You may be preaching to the converted, Josepp. I've met a lot of folkies, from several countries, and none of them, none, could be described as stupid.
Don't know about the accuracy of your quoted American statistics, and I'm not entirely trustful of statistics in general, and it seems from the results you document that they were gathered for book publishers, who certainly have an axe(ax?)to grind. There is no mention of libraries, nor from which groups the answers to the statistical questions came, nor the percentage of 'unread' books that were 'vanity publishing.'

Not that I disagree with the thrust of your post, in 'western' countries, (not specifically America, I don't live there) the trend of education seems to me to be active in avoiding history, or selectively avoiding some history. Avoiding patriotism, too, in some cases.

By the by, in the aftermath of WWII, there were reportedly people in the uniform of American Army officers touring Germany and removing research documentation and other industrial paperwork, which was never returned. I read that in an English history book. So are those Eastern industrial thieves you mention just following the American dream?

This is a philosophical musing, not a personal attack.   Chris.