It's interesting that I agree with you at a few key points, but utterly disagree with your post in a few other places. Agree: "The rift in our country starts he

It's interesting that I agree with you at a few key points, but utterly disagree with your post in a few other places. Agree: "The rift in our country starts here. At the divide between collectivism and individualism." Interestingly, I think the problems described in the article are entirely from the whole-hearted embrace of individualism that America has fallen into. There is not communal or collective effort at all; these kids are told that they need to be fighting each other in the stack ranking of life for the next 18-65 years. No one will take care of them if they get sick or injured -- they need to save for that, and saving requires a good-paying job, which requires the right career path, which requires optimizing your class schedule in 8th grade and not accruing a police record for tipping cows or outhouses or, God forbid, spreading a little nitrogen triiodide in the high school hallway as a prank. That'll get you a terrorism charge. In some sense I again agree with your first paragraph: "Our lives have gotten so easy that..." and the note about "faux adversity". I think we'd all be more mentally healthy if we spent more time in the woods or desert, where Nature doesn't care about your GPA or your career cluster, but you can truly test yourself against physical reality. Heck, even weightlifting can provide a touch of that. But again, it's not faux adversity when you see your parents missing mortgage payments because of the government shutdown and you realize that they went to college & did everything "right" and yet because they're not 5%-ers in the US your life in the good school district is precarious. It's not faux adversity when you see your parents get the $24,000 bill (after insurance!) for a broken arm from Zuckerberg Hospital. This is created adversity. We have created a system in which there is no floor and no escape from debts. All rests on the individual, and if you get old, or sick before you're old, you're f*(&ed.