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Wendell Berry, in his 1977 book The Unsettling of America described how he viewed American society. He found that American society was the result of a mix of different social forces which have created a society where average Americans are detached from their home, work, and geography so they turn to technology to create a better future. Berry claimed that mankind has made himself the arbiter of all things, and therefore is able to shape the future to his liking. This idea is at the very heart of American culture, from the earliest days Americans have always felt the need to create something new out of what they saw as untamed wilderness. Because the United States of America started from nothing, everything had to be created. This gave birth to two ideals which have become the basis of American society: Americans can built the future and the future will be better than the present.

But these ideals come with an unexpected paradox, because Americans can make a future which is better than the present, no one is satisfied with the way things are, they always want something better, they always long for that next better thing. The future becomes the goal and the present becomes just something Americans have to get through so they reach the future. This creates a certain amount of impermanence in American society. Because the future will be better, whatever needs to be done, however destructive, can be justified in order to create the future. In this way Americans are destroying the future in order to create the future, thereby creating a never ending journey toward a future that is impossible to achieve. American culture risks being in a constant state of transition, never achieving the goal of permanence, but always moving toward a future that is just out of reach.

The result of this paradoxical society is what George Will described in his article Comfort as "social hypochondria:" a society which is completely dissatisfied with the state of their being, even though it is better than anything that has come before. And he is right, Americans are constantly complaining about the inadequacies and injustices of a society that is wealthier and freer than ever before in human history. But because Americans are fixated on the future and how much better it will be, they must find "wrongs" in the present to "fix," no matter how small or insignificant. And Americans are helped along in their hypochondria by the intellectuals, lawyers, politicians, and media who all profit from the wrongs in society that must be "fixed." American society is change, but if Americans do not decide what they want to change into, the future will never be attained. A vague concept of a brighter future cannot be all that America stands for, if Americans are ever to be rooted in their culture they need a focused goal, something concrete which can be attained.