I say Americans, because the quote mentioned Americans, and I would like to remain specific to the quote, but the implications need not be limited to them, if the conversation were to be generalized. Americans are not unique, I don’t think, in their tendency to hide from reality, or to hide reality from their eyes. It is a problem that belongs to modernity. And, really, not only to modernity, but even to humankind, wherever and whenever humankind detaches itself from God, or forgets its place in the supernatural order. Remember that the first thing Adam and Eve did, after they’d eaten of the apple, was to clothe themselves in fig leaves, as if reality in all its nakedness could be an offense to their eyes.