There's something going on in our society. That something is nothing less than the complete fragmentation of the
social fabric, and the complete explosion of the idea of norms, of decency itself. This, I presume, is why the
Surgeon General has just recently put out a new report on what he calls the epidemic of loneliness and isolation. [[link removed]]

This should not come as a surprise. The government isolated everyone in their homes for two years and then put
out a report on the surging epidemic of loneliness, expecting us all to be surprised.

But that’s not the most important issue when it comes to loneliness and social fragmentation.

Loneliness is not a public health issue. It has public health ramifications, but it's a spiritual issue. The Surgeon
General looks everywhere in his report, including under the bed, for the sources of America’s loneliness epidemic.
But, as always, the government misses the point.

Vox attempted to sum up the Surgeon General’s report. They report that social isolation’s effects on mortality are
equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Half of Americans say they experience loneliness, according to several
recent surveys. Less than 40% said, in a 2022 study, they felt very connected to others. In the 1970s, almost half of
Americans (45%) said they could generally trust other people. Today, less than a third say the same. The amount of time
Americans say they spend alone every day has risen by nearly 30% from 2003 to 2019 and then increased another 20 plus
percent in 2020, which was during the pandemic. The amount of time young people aged 15 to 24 spend with their friends
in person dropped by nearly 70% from 2003 to 2020. Some of the risk factors that make you more prone to loneliness and
isolation include being a racial or ethnic minority, identifying as LGBTQ, experiencing discrimination, having a lower
income, and living alone.

Then the Surgeon General suggests how the United States can begin to address its loneliness epidemic. He recommends
pillars including strengthening the social infrastructure, more communal spaces, more social activities, and better
infrastructure to help people access them.

Is midnight basketball the answer? Public transit? More subways and buses?


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You may notice that there is one thing above all that the government really should do when it comes to
reducing isolation and loneliness: Go away. The government should go away because the government has
created a destructive cycle that has replaced the social fabric in the first place.

How? In several ways.

First, the replacement of social connection with government incentive structures. See, in a normal religious
community, you demonstrate you have skin in the game: You go to church, you go to synagogue, you engage with
your community, you become part of the PTA. By showing that you have skin in the game, you join the community —
so when you fall on hard economic times, your friends help out, your family helps out, your kinship structure helps you out.

This is traditionally how communities were built. But the government stepped in, and said, “This is unfair.
You have to buy into the system in order for you to receive back.” The government, instead, offered another
bargain: You get whatever you want for free. No skin in the game necessary.

All you have to do is give all authority to the government.

Throughout most of history, economic support systems were rooted in duty. The entitlements you got
were just an aspect of the duty you had to the community.

If you disconnected the strings between you and the community, well, the entitlements went away. This meant that people actually were able to
balance entitlements and duties. But when the government came in and said you have no more duties — not to your friends, not to your family,
not to anybody, the government is going to pay for you — it destroyed the economic incentive structure for people to join religious communities.
It fragmented these communities.

Now, you might think this is liberation. The government does.

But here’s the question: Do people feel liberated or do they just feel drastically divided from the
rest of society? The evidence is in, and the evidence is clear.

That’s the first problem.

But there’s a second problem: The government has actively promoted a social culture in which subjective individualism is the only way to think about yourself.

The government steps in and tells you that your local community is not allowed to regulate itself along ideologically
homogeneous lines. You live in a religious community and you don't want that weed shop opening in your neighborhood?
Well, the government may have something to say about that. You live in a religious community and you don't want a strip
club opening down the street? That may be a violation of free speech. This problem, of course, has been exacerbated by
other features of the American landscape, including social media, which has allowed people to abandon local, in-person
structures where you actually feel social connection.

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The place where I feel the most social connection on a personal level is the Sabbath. You go to synagogue, you hang
out with your friends, your kids, your friends' kids. You spend literally the entire day being part of your community.
The same is true on Sundays in many Christian communities. This is why the idea of blue laws and Sabbath laws in which
people joined the community was good. But those were duties. So we dumped them.

We got rid of all of that stuff, and we replaced that with the idea that you can make friends all across the
country. Social media would be the new church, the new synagogue. But those aren’t friends. They make no
demands. They require no skin in the game. Those are just people who are online and lonely and bored just
like you. And they have no actual stake in you because you have no duty to them.

If you actually wish to create a social fabric, you must rely not on goodwill but on a shared sense of
values that manifests in duty-driven behavior.

That is where the social fabric is built. So you have goodwill for a lot of people out there? Great. But that goodwill is paper thin.

And the government has turned your neighbor into a faceless person on the other side of a screen. The way
that you're going to help your neighbor is by paying into the welfare system. And if you don't pay into the
welfare system, the government will arrest you for tax evasion. That’s not social connection. That’s blackmail.
The government destroyed all the intermediate structures of society that sociologist Robert Nisbet talks about —
and then we’re supposed to be shocked by the upsurge in loneliness?

So we have a choice. Do we go back to church, to synagogue, to community? Or do we see those things as the threats
to our individualism? If we choose the latter path, then we can look forward to a new age of atomization and self-destruction.

Ben Shapiro
Editor Emeritus,
The Daily Wire

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