One thing that I’ve found puzzling over the last ten or
so years is the anger directed towards people who choose
to work hard
I think there is serious merit to that sentiment. Others in this thread have made very keen observations on this all pervasive national attitude that has blanketed America in the past decade or two.
however the biggest issue facing the US is this message that excelling
isn't to aspired too, acceptance of who you are and who someone else
is is all that matters. It is a self defeating mindset. Don't worry if
you fail, you had no choice, you just can't do better. Here let us
take care of you....
And fully expecting to be flamed, I give you perhaps, the most lucid and no-nonsense explanation of how this kind of self-defeatist thinking has come about envelope the national psyche, in the form on a nice quip by none other than, Peter Thiel himself:
The countercultural in the '60s was the hippies. You know, we landed
on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later, and
with the benefit of hindsight, that’s when progress ended, and the
hippies took over the country.
He adds:
Today the counterculture is to believe in science and technology. You
know, our society, the dominant culture doesn’t like science. It
doesn’t like technology. You just look at the science-fiction movies
that come out of Hollywood — Terminator, Matrix, Avatar, Elysium. I
watched the Gravity movie the other day. It’s like you would never
want to go into outer space. You would just want to be back on some
muddy island. And so I think we’re in a world where actually believing
that a better future is possible that you can have agency and work
towards a better future, that is actually radically countercultural.
[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9034895[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IER50pX-FuM&t=3m22s
[3] Technology Stalled in 1970
http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/530901/technology-stalled-in-1970/