I think the problem goes much deeper than American individualism.
For instance, logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. More the light shining through the film, than the images on it.
This isn’t so much a problem of religion, which is just an institutionalization of a culture’s biases and superstitions, as it is of philosophy. For allowing this conflation of the absolute with the ideal to go unquestioned.
As the more anthropomorphic model of monotheism faded, the underlaying premise of the ideal as absolute shapeshifted with the materialist notion of the bottom line as the ultimate goal. The ideal of wealth as absolute.
Reality is more a tension and balance of opposites. More the yin and yang, than God Almighty. Even matter is more a balance of positive and negative charge, than any singular underlaying substance.
As organisms, we are that tension between our appetites and desires bubbling up, versus the need to order and direct them. The heart and the head. The anarchy of desire, versus the tyranny of judgement. Energy and form. Even galaxies are energy radiating out, while form coalesces in. Feedback loops and cosmic convection cycles.
The fact is that evolution is a process and trials invariably result in lots of errors. While all this current turmoil seems overwhelming to us, it too will pass and future generations will hopefully take the lessons we are giving them, as what to do and not to do.
Keep in mind the ‘Russia is the root of all evil’ theory being pushed by the powers that be, is rooted in a Cold War mentality that lost its purpose thirty years ago. The United States has had a joint space program with the Russians since then. Would this have been thinkable with the Soviet Union?
This shrill finger pointing is evidence of a one dimensional mindset that is more a death rattle, than sign of real power.
These things take time. Think of it as a scab, slowly peeling away from the underlaying tissue.
