I would submit that Sybaritic Socialists are stuck in the Bargaining stage. They don’t want to deal with anger or sadness, but can’t use denial (which in part is what the Hippy movement was about, using drugs to become functionally dead, as in Grateful Dead, and thus numb to the actual question they were being asked to answer) since they need some purpose for their lives. They want to cut a deal with life. They want to use self delusion as a means of avoiding the sadness and anger that attend actual emotional growth. They want to remain morally and emotionally as “innocents”, as if that were possible absent more or less conscious choice. They want to pretend this world is safe, or would be if we just did what everyone said. They want to pretend hard choices are never needed, and that we can postpone all griefs and pains indefinitely. All you have to do to get this deal is submit, Merge into the herd. Listen and do as you are told, and all will be well. They are EAGER to sell their freedom, if the alternative is any quantity of suffering.
It is a truism that family businesses fail in the third generation. The grandfather is serious and starts the business. The son, being the father’s son, and having watched the business be built, is also serious, but not quite as much. The grandson is flippant, since all he has ever known is success.
The Baby Boomers are grandchildren. They are infantile, and they are actively ruining everything good in this country.
Cultural Sadeists, those who express and intend only evil in their politics, recognize the pain in life but they refuse to accept it. They refuse to feel it. Since they recognize a need for pain, they seek it in others. This is the root of cruelty.
You have to be emotionally strong to live well. You MUST be willing to allow unpleasant emotions to wash through you. You can’t feel sorry for yourself, and you have to keep going. This is the only path to Goodness.