This is a hell of a paragraph

[paleotn]

11. Yet we find ourselves exactly where the author says we are.

Seems it must apply to a large part of that 350M.

Anecdotal, but in my many years I've found most Americans to be grossly ignorant of anything that actually matters in the grand scheme. They can go on and on about the NFL or some prime time talent show, but anything that will impact generations of Americans? Not so much. They know little of the rest of the world and are proud of their ignorance. They hold on to American mythology like it's holy writ, not giving it an ounce of critical thought. And though granted freedom of thought and expression, they're grossly incurious and would rather follow along with with what their told...because....you know...Amurka #1! Amurka #1!

That's not a criticism of our democratic experiment. In my mind, most Americans miss out on what an incredible wonder America really is when stripped of all the cultural BS. We aspire to the absolute pinnacle of Enlightenment thought, we fail more often than not, but still struggle to live up to our ethos all these years later. It's those unvarnished failures and the fact that they didn't end our experiment that really defines us.