unividualism vs. non-dualism

There seem to be a lot of Westerners who've become interested in teachings that say the self is an illusion...not sure why that would be.

I blame the Matrix movie. 

Following who this "lot of Westerners" might be paying attention to, I remember when these statements came out during physics class way before Tegmark, and since people never question genius, and were taught (force fed test materials that will be forgotten as soon as they leave class) without comprehension of the context, they obviously misinterpreted so much, or misconstrued the whole context.

In his 2014 book, Our Mathematical Universe, physicist Max Tegmark boldly claims that “protons, atoms, molecules, cells and stars” are all redundant “baggage.” Only the mathematical apparatus used to describe the behavior of matter is supposedly real, not matter itself. For Tegmark, the universe is a “set of abstract entities with relations between them,” which “can be described in a baggage-independent way”—i.e., without matter. He attributes existence solely to descriptions, while incongruously denying the very thing that is described in the first place. 
Matter is done away with and only information itself is taken to be ultimately real.
So, it is a matter of what they brainwash the public with, while that public has zero actual internalization or comprehension of complicated math or physics, so the public then takes it down the fairy tale road to the land of Oz.
The sad truth is, you can't expect people to comprehend much beyond the 5 sense system and whatever stimulates and satisfies the basic needs.

When you add that most of them believe anything and everything some authority figure tells them, or whatever the religion says, you have the sheep that do not really think, who now think they don't really exist, life is some dream or illusion, nothing really matters, etc.
These are often the same people that follow every bit of woo woo blindly, waving that harry potter wand around and suffering from magical thinking or fundamentalism.
Tragically, and likely, a huge percentage of the world, and not just Western.