Good article and great line of questioning for our core identity. There is probably more to it than the forces that you listed, but these are a good start. Venerating the rich - as we do in America - necessarily has a flipside, and yes, we quietly despise the poor and the ordinary. Therefore, we despise ourselves, secretly.

We're always trying to impress, so we're rarely authentic and vulnerable.

We create hierarchies in our heads, with the most successful up top and the homeless on the bottom, therefore we see ourselves precariously slipping, and we never see the greatness of our kind hearts as we stop to help a friend or check if an elderly relative is OK.