As to the original question, I think it has to do with several vectors. One is that the more message driven instead of fact- and experience-0 driven out cultures become, the more out of touch with reality we become, especially when you add in a growing literacy deficit which undermines the map of messages to reality even further.

A second is that because we have developed more complex, far-flung tribes and hives than any one persona can keep track of, our connectivity has multiplied numerically and shrunken in terms of responsibility.

A third is the extremes of specialization required by our sophisticated and widely distributed social models make it easy to fall into a mind set of counting on other-responsibility to solve things, making individuals who become apathetic, externally-driven, and out of integrity with their own worlds. This leads to an effort to repair the psychic holes by having lots and lots of stuff, instead of fully experiencing the stuff we have.

A