IMO, much of the craziness we're seeing is VERY MUCH due to individual lack of purpose or meaning in peoples' lives. The extreme political partisanship, the high level of groupthink, the reaction to the current pandemic, the insane amount of virtue signalling over things ranging from cultural appropriation to masks... when one lacks purpose in their life, the tendency to find something, ANYTHING, to fill the void will be strong.

Example... there seems to be a LOT of people making the pandemic into some kind of crusade, blindly promoting harsh lockdowns, extreme mask mandates, and other government "solutions". As bad as the pandemic seemed at first, it's already done the worst of its damage and we seem to be getting much better in treating cases. But too many people (encouraged by the worst of the news media) have gone to an extreme and elevated their fear of the virus into a virtue. Thus the call to 'flatten the curve' (which actually did make some sense) turns into 'we gotta continue the lockdowns until the virus goes away' (ridiculous from either an economic or epidemiological or liberty standpoint) which then turns into 'no normal life until we get a (lightly tested & rushed) vaccine and then force everyone to take it'!".

The craziness & irrationality will continue until people find their own purpose rather than letting it be assigned to them.