I heard a great seminar once on “Communications”. The guy had done Sociology type research on “Why Institutions and Companies Fail”. He said he and his colleagues were shocked at what they found because it was not at all what they were “looking for.” He said in every instance failure precipitated because of a “cultural blind spot” that prevented those involved from even discussing problems much less doing something about them. So the problems just got worse and worse until everything collapsed and the injured were left wondering, “What happened?”
1350.
And what precipitates the cultural blind spot is delusion (on a group basis).
Delusion is a belief that ignores reality. Correcting delusion is very difficult due to confirmation bias.
Americans love their delusions and will fight like hell to keep them.