And that then, Fred, brings me back to the problem with US American society in and of itself, namely that the idea of competition has been built into the fabric of the American way of life. Capitalism is about competition. The USA ─ like all fascist regimes ─ also puts a lot of emphasis on team sports, and thus on competition. The US military-industrial complex makes its living off of war and is always looking for an enemy ─ which is also a form of competition, i.e. "us versus them".
Any which way you turn it, the concept of competition is a quintessential part of the American DNA. The switch has only two positions ─ either you're one or you're the other. And the switch may get flicked back and forth a couple of times over the years, but it's still a two-way switch, and it'll always remain a two-way switch, because the average US American doesn't know any better ─ they have no choice but to identify with one of the two sides of the same coin, because American Exceptionalism forbids that the USA as a nation would find inspiration from anything outside of the USA. US American culture is an export product, and the USA does not and will not import any cultural or intellectual values from outside of its own borders. Again, American Exceptionalism ─ the ludicrous belief that in spite of all of its internal struggling and all of its social unrest, the USA would still be superior to any other nation or culture in the world.
And that brings me to another quote ─ I'm not sure who said it originally, but I believe this one may also have come from Albert Einstein...
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results."