What if the iconic American Horatio Alger bootstrap tale was not actually one defined by grit, tenacity and pluck, but was actually one that depicts a person slowly and steadily acceding to the cultural pressure to worship wealth, social status and power? What if the cherished American story of a poor child or immigrant who rises up from poverty into riches and elite status were not a story of triumph, but one in which the empathetic capacity of the protagonist steadily reduces - as the system within which they are trying to succeed at all costs requires them to become cooler, more insular, less compassionate toward others and further estranged from the nonhuman world - a realm which must be converted from living things into dead matter products, per the rules of the system?
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