Pro Charlie Kirk rally in my small red town

[misanthrope]

11. The American people worship wealth and materialism

That has been the case for centuries now. One of my favorite quotes that seared itself into my head when I first heard it over 40 years ago was the following:

“As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?”
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Letter to Ernest de Chabrol, June 9, 1831

De Tocqueville was no detractor of the United States but the young French nobleman's passage resonated with me because of his status as an outside observer traveling the new nation. If that aspect of our national cultural fabric was so evident way back then, we can imagine it is even more embedded now.

Later, 20th century telecommunications provided an avenue into the subconscious of the average American. It was a perfect tool for boosting sales through advertising. Radio was somewhat effective but it was still akin to reading as it was reliant upon language with the human imagination filling in the rest.

Television was far more effective since humans were fully diurnal, gathering 90 percent of information through their eyes. It was discovered one could effectively hypnotize consumers with visuals, tantamount to pouring gallons of advertising messages and their implicit values into the subconsciousness of viewers. As the last half of the 20th century proceeded, American began to crave more and more "stuff." Average home sizes ballooned. It became "normal" for every person in a household to have their own automobile. We attached more and more judgement about inherent human worth to consumption.

The internet and social media attuned to outrage in order to manipulate emotions has added rocket fuel to the problems brought about through late 20th century television advertising. Our society is tearing itself into smaller and smaller pieces and we're doing it willingly.