Well said. I think (not absolutely certain about this) the sense of dread you identify is an expression of uncertainty arising from forces studied by Ulrich Beck, Anthony Gibbens and others under the banner of The Risk Society*.
The retreat from the complexity and consequences of the very modernity that the 20th Century produced, into a a kind of nihilistic thuggery or blank indifference is worrying. Rather than running away from the complications that development has brought us, we should be collectively steering into the skid (as it were); using science and reason to help solve the problems they have partly created, through our mismanagement of their power. That is, using them reflexively to change the way we use them for the better. By the way, I'm not finger-pointing at older generations; if I'd been born in the late 1940's or 1950's instead of the 1960's I doubt I'd have done any better.
As you point out, though, the problem now is that the pool of social capital formed by people who actually want to engage with the problems we face and try to fix them, appears to be dwindling. I draw some hope from the fact that the younger people who work with me seem determined to change the world for the better, even if they are unimpressed by mainstream politics and are not engaged by it.
