I think what you said makes a lot of sense, and my earlier comment wasn’t very rigorous. More accurately, the most interesting thing about the United States is that it has almost stripped away all other influencing factors—no deep history, no influence from classical literature. If we set aside the atrocities committed against the Native Americans, it’s as if the country started from an untouched, resource-rich continent and rapidly evolved into the most advanced capitalist society. This makes the contrast between material wealth and the spiritual world especially stark and easy to observe.