America - all countries on the face of the earth, in point of fact - are afflicted with a "collective dumbness" that, to people operating within traditional concepts of society, expresses itself in wrong (or, more accurately, inappropriate) behavior. Behavior that is appropriate from a strictly individual point of view is frequently not the best way to act in a social situation. Appropriate behavior between and among individuals is guided by individual ethics, which - while similar - are not the same as social ethics.
Nor is the situation corrected by imposing individual ethics in a presumably "social" way. That results in mere collectivism, making the individual a nullity and trapping groups, even nations into situations that quickly appear hopeless. Social situations are never truly hopeless, however. They just seem so to people "trapped" within the wrong paradigm. The human person being both an individual and a social (or, more accurately, political) creature, any system that emphasizes individuality above humanity's social nature is almost as wrong-headed as a system that ignores or rejects individuality in favor of purely collective behavior or "groupthink."
The key to overcoming collective dumbness in America or any other country or group on the face of the earth is the same as it has always been. At one point, in the 1830s, the perspicacious French observer Alexis de Tocqueville examined "democracy in America" (and wrote the first great work of sociology in the process in 1835) and concluded that, in America, the people of this amazing new nation had managed to reach the perfect union of individuality and social behavior.
De Tocqueville observed that Americans did not, like the French, wait for the State to do what needed to be done, or, like the English, stand around until some rich, socially-minded aristocrat decided to take a personal interest in a problem. Instead, de Tocqueville was intrigued to discover that Americans faced with a problem or a project that was too big for a single individual to solve immediately organized with like-minded others for the purpose of solving the problem or carrying out the project. This habit of organizing for social purposes was so pervasive that de Tocqueville declared that in the United States, the central government - or any government at all - could scarcely be said to rule. Instead, the people ruled themselves by organizing in free associations with like-minded others, with the occasional assistance (by providing any necessary laws and legislation) of the state, federal, or local governments. Otherwise, people expected to solve their own problems and mind their own business.
Surprisingly, de Tocqueville's observations about "free association" and its power to solve social problems found its echo in a breakthrough in moral philosophy achieved by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s and 1930s. I say "surprisingly," because many people in the Catholic Church tend to reject de Tocqueville and his work because he did not practice his religion most of his adult life, only "returning to the sacraments" on his deathbed. Thus the fact that the head of the Catholic Church would, to all appearances, rely heavily on de Tocqueville's work is a possibility that many Catholics reject out of hand, failing to realize that truth doesn't rely on how good or bad a person is or may be in the eyes of others.
In any event, there is a body of evidence suggesting that Pope Pius XI studied de Tocqueville and the United States very closely in coming up with his idea of a specially "social" ethic. This he embodied in his concepts of "social justice" and "social charity." Far from being a recommendation to have the State distribute welfare and take over every aspect of everyone's life (even though many Catholics, having a collective dumbness the same as any other group, interpret the pope's thought in just that way), social justice involves people freely organizing to correct the flaws in the social order (our institutions) so that individual justice and all the other individual branches of ethics can once again function properly to the benefit of both individuals and society as a whole.
To teach people how to behave socially and still retain their full individuality, Pope Pius XI hinted that social charity doesn't mean State welfare or organized charity, but loving your institutions as you love yourselves. Learning about the object of your love is an important aspect of love, so that one of the "acts" of social charity is to learn about social justice and how it can be used to restructure out institutions. Social justice, in turn, doesn't mean that the State makes up for all the failings of our institutions to deliver individual justice, but that ordinary people organize to correct the institution (with the help of the State only if absolutely necessary) so that the institution, not the State, once again does what it was originally intended to do and delivers justice to individuals.
A good place to start learning about how to overcome "collective dumbness" is to find a rare pamphlet written in 1948 by a Catholic priest, Rev. William J. Ferree. Some websites have the pamphlet available as a free download, so it's not impossible to find. Titled, "Introduction to Social Justice," the pamphlet was written for high school students to help them learn about real social justice, as opposed to the socialism (disguised or explicit) that so many people have mistaken for social justice.
Yes, America (and everyone else) is, by and large, collectively dumb . . . but the condition is not irremediable. Society is a human construct, and what human beings can screw up, they can also correct. We only need to get busy. As Father Ferree declared at the end of "Introduction to Social Justice," in social justice terms, nothing is impossible.