A lot of it might be coming from deteriorating social bonds. A propensity to see your neighbor as a number, a statistic, rather than a fully fleshed human being with the same human needs and weaknesses as you.
Sure, with a little bit of High School Civics. If it's not made explicitly clear what membership in a functioning society gets you, and you're not shown what other people experience, and you don't receive obvious assistance by being a member of that society, you get %waves hand around at everything in general%
