I've just reached this paragraph (will read to the end, though) and, with a physical tremor, have just experienced the sense of foreboding you are writing about. Then, I see what amounts to a question: Is it the sense of foreboding we feel about this that makes it so easy for us to swallow more global narratives of destruction? If it is, then people who are old or ill enough to be nearer death than most would be more likely to embrace global narratives of destruction. Hmmm.