While individual Americans might be the most generous people in the world in their daily actions and deepest desires, they are stuck in a society that ensures none of the fundamental opportunities that people need to achieve even basic middle-class comforts. This condemns Americans to an anxiety-ridden battle where a person had better be special, because the alternative is not succeeding at all. The United States is remarkable among the advanced nations for the way it forces its people into lives so stressful they may have to turn against even their own values.
