>Considering that, as a nation, American has a foundation in its constitution that surpasses pretty much every other nation It's strange that you claim that; a

>Considering that, as a nation, American has a foundation in its constitution that surpasses pretty much every other nation It's strange that you claim that; as the American Constitution ranks right at the bottom in terms of forcing social accountability. It's an outdated document that allows individuals to get away with everything a reasonable society has at least some claim to punish or direct, and it's something that has held American social progress back. No hate speech laws, extensive rights against self-incrimination, no "right to be forgotten", no socialized medicine, very few equality-of-outcome initiatives, and the like. And as a result, you've correctly noted that the American commons is horribly polluted and everyone acts as if they were a (little) king. >Responsibility and sacrifice do not have to be associated with conformity and keeping your head down. Yes they do- they're inextricably linked. Let's take the example of a father providing for his children- given the choice of a risky venture vs. a more stable position at another company, the choice is now to prevent loss rather than obtain gain. So we see that as responsibility increases, so does the requirement to not rock the boat, so to speak. Never change a running system. Now let's extrapolate that attitude to individuals in a society. The more that individual feels beholden to it, the more they'll limit risky action in favor of stability. Their window of tolerable risk shrinks- and while they're very unlikely to do anything that costs that society, they're also unlikely to make it prosper. And as a result, any (read: above-average) member of the society has already checked out because even if they have something that will work, it's less likely they'll find others willing to risk what little individual time/capital they have on it (and it's not like they'll ever see a meaningful reward for that risk either as the society feels entitled to most of it). So either you have a society in which individuals feel beholden to it, in which case you get something that's pretty good for everyone but can't properly reward the people who end up doing most of the work (it's more important than usual that those people believe they owe society something); or you don't, in which case the poor get barely-passable treatment but being objectively useful tends to bring big rewards (and incentivizes advancing the capabilities of the human race). You can't both encourage deference to society and thinking outside of that society's standards at the same time- you either pick one or the other and live with the benefits and detriments. It'd sure be nice to have both, but you can't beat human nature or reality.