Nowadays, conditioned reflexes almost automatically dominate reactions to criticism of the American model, and with only one or two sentences, any more differentiated or unfamiliar train of thought is immediately rammed back down to a familiar profile, which one tries to counter with the same reflexes over and over again, which of course does not succeed, since one does not concern oneself with the argument and its justification. But again and again only with one's own finger shadow play on the wall, which one puts in its place and then passes off as the enemy image - which one has created oneself.
The reaction to the NZZ article was expected. And shows very convincingly one more time how true his descriptions and assessments are: because exactly these reactions iullustrate it overwhelmingly.
When a media landscape is so plarized and thematically so neurotically concentrated on a narrow focus and fixed point, as is the case today mostly in the West, but especially in the U.S., then a perspective offered from outside this system may be able to offer and reveal new views that the participants in this system have become unable to take and behold from within it, just as an eye cannot look at itself: it needs the external perspective that a mirror makes possible in the first place.
Your reaction shows that the author of the NZZ article has unfortunately hit the nail on the head. And you don't even notice it anymore!
And this is the reason why I am convinced that the selfdestruction within the middle of American society will continue and the polarization will lead to extremes previously unknown. The centre erodes, the common ground where compromise is possible, meeting the other. The left and right rims gain overweight. Extremism catches and brutally bullies the ever shrinking centre from both sides, until it is gone, and both extremes collide head on with nothing between them anymore.
And then Good Night, kids. You can try to run from history. But you cant hide.