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[bucolic_frolic]

6. Root is the narcissistic culture that breeds focus on 'me'

Because 'me' makes others and things outside ourselves irrelevant to our righteous self-determination. We have a long tradition. Puritanism, for example. Look at what they did to native American nations of New England. And as one other poster commented, home and religious schooling. It's a Puritan revival in some respects.

Rejection of outside forces breeds paranoia. Everyone is out to get me and mine. No one's reality is smarter than mine. So anyone 'smarter' is not really smarter, and if you let 'them' put one over on you, you're in dire straits indeed. So the experts must be wrong.

So at its heart i see focus on self and self-only, that runs through religious belief and self-righteousness, and rejection of all else, as the cause of denial of facts presented by experts.