I think major cultural elements of modern human life are nothing but diseases that have been forgotten because they are collective and originated long ago. So the current human crop has no idea about them. It has become their environment. These diseases are excessive love of food and taste, excessive love of beauty/idleness and excessive love of sensuality. And all this is considered part of "good life".
Just like an innocent boy who puffs his first smoke or takes his first drink thinking that what he is doing is bad and not required but he will be able to stop it when it really goes out of hand; but then he slowly watches these bad habits grow over him. Just like this, there would have been a point in human history when, we transitioned from "need" to "enjoyment" mode of these things. This could have been result of invention of agriculture, settling into homes, excess world population that was available to do various tasks to support others, concentration of wealth and power.