re: Anyone else feel like society is constantly trying to manipulate you?

Nothing new under the sun. I think the best way to avoid or ameliorate it is small units of accountability (from family to neighborhood to community, with all its institutions, from libraries, schools, symphonies, and city councils to churches sports teams and soup kitchens) with a side of good old-fashioned shame. Without that organic governance is either state of nature capitalism or state of nature authoritarianism. Or a fascist combination of the two.