As I mentioned elsewhere, I think the media and entertainment have a hand in this and the establishment does not care --they want cheap labor. So on the one hand it's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, on the other we big tech and others want American kids to be dedicated to study like Chinese or Indian kids.
Movies and Media pretty much indoctrinate kids to be carefree and do what you want without consequences. (If media had no influence on people, people would not call for diversity in role models, etc)
I agree, but I think the establishment does care quite a lot. That's what I was getting at when describing my personal view of the "establishment" as a kind of conscious entity, not exactly what I would call human, but conscious all the same. Like a corporation where harmful decisions end up being no particular individual's "fault" because every individual contributed but a sliver of the final thoughtform, individuals doing their best but who exist in a space where the scope of possibility is already narrowed for them in a way they might not even notice.
That's also why the US media industry and cultural exports are so important here. My personal view of a country is descriptive rather than prescriptive, that borders are implicit based on the speed that ideas can travel, and the US media-exported culture was the dominant one when global instant communication became possible. Makes me think about the esoteric outcomes of the copyright wars too. The big bad RIAA/MPAA get to be the boogeyman and absorb all of my nerd-hate-energy, but the outcome ensures that only current-generation media with establishment-approved themes makes it to our eyes and our ears.
There are so many intersecting social issues too, like America's experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and anti-prostitution laws that to this day are endangering women, enabling trafficking, and being used as justification for ever-increasing surveillance. You can guess which types of "open minded" businesses back in the day tended to host jazz music and be more welcoming to blacks. Most people in San Francisco, for example, know of the Fillmore District but probably not of Terrific Street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrific_Street#Demise
Or the whole "Red Scare" McCarthyism thing, Hollywood codes, and anti-labor-union activities in the 20th century: https://isreview.org/issue/1/communist-party-and-black-liber...
I don't think this can be truly addressed without somehow dethroning and replacing the ruling egregore of America, but it is us and we are it.