This is a wonderful thread! The designing out crime department in Australia was set up I believe by one of our professors from Eindhoven, Kees Dorst, they are also trying to make an impact here in the Netherlands and I don’t know much about it but I heard that one project in cooperation with the government already has had some measurable effect. Street and bar fighting is common occurrence here in the south of Holland as well. I’ve seen someone get a literally shattering blow with a wine bottle, they need to make those out of a replacement material as well!
By the way, the reverse gun we over here call a Belgian gun 
we like to poke fun of our southern neighbors.
I also feel that sustainability is only a very small piece of the puzzle, dealing only with the material plane, and not the emotional, mental and spiritual planes of life. So I feel a little less guilty that I have never read Papanek’s work.
For the initiator of this blog, it’s wonderful that you grew up there and now are linking it to design practice. It’s been sort of a similar story for me although I’ve never minded consumerism and distracted/excited-mindedness. I think excitement is a precursor to enthusiasm and it’s mostly positive. It’s just that a lot of people are still in the ‘excited’ phase of their life and as a result consume a lot - it has to do with a global dissolution of guilt about the collective misery we’ve put on this planet. The time is now to let that go and truly start becoming creative and celebrate life! The shift in mindset you are describing is common, even universal you might say, as you probably have become aware of.
For me the ‘solution’ lies in overcoming all dualities, within you and outside of you. Resolving all inner conflict will also resolve all outer conflict, as you come to accept all these ‘problems’ and just see them as manifestations of the one great life and opportunities for development/evolution.
I read something great today, and now could call myself a ‘spiritual functionalist’:
“All of us from time to time experience boredom, insecurity, loneliness or stress - states of mind which need something outside ourselves to provide a balance. Where our environment can offer intriguing interest and activity, timeless durability and a sense of roots, connection with the natural world and its renewing rhythms, sociable and relaxing places, and harmony, tranquility and quiet soothing spaciousness, it can provide soul support - the first step to recovery. Where these soul needs aren’t met, dependence is common.[…] When, to attunement to the needs of the soul, is added an understanding of the universal characteristics of our artistic vocabulary and a sense of beauty, the results are both artistic and appropriate. Spiritual functionalism we could call it.” - Christopher Day, Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art
I would state that all humanity’s ‘problems’ have one root cause - a mental separation from our environment by becoming absorbed in a story revolving around a posed individuality. This is the cause of inner conflict for all people, ranging from the inner city drug lord to the proud successful professor. Once they fully accept their place in the world, the need to control things will lessen or even fall away completely in some rare cases, and with that conflicts are resolved and, you might say, their souls will be healed. When the soul is fully healed individual death is not a problem - since this idea of death is ultimately the source of all trouble in this world. People forget that they are not dead and spend all their time thinking about things that have to do with it at the core of it, it’s a peculiar and rather absurd paradox
I think design can have tremendous impact on this evolutionary process, with consumerism being just a small early step.