There used to be a time when the free world looked to authoritarian states like Russia and reprimanded them for large prison populations. The gulag was a symbol of oppression and a loss of human freedom. I find it strange we have surpassed the incarceration rates of these nations and even stranger that mass incarceration is seen as something to be proud of.
I wanted to add that there are several forms/types of Vipassana and several different types of centers that conduct retreats. Many people get confused and think that there is only one type of Vipassana.
Take a look into The Insight Meditation Society located near Boston. They also have a large center near San Francisco, and various groups around the country. I think you may find the instruction less 'cultish'. Insight Meditation Society (IMS) uses a sliding scale to charge for its retreats and I have found them to be my favorite center for going on a retreat.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it is not necessary to do a ten day retreat. You can start with a 2-3 day and work up from there.
I am an American and have lived in Europe (Northern Europe) for over four years. I don’t fear awkward silences anymore either, but, what I do miss is an easy going relationship with conversation. It seems to me as if Europeans can be socially awkward and I am not sure if I will ever entirely warm up to the idea of “the culture of comfortable silence.” Perhaps a balance between insentient chattering and enforced silence would be nice. I believe conversation is an art, it is important, and it is part of what makes us human.
One thing I have always pondered concerning western buddhist practice is the context which it is taught and the idea that a monastic tradition/practice can successfully be integrated into modern western culture.
"McMahan suggests that we approach the subject by considering a monk in ancient India. “He has left his family behind; he is celibate; he doesn’t eat after noon; he studies texts that give him a skeptical view of the phenomenal world and its value. Is his practice really exactly the same,” McMahan asks, “as that of a contemporary secular mindfulness practitioner who is meditating to excel at work or to be more compassionate to her children?”
Can Buddhist practice liberate us from the prison of physical pain?
"How can meditation help when medicine falls short? Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts medical School, speaks to these questions as a long-time practitioner of Buddhist meditation and hatha yoga, and as a pioneer in the use of mindfulness to treat chronic pain and illness. More than 13,000 people have visited the world-renowned Stress Reduction Clinic that Kabat-Zinn established in 1979 at the UMass medical Center, and the eight-week program- described in Kabat-Zinn’s bestseller “Full Catastrophe Living”- is now also offered at some two hundred medical facilities worldwide."