America has been shaped by our wars. First we became equalitarian by fighting the stratified Brits and driving out the blue bloods, then we became urban industrialists when we fought the Southern plantation pseudo aristocratic dandies. In the past century we developed a competent government and managerial skills when we fought the highly stratified, organized and anal Germans and later the Japanese. Finally we became lovers of the free market and triumphant lovers of commerce in our battles with the central planning of socialism and communism.
I suspect we are now in the process of creating a new religio/secular way of thinking and acting that is the outcome of confronting tribal religiosity.