[delusional]

Those are interesting points, and I suppose I agree that there's too little "deep thought" and too much "crisis all the time". I'm not really sure if I agree that nobody cares about the past though.

I think what we are seeing in large part is a retooling of the past. America cares deeply about it's past. The only thing you ever hear them talk about is "founding farther this" or "Confederacy that". From my perspective America seems infatuated with its own past. Here in Europe we rarely even talk about that time Germany tried to take over the whole thing, maybe because we all tried to do the same previously.