What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for {a society{ in which no other course of action seems viable.

People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.