I believe you are right to sense a change in our zeitgeist (each era has one). In this case I think it is caused by a feeling of impending doom, perhaps mainly

I believe you are right to sense a change in our zeitgeist (each era has one). In this case I think it is caused by a feeling of impending doom, perhaps mainly because the prospect of nuclear war has bubbled up (again) lately. This particular doomsday prospect has the curious property that we block it out from our minds as too horrible to even think possible, and anyway nothing we can do to prevent. In some this creates a general sense of gloom, in others it creates a hedonistic urgency, because "après moi, le déluge", in yet some a feeling of general and roaming anger. My two cents