Note that people who are outside the American madhouse, those who live in developing countries like the Philippines or China, very much want to adopt American customs.
Few of them want to live a monastic or back-to-nature lifestyle. These people can learn from Americans' experience, yet there is no mass movement to adopt the good part while staying relaxed, centered, and happy.
I'm not saying that they prefer employer-linked healthcare to single-payer, or that they want to be stressed-out and depressed, but they very much want TV, possessions, yuppie-style jobs, etc., without worrying too much about the alleged misery that we Americans experience.
And why is that? Where I live most of the year, on a mountain in nature, I see young people moving away all the time and their parents and grandparents wanting 'something better' for them. What is that something better? If you ask them, they all, without fail, come with examples from American tv shows on how they want to live or how they want their offspring to live. Nice suits, phones, cars, houses, etc. Why do people living of fantastic fresh fish, veg, olive(s) oil, cheese and people who saw their parents/grandparents walk up the mountain every day to get groceries or work the land so desperately want to grow incredibly fat on Burger King and have as highest goal to 'not do anything every again'?
I know they want this because they see it in tv shows because they tell me; it's considered 'being rich' to act and look like that. People who are complaining all the time to us that they cannot possibly pay the next month rent have huge flatscreens and DID buy another game console or phone with christmas. I don't know about the Philipines or China, but this is southern europe and it's very real. I think it's more or less the same there; you see people 'having fun' (it's a sitcom yo!) and believe that kind of wealth is something to go for.
I'm not saying we have to go back to nature; internet, mobile devices etc is fine. But to think that 2 SUVs, a huge house (what's on the top floor again? yeah no-one goes there ever) or two, almost certainly living on debt (it's one of those things designed to buy perceived happiness in exchange for money for the MAN) will make you happy is a delusion which is set forth by the media. If media for some reason would not put some much positive weight in consumerism, a lot of people here would be content doing what their parents/grandparents did. Now they are not; they have a hardpush drive to 'get what Americans take for granted' without really knowing why they want that.
Everything you're saying is true. But note that these people have had the opportunity to learn of the harmful effects of consumerism -- even if they watch TV shows, there are other sources of information that tell them the truth. Is everyone that stupid?
Have you ever thought about why they want that life & those things?
After spending 2 years in Central and South America, I honestly believe Hollywood is the best marketing department in the world.
In countless dirt-street shanty towns I would wander into the village store to find the locals crowded around a small fuzzy TV watching blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jennifer Anniston lament about her love life or some such, which driving a convertible down the sunny California coast, seemingly without a care in the world.
Who doesn't want that?
Never do you hear about the millions of homeless in America, the unacceptable percentage of children born into poverty, the millions without healthcare or the staggering number of people living on food stamps, just to name of few of the crippling problems facing America today.
It's a marketing lie, and it works very, very well.
It was always enjoyable to meet locals that had been to America (mostly illegals), who knew to their core it was all a crock of shit. Every single one said "I don't ever want to go back, that place is horrible" - while living in a small farming town in rural South America.
Few of them want to live a monastic or back-to-nature lifestyle. These people can learn from Americans' experience, yet there is no mass movement to adopt the good part while staying relaxed, centered, and happy.
I'm not saying that they prefer employer-linked healthcare to single-payer, or that they want to be stressed-out and depressed, but they very much want TV, possessions, yuppie-style jobs, etc., without worrying too much about the alleged misery that we Americans experience.