I think the problem is that the contemporary bleak attitude seen in the West (well, North America, I mean) is not born of suffering, but of boredom. We've been going through something of a decay these past few decades. My roomate and I have endlessly played this metaphor out across various forms of media, but it works best with music:

We went from Rock to Punk to Grunge to Emo.

We believed in change, we got angry when it didn't happen. The anger grew bitter and paranoid, but now all we do is whine about it.