You repeatedly come back to “soft hedonism” in the essay above. You might enjoy the content at meaningness.com which explains where hedonism comes from, what the alternatives are, provides context in political history (there are hundreds of essays there, and you have to scroll about half-way down to get to the political history) The essays on counter-culture, micro-culture/scene-culture and fragmentation are particularly revealing, especially when framed against the first half of 20th century.