America offers all of us who live here, and just about everybody who wishes they did, a remarkable, three-dimensional dream. If you’re good at what you do, you can go as far as you want to — it isn’t easy, but America’s commercial culture doesn’t throw up many arbitrary barriers to progress. We celebrate success like noplace else.

Beyond success in America, there is the potential for The Fall. When you’ve achieved success, and especially if it’s public success, America is equally devoted to tracking mistakes and celebrating self-inflicted downfalls. No doubt, other cultures also worship success and celebrity, but nowhere has the marriage of media and marketing so completely institutionalized this phenomenon. (I hasten to add, this is my perception from inside America — we also tend to think we’re the most extremely evolved in the practice of everything human nature is prone to.)

But don’t worry, Tiger, or you, Toyoda-san, or even you, Barack. The third dimension of the American plot line is the comeback. We love that more than anything. Ask Martha.