You know the saying - you can't change the others, only yourself.
"The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became."
If you think that in life, suffering is a good thing, or that some things are more important that your own happiness, yes they are.
Saying that utility functions are the "what there is to life", is a bit like 42 being the answer to life, the universe and everything in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. What meaning you can draw depends totally on what question you are asking, or what perspective you are looking at it from.
For instance, if you are a squirrel, then an economist might be able to calculate a utility function for your behaviour, however the concept of utility functions themselves have no bearing (as far as we know) on "what there is to life" from the squirrel's perspective.