100% agree with that. It's an outdated reference, like class and norms.
I'm familiar with the European beauracracy. It's not good either, but it seems to cut across a different part of the social infrastructure. It's a big bother, makes everything very difficult (like starting a business), but it's also tuned towards dealing with the melting pot-ness of the European identity issue. There are serious national and cultural stratifications across Europe that keep people really divided. There's no "us" and hasn't been for a long time.
Our nominal "us"-ness is now eating itself... "American dream" and "American novel" are both concepts that would mean very little to millenials, and those coming up younger.
I think what I find most tragic about what feels like the American mindset right now is how much it's ignoring how good we still have it, and how much better things could still be if there was a true interest in the greater good. We still don't have some of the really unsolvable problems that other countries contend with. Our perspective is blinding.
As an American who spends a lot of time in other countries, here's my best, shortest attempt to explain:
1) The cultural trust and norms in our country are dead. Everything gets the most superficial consideration, there's no basis of reasonableness such that even the judge doesn't stop the machine, power is so distributed that there's no reasonable authority in place, and people like CPS -- who have difficult and challenging and necessary jobs -- don't know how to recognize "normal" when they see it. American has no "normal" anymore, and everyone acts based on their greatest fears, informed by our weird local news, NCIS/Law&Order fear-mongering mentality. We used to have class divisions that kept things a little normal within class lines, now class divisions have been destroyed such that everyone's caught in a race to the bottom.
1b) I like to think I'm not really subject to #1, being an upper middle class white professional... but I live in a relatively urban environment, with a pre-teen child, and there's a sense that one socially construed "accident" can send me into a can of worms that can take years to climb out of. So, until then, I'll assume I'm relatively untouchable, because I'm not really sure what else my option is. I can see relocating, to one of my international anchor points.. permanently, at some point.
2) There's a strong tinge of "fuck them" or "they have no right" or "they shouldn't" in a lot of American interactions now, whether formal or otherwise. People are endlessly bothered by things they aren't affected by. I mean, it's not everywhere...
American culture is now a corporate construct designed to make everyone in its demographic purview feel strongly about something that doesn't matter to them, whether it's escapees with big dicks or the Kardashians. Radio plays the same 10 songs over and over and over again so you have to hit scan and your radio takes you through stations back to news anchor talking about news that doesn't matter. And if you get home and turn on the TV you're assaulted by the local news anchors with "news you can trust" or weather reports "you can count on", and when you ignore that your co-worker at work will just force it down your throat anyway, and you'll pretend to go along with it so as to have some minor smidgeon of false rapport, lest you come off as anti-social or.. critical.
I was just at a farmer's market tonight where kids ran free and cops patted kids on the head and dogs were off leash and people were eating ice cream and yelling and laughing. But it just takes one person, with a spiteful "I'll get 'em..." trigger to bring an invisible avalanche into the room. I think it's worse in urban areas and in suburban areas, which is why I've been living in medium sized "towns" with urban centers. There seems to be less of that in that kind of neighborly construct. But neither can we talk about places like urban California, suburban California, and rural California in equal terms that cover those places, but also midwestern areas or southern areas or bible belt areas. We're not one country anymore, and we have no norms, and people are always told that someone, somewhere is taking shit from them, whether it's terrorists, the emboldened, or the entitled. There are each of those, but fewer bothering each of us in actuality. But lots of people can't see the normal in the normal anymore, either.
Back in the day, I paid for music when I went to the store and bought a CD. These days, I pay for music every month of every year, whether I listen to music from that service or not.
Every week I check out new releases and see albums from bands and there are no descriptions of either. What do labels really do? Where's the marketing?
There's still enough money flowing from listeners into the music eco-system, but the player's aren't doing their job.
Yeah, a little sympathy and open-mindedness here would be helpful.
I'm a grown adult, C-level professional with ZERO real-world friends. And I've tried... but the connections haven't stuck. It's quite bothersome, and makes you question everything about yourself and why this outcome could possibly be true after a lifetime of having tried to maintain and improve connections with others.
I've adopted a more tolerant and accepting self-view with respect to this, and the pain level of being completely socially isolated is in the 20-30% range, but the pain of on-going disinterest on the part of others was quite high.. like 80-90%. So it's a bit of progress. But my point is: for those who haven't found their way to an operable level of acceptance, a "WTF!" response isn't kind or helpful or insightful.
There are many of us "ForeverAlone"-ers out there, and trust me... we're 10x more confused than you might profess to be.