Last sanctuary of the sane II

It’s happened like this with American culture, post WWII:

There’s an old expression:  He’d leave the salt out of the porridge.

It was meant to accuse someone who insisted, for whatever reason, that experience
be staid rather than exciting; bland, not picante.     

And Americans, whatever may have been their familiarity with the expression per se,
took its sense to heart, pursuing obsessively what seemed and seems to them
its ‘logical conclusion’:

always more heightened experience, always more shocking effect, always more violent
stimulation, not understanding that the organism is constituted to appreciate such things
not as steady diet but as special treats, or, yes -- to return to the metaphor -- as a spice
or seasoning enhances but does not take the place of the main ingredients . . .

Nowadays Americans sit down to a breakfast of salt – having dispensed with the porridge
entirely.