Work on the underlying cause of the disease, not the symptoms

We are living in a culture that has reverted to a state of social dis-ease very like that of late 19th century Dickensian laissez-faire (free-market) capitalism, which was driven by the industrial revolution, and the consequent loss of jobs. In our case it is the IT/communication revolution that has killed so many jobs and has reduced the communal political power of ordinary workers to negotiate for fairer wages for the jobs that do exist. The real clue to what is wrong with our society is not symptoms like binge drug-taking, it is our high levels of suicide, child poverty and child abuse. In short, we are talking about a social pathology of self-and-other abuse. For example, it occurs in any population that has lived for too long in a war-zone: the prevailing psychology of most individuals becomes "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die", a situation where most individuals can no longer imagine a positive life-narrative, that is, they cannot hope for any improvement in their own, their children's, or their nation's future. In such an insane culture more and more individuals become emotional/psychological refugees: shifting to anywhere but where they are in the here-and-now, whether in the physical or mental sense, and by any means whatsoever (including suicide), becomes the only kind of future worth thinking about.