Canadian Politics Today

I beg to differ. Mass communication isn’t the problem; a culture that mistakes being entertained for being informed is the problem.

But now we're in a chicken-and-egg discussion.  Unless you believe in blaming cultures, which I don't, then blaming culture feels suspiciously like an 'othering' argument. If you don't believe in blaming an entire people, if you believe that groups of humans are largely similar in how they respond to circumstances, then how can you parse and then dissect the culture-communication issue ?

I don't happen to think that American culture is a long-term characteristic of people like race, or religion may be. Even if they are,  these things are still not immutable.  Granted that the search for root-causes can result in a magnificent pageant of staring at ones' shoes.  And also granted that so few people are able to engage in such a discussion objectively that it's not worth trying. 

Still - I feel that the communication modes of a society are more about topology than blaming a 'failed' people, and therefore a better way to look at how national character finds itself directing the nation.  How can the same peoples who gave us the New Deal give us McCarthyism ?  What aspects of American tribalism changed, or otherwise how did America change ?  The answer is unknowable, I think, but also largely undiscussable.

We can try, since it's a great interest for me, but also best suited to another thread.