I saw a phrase that startled me:

"Ordinary people are exhausted and panicked, and exhausted and panicked people cannot afford ideals. They must make ends meet. In our era, both public and private morality are declining at an alarming rate. You cannot expect people with extremely poor quality of life to have character."
——《The Long Goodbye*Raymond Chandler*1953》

When the author finished the book, it was at the tail end of the Gilded Age, when everyone was struggling desperately for survival...