Human history shows that societies have major shared illusions. I am unable to think of one society that avoided them. The Japanese themselves, as they marched in sneakers through the jungle towards Singapore also had a whole bunch of shared illusions.

The Brit had his foolish remark about the ‘little men’ — for their part those Japanese believed themselves invincible modern era sumurai, under a Emperor who was a deity fulfilling their national destiny.

The Brits had an Empire whose energy of creation they still imagined they had, but it was long gone. The Japanese were building an Empire that they imagined they would have the energy to hold, and so wild was their overconfidence that they attacked Pearl Harbor, wakening the world giant.

The US has never sought to be the world giant. It is what we are, though, like the huge mighty child born into a large family of smaller siblings.

Our biggest mistake is not a delusion as to our strength, it is a delusion that somehow we can be smaller than we are, and magically fit into the clothes worn by the rest of our far smaller brothers. That’s silly.