As Americans we are given a script from birth—it is our shared and assumed formula for the pursuit of happiness. Without even being aware of it we are scripted in the belief that our superior technology, our self-help ideology, our dominant military, and our capacity to obtain consumer goods should guarantee our happiness—our ticket to Paradise. Said just so, it sounds silly, but when it is communicated in the liturgies of advertising and the propaganda of state, it becomes believable...and we do believe it.
