There's an entire media cult that has used psychology and propaganda to build this over the past 40 years. This wasn't an accident - this was purposeful manipulation of human nature.

Which is, in and of itself, I guess, human nature. It just sucks that we evidently used to be smart enough to know and demand better as a society, and as a result, we did greater things as a society. I wonder what we could have been capable of without the rise of this media cult taking over our culture.