Think of how much the concept of space travel captivated America for decades. It was one of the main frontiers of television, inspired numerous songs, and created generational defining media.
When America went for GDP and convenience over awe inspiring goals we lost the luster that inspired millions. The same way we look at historical buildings over brutalism and modern shit shows. Innovation died because of capitalism gone rogue min maxing fiat currency over actually building anything.
It comes down to a lack of moral foundation for anything. It's hard to describe the single biggest thing you lose when people become unrooted from deeper meaning, but 'awe' is one word, 'morality, 'goodness', 'grace', 'honour', 'love', 'pride', there's lots of them...
When leftist culture attacked the establishment in the past, certain artists might at least have been creating out of a passion and a feeling of deeper connection to something - some greater moral that they felt the establishment was getting in the way of or corrupting. But with nothing at the core except NPC firmware updates - in the same way there's nothing at the core of our national governments, no pride or representation of a shared value - then you just get a nihilism spiral, where your 'anti-'anything is just performative and the greatest 'establishment' you can possibly attack is the concept of morality or awe. That's how you get anti-aesthetic, asymmetrical, crap architecture popping up because someone got the bright idea that their design principle should be to attack the concept of awe itself.