I read a great article today from Joe Bageant about the decline of American Culture.  It’s mostly a rant about the illogical, self destructive choices we Americans make as a whole:

Doubting readers may consider America's health institutions, the insurance corporations, hospital chains, physicians' lobbies. Between them they have established a perfectly legal right to clip you and me for thousands of dollars at their own discretion. That we so rabidly defend their right to gouge us, given all the information available in the digital age, mystifies the world.

After reading it, I felt smugly comfortable and a little superior.  Then I remembered the Dunning–Kruger effect and came down.  Later, I figured that just knowing what the Dunning–Kruger effect is probably makes me truly above average.  However, in the end I got caught in a recursive loop and had the mental and emotional equivalent of a stack overflow and crashed.

Bageant summed up his article this way:

Some Americans believe we can collectively triumph over the monolith we presently fear and worship. Others believe the best we can do is to find the personal strength to endure and go forward on lonely inner plains of the self.

Doing either will take inner moral, spiritual and intellectual liberation. It all depends on where you choose to fight your battle. Or if you even choose to fight it. But one thing is certain. The only way out is in.

Maybe I’m on the right track after all.