I answer the question of whether American culture “has much more to offer” with a NO. Whether that will change is another question entirely. My answer is “I don’t know”. The last 50 years have seen a rise in narcissistic traits and also in full-blown narcissism. See Twenge & Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (2009). When we say that “we could do better,” we may be overlooking that the only way to show it is by doing better. And we haven’t “done better.” Another thing entirely is to aspire for a better society (“we must do better”).

Insisting on compliance with normative standards -aspirations for moral behavior and actual prevalence of morality- is not the ethos of the times. The normalization of bad behavior is. The Trump presidency is just another symptom of a sick, decadent culture, as is the Elizabeth Holmes’ fiasco. I’m not saying that there’s no hope. But we need to know what are we up against.

As with everything human, the causes of the rise in narcissism, the prevalence of cheating, of uncivil and anti-social behavior, and so on, are hard to identify. Some factors include hyper-individualism; bad socialization patterns, including bad parenting and worse schooling; an emphasis on image rather than substance, on material wealth rather than on kindness and good citizenship; economic anxiety; the awakening of a formerly quasi-dormant racism; the democratization of mediocrity and banality -everybody is a “winner” or talented, while truth and artistry are relative. Anti-intellectualism has been on the rise for quite some time now.

All that and more produced the current societal pathology, characterized by predatory capitalism, the cult of personality and spectacle, unscrupulous billionaires and corrupt politicians, a justice system that is everything but “color-blind,” a rise in violence against “minorities,” and so on.

See also: Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (1979); Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009); Jerrold M. Post, Narcissism and Politics: Dreams of Glory (2015).