I don't think that's fair. Star Trek has always had a subculture of "assholes" it's just they were exactly that, a subculture. In Star Wars you had opulent pla

I don't think that's fair. Star Trek has always had a subculture of "assholes" it's just they were exactly that, a subculture. In Star Wars you had opulent planets with cities and a strong economy and you also had desert planets with pirates and shanty towns. And in Firefly you had the inner planets who were rich and well educated but also the outer planets with cowboys and call girls. Star Trek has always followed a similar narrative where there was a subculture. The difference with Star Trek is that subculture was less visible -- in part due to the evolution of the human spirit (as you mentioned) -- but it was still there. With Picard, [WARNING very minor spoiler follows], the story has to spend more time mixing around that subculture because the point of series is that this is Picard's mission rather than Starfleet's.