Things have been shit forever. Slavery, child prostitution, genocide, famine etc. have been around forever but the trends are actually slowing down. Technology is advancing; people are living longer, we get to connect with people across the world, and memes is pretty good nowadays. If you think things are bad, maybe get off the internet for a couple days.
No that's what I'm getting at. By any measurable standard, this is the best time to ever be alive for basically the entire world. Yet that's not reflected in any media, people don't go about their days happy about shit, everyone seems to be miserable everywhere you go, people feel alienated despite being the most connected in history. When are we going to get over this shit dawg.
The problem is twofold
First we are at a point in human history where it's less acceptable to attack each other, physically or otherwise, even though it seems like something everyone is wired to do to some extent
And second, displaying happiness/contentment is treated as an admission that you have no reason to antagonize anyone else, and that you are an open target for someone else's antagonism, even if that's just "why should he get to be happy"
If you consider yourself wronged in some way and can dwell on that then it gives you some righteous fury to be able to take out your aggression on someone else, in an age where you normally can't do that anymore
You have to build a narrative in order to give yourself permission
It's like old school writing the Pope to get casus belli, now people get that belli on twitter
But the display is real important, you have to walk around everywhere with your head down muttering and shaking your fist
