[misja111]

> it seems the problem is not with happiness, but with the seductive appeal of materialism and the effects of exposing one culture to another.

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but what struck me is that your comment would fit seamlessly into a text from the DDR regime, when it was still alive. (You know, the former communist republic of East Germany, which needed a wall to keep its citizens within the socialist paradise)

I'm not saying that this makes your comment wrong, I'm just wondering what this means with regard to former communism.

[Analemma_]

I mean it would also fit seamlessly into an Islamist lecture from Sayyid Qutb, or a primitivist rant from Ted Kaczynski, and so on. Anyone ideologically opposed to the Western "capitalism plus liberal democracy" combo pretty much has to form their opposition on anti-materialist and/or anti-integration grounds, because those are the only ones where it isn't an overwhelming, crushing victory over every alternative.