At this point my thoughts go to the affluent mass consuming society of the United States. Another thought is that maybe the country as a whole, not just its bourgeoisie, tried to fight nihilism with materialism, for the willingness to annihilate the world before giving up its political system must be called nihilism. I think it can be safe to say that film noir is an American attempt to engage this phenomenon. The themes of film noir touch many aspects of life, but they all revolves around the destined being. The protagonists are hostages of fate and seem partly unfree and powerless.
Fate runs the shop, and the heroes of film noir are willing to buy.
They act as if they are masters of their own lives, but still let it show that they know they are not. The male hero is disillusioned and alienated from his surroundings. I think that this is something the audience could relate to in the forties and fifties. The new society of gigantic cooperation's created a feeling of powerlessness among the workers. He who had been his own boss earlier in this own small scale business , now had become one of many pay-check collectors.