I think a point is missed here.

http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-meh-society.html

"Stanzel sees Americans as a people who look at their problems, shrug, and move on"

If by 'on', he means moving forward somehow, he's got it quite wrong.

Not counting the 1%, here are three kinds of Americans -

1) Those who 'look at their problems, shrug' - and that's it. They don't actually move on, they look away to something to distract, and then eventually they look back. The cycle then repeats itself over and over.

2) Those who never look at their problems, period. The problems simply multiply and expand, till disaster hits be financial, emotional, psychological, or tragically, life-ending.

3) Those that actually think about their problems (similar to 1) ) but are in-effect powerless to do anything about it. They do make an attempt to try and solve their problems, or at least find work-arounds, but are really limited in what they can do, how to move forward.