Maybe something, perhaps too much proximity to microwave ovens, preservatives in potato chips that combine in some weird way with cheap beer, or too much television zaps brain cells.
Or maybe it is cultural. It isn't cool to be too smart, or think too much. Look at the newscasters on any local TV station. These figures are carefully modelled to reflect a norm that will attract the largest number of viewers who are the cream of the crop of consumers.
Basically the model is a carefully calibrated, jovial and maybe self deprecating celebration of ignorance as an American value.
Maybe it is just too hard to escape this gravity.
Take the debate raging over illegal immigration as an example of this. It is perfectly obvious, if you think for more than a few beats that this is a hemispheric phenomenon with financial drivers rooted in consumer economics and international finance and politics. Yet we treat it as a Punch and Judy show featuring bigots and Hispanic figures. Nothing more. What is up with that?
Look, there are definitely legitimate reasons for considering federal policy in terms of practical border control.
There are several hundred thousand - perhaps as many as 3/4 of a million - per year walking north. But this absolutely is irrelevant unless the true nature of what is going on is understood and properly dealt with. Then, the need for something to hold this human tidal wave back may not be so urgent.
This is an exodus. This is huge. That is whole communities and regional populations being displaced.
Shouldn't someone take responsibility for asking what causes this instead of just pandering to some knee jerk stereotyping of the argument in its lowest common denominators?
The President of the United States, the Federal Government and Congress have the ability to look at this from a much larger perspective and they should. They have the tools to actually act to change the paradigm.
Look at a map of the entire hemisphere. If you were in international finance and were looking to invest billions, you might well see that displacing local indigenous subsistence farmers in favor of large scale agribusiness that is profitable on a billion dollar scale, and then seeing that bunch of people migrate north like so many big eyed birds to become a factor in creating a low wage economy could be a huge win-win with profits on both ends.
If you were in such a position you might also realize that you could contribute some money to border state politicians and citizen groups who get worked up into a frenzy over illegal immigrants because it would be in your interest to muddy the waters so that emotionally worked up voters who are at each others' throats over this would be to busy to figure out what you are doing.
If you were smart enough to figure out where to invest billions of dollars, you would easily be smart enough to engage in a little divide and conquer politics to cover your tracks. This is a time worn and elementary tactic.
What keeps people focused on the lesser aspects also keeps the politicians focused. The real problem is that folks in Congress might get a notion in their head to actually look at the international arrangements that go past the US border and therefore out of the media environment and away from politics and look at doing something to exert some regulation through perhaps an international mediating agency like the WTO or the Organization of American States. But, not to worry. Campaign contributions and time spent partying with these folks slows down the impulse to mix in this business. No political profit in it. Voters don't have the least idea about any of this and don't care to. The media won't go there because the advertisers have them by the balls.
That leaves the internet. But not to worry. Since the media and the US education system have pretty much made what is going on south of the border a taboo subject mostly confined to beret-wearing misanthropes who can quote Neruda, the information base that gets into discussions on the internet is pretty well sanitized of real content.
Besides which, we are all, as members of the American public, mesmerized by celebrity and we unconsciously model ourselves on the values of celebrity - which includes ignoring the deeper truths and pretending to just be dumb jocks trying to get along and be friendly with everyone in the process.
So, we should all just go buy another Burger King burger, or some Starbucks coffee and go back to watching movies about people with guts caught up in circumstances that reinforce our cynicism.
America is a shopping mall. No one asks where the consumer items really come from and everyone is just walking around in a constant TV commercial that never ends.
Why question who is running this?
Our credit cards are good and there is lots of cool stuff made by people in El Salvador and Haiti and food served by immigrants. They see all this and lust after credit cards and cool stuff, so the cycle will be repeated.
On second thought, maybe we shouldn't question all this. It gets too close to home.