The American self hate / leftist meme ("America is only great because it robs other people") is fascinating. There are very good arguments against it.

I wouldn't assume the opposite and become a boastful patriot either, but maybe the big leaps taken in the past were so good that people got lazy. You didn't need to innovate or only innovate for money (which isn't nearly as effective a motivator as being annihilated by Germans or ICBMs). There is also the argument of low hanging fruits, but I find that it's easy to undervalue the inventions of things you already know very well.

There is no grand narrative anymore. Things are just chugging along. Covid is a new narrative and voilá: mRNA vaccine.