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In a society with no collective identity this is inevitable. There isn't a sense of the country being one big family with people fighting for the common good, instead countries are viewed as a legal platform and a market administrated by a government. In many ways it isn't too different from Iraq, a plot of land which arbitrarily became a country. Within this arbitrary zone the obvious winning strategy is to form a group and promote your group's special interest. That may be feminism, it may be more money to the military industrial complex, lower taxes for wall street, more money for Israel, extra spending on infrastructure in the place you live etc depending on what group you belong to. The society is a nothing more than a shopping mall and people want to benefit themselves.
The US is largely government by a legal system and the legal system is has as one of its primary duties to defend victims. For lawyers and judges, having grievances is hold the aces. In previous societies claiming noble birth and belonging to the main ethnic/religious group would have provided one with benefits. In a society that has equality before the law combined with a society largely run by lawyers whose job it is to compensate victims people are going to perpetually try to gain maximal victim status.
One thing that was interesting to me is that most of my classmates in law school seemed primarily motivated by who was weaker. That is, justice was delivering benefit to the weaker party at the expense of the stronger party.
To me, Justice was about punishing the wrong doer regardless of whether they were stronger or weaker.
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