Ironic that you would imply somebody has not read enough, when you clearly have no concept of disaster collectivism that has repeatedly shown itself in human societies throughout history and is arguably the reason why civilization has even been able to advance to where it is now. Stresses and anxieties cause us to bond over our shared humanity, especially when those stresses and anxieties come from a great external force. (Sidenote: this is the literal foundation of Ozymandias' plot in the graphic novel Watchmen, so if you are disagreeing with the concept of disaster collectivism my guess is you would also insist Moore has "never read a history book.") In TLOU's setting there is an enormous external disaster that threatens humanity as a species. It is absolutely nihilistic and unfounded to say that it would mean we would all tear each other apart the first chance we get.
Perhaps you would do well to step out of only history books, which tend to focus on the most dramatic moments for the sake of brevity, and consider reading studies on human psychology: you could start with
this study by the University of Virginia on human behavior becoming more cooperative in the face of uncertainty when personal control over a situation is low. Or you could simply look at any of the recent natural disasters which have led to people going out of their way to help others survive or rebuild. There are many other studies on this aspect of human nature, if you're curious.
The fact is, when the social contract is broken, especially with moments of extreme personal violence, it makes an impact because it is jarring and most importantly
unexpected. It is a cynical and nihilistic view that says humans are all too willing to be as cruel and violent as possible to fellow humans. There's a reason why armies (and police) dehumanize their enemies, and it's to make it even POSSIBLE to do the atrocities they do. When it is impersonal, yes, we can deal with a lot. But even drone operators have crises of conscience and develop PTSD, despite being as far away from the violence as possible.
So when it is personal, as the brutality in TLOU2 is depicted, over and over and over, the vast majority of humanity bonds together against it. You don't even have to look very far to see this in action; just look at the protests worldwide because people saw up close and personal the killing of a man by police. People do not do well with repeated, up-close violence unless they are sociopaths. The implication that we're all sociopaths simply isn't justified.
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