Gotta remember this is a .world community, Lark; we both know there's a staggering percentage of ghouls here more than happy to try and discourse with bloodied hands, bloodied jowls, and the remains of their last kill still visibly caught between their teeth.
My pet theory is that extreme atomization drains the empathic potential of the garden variety yankee to barely within their attempt at a nuclear family. Extendeds if you're lucky. tl;dr they don't have a reason to care.
I like to think that I have a decent grasp of the world, particularly as a Marxist. But sometimes I really struggle to get into the settler cultural mindset. I don't want to read Settlers at this point in time because I'm already depressed and angry enough. I just can't believe how quickly all of this became normal.