Who knew?

[Cirsium]

23. "We?"

Imagining people with different cultures than their own? That was not at all hard to do growing up in Detroit.

You say "we don't really have a history of the majority of people having to deal with regular long term multi - generational disasters - wars, famine, significant plagues, cycles of tyrants and border shifts - things like that."

The US has certainly had all of those. The Civil War, the ongoing war against the original peoples, slavery, many periods of famine, the Great Depression, the Spanish flu and COVID, plenty of tyrants in the form of Robber Barons, many, many border shifts...

"Special simply because of a circumstance of geography?" Do you mean abundant resources? Do people think the US is special because of that?

"Most people, with the exception of the very poor or slaves, lived a relatively safe life?"

Seriously? For a brief time, for a few people, yes.

As far opportunities to re-invent one's self, that has been available to some extent for some people at some times. Inherited wealth operates against that, always has, and so do misogyny and racism, as well as inequality in educational opportunities.