Cheer up mate! The thing is, people have these attitudes because
the mind is geared to noticing *problems* - like, good news is no news,
right? The media generally are geared up to tell us mainly about
problems, and that's a good thing; but it gives intellectuals a somewhat
one sided picture of things.
Fortunately people's feet and purses don't read newspapers!
Unfortunately the only cure for myopic intellectuals is to patiently
point out to them that though there are problems with everything, what
you've got to focus on is the ratio of problems solved to problems
created or remaining unsolved with a given set of social institutions,
discoveries, etc. If you focus on that, they suddenly become aware that
most of what happens in the world is better than it is worse, and
doesn't get reported much. They soon (grudgingly) get it.
Guru George