplistic (Europe and USA are non-homogenous), but this simplicity is needed to build a positive myth. And a positive myth might need a region, a culture, and institutions willing to stand for it - however universal it is.