I read the article and agree with a few points. It is important to recognize the decline of community and family dynamics in the west and how that impacts people. Some conclusions, however, I don't agree with.
1. The author posits the idea that we will become boring or unlikeable, even if we were not this way before. I personally don't see that take place in my surroundings. People's personalities don't tend to change too much, and barring some radical illness such as dementia (which the author mentions), I find it hard to believe that someone generally found as interesting would become boring after a certain amount of time.
2. The author points out the dichotomy between people wanting independence from community for most of their lives, while also wanting care when they are in need, but from my experience, people who desire independence strongly also desire it in times of weakness. I know many people in my extended family who have been independent and they continue to ask for nothing and want nothing even as their bodies fail.
I'm also a little confused as to the notion of people desiring independence from community. While I know many people that desired independence from local community microcosms, such as church, small rural towns, or disagreeable family, many of those people still want community. I really am not seeing the issue that this author refers to in the article of people essentially wanting to be independent and optional from all communities in order to maintain wealth. In my experience the main issue people are having is that we don't have ready made replacements to traditional communities and online communities are not fulfilling the social requirements of being a human.
> I'm also a little confused as to the notion of people desiring independence from community. While I know many people that desired independence from local community microcosms, such as church, small rural towns, or disagreeable family, many of those people still want community.
Right I think the author correctly identifies some of the causes and contours of the decline of certain traditional community modes, but she has a massive blindspot for new models of community that have IMO risen in the last decades. For people in my milleu "found family" or other forms of less-local but equally-supportive community have become very popular.
She says:
> But there is a trade off. At a societal level, we can be rich, or we can be communitarian. I don’t think we can be both – at least, not for long.
But this seems too clean to me. I see the dynamic she's pointing out, but her account is only one strand in a larger cultural pattern.
> But there is a trade off. At a societal level, we can be rich, or we can be communitarian. I don’t think we can be both – at least, not for long.
This in particularly strikes me as something I’d expect from a certain Jordan Balthazar Peterson: he often frames things like wealth inequality or patriarchy as immovable hierarchies; pitting left and right, rich and poor, gay and straight, as dichotomies that cannot coexist for long without one (guess which one) eventually becoming the dominant.
It’s a very defeatist attitude, and suggests “but what can be done?” and rarely offers solutions beyond sticking with the status quo. I think it’s absolutely possible to be rich and communitarian.
I actually disagree with large swaths of the article, but on these points:
> 1. The author posits the idea that we will become boring or unlikeable, even if we were not this way before. I personally don't see that take place in my surroundings. People's personalities don't tend to change too much, and barring some radical illness such as dementia (which the author mentions), I find it hard to believe that someone generally found as interesting would become boring after a certain amount of time.
When you work 40+ hours a week and are raising kids, there's a limit to how boring and unlikable you can be just because you are inflicting yourself on others less often.
> 2. The author points out the dichotomy between people wanting independence from community for most of their lives, while also wanting care when they are in need, but from my experience, people who desire independence strongly also desire it in times of weakness. I know many people in my extended family who have been independent and they continue to ask for nothing and want nothing even as their bodies fail.
I think if you change "wanting care" to "needing care" then the dichotomy stands. I'm seeing it right now with my extended family.
> I'm also a little confused as to the notion of people desiring independence from community. While I know many people that desired independence from local community microcosms, such as church, small rural towns, or disagreeable family, many of those people still want community. I really am not seeing the issue that this author refers to in the article of people essentially wanting to be independent and optional from all communities in order to maintain wealth. In my experience the main issue people are having is that we don't have ready made replacements to traditional communities and online communities are not fulfilling the social requirements of being a human.
I agree that I don't see people "wanting to be independent ... in order to maintain wealth" but the concept that those who are more independent can build wealth faster seems believable. I do see people wanting to be independent because of the downsides of community (e.g. the proverbial "gossipy neighbors" who will make your communal life miserable if you do not placate them).
I also think that non-family community has been greatly demolished because people have found substitutes for many of the upsides of community; not just with wealth affording living alone, but with entertainment replacing various community activities; bowling leagues, fraternal organizations, even sitting at a bar drinking beer with friends have been in steady decline since the invention of the Television.
People aren't avoiding the pro-social behaviors pined about in the article to sit in the darkness, lonely twiddling their thumbs. They are playing video games, watching TV/videos, and doom scrolling.
> I agree that I don't see people "wanting to be independent ... in order to maintain wealth"
One way in which I see this is that people move away from parents/relatives or outsource their care so that they can focus on their careers in middle age.
> One way in which I see this is that people move away from parents/relatives or outsource their care so that they can focus on their careers in middle age.
(Assuming they are paying for outsourcing their care), TFA would include that on the communal side of things, given explicit examples of immigrants sending money back home and black Rhodesian workers financially supporting their extended families.
Traditional family connections and community is not the result of poverty.
The correlation the author bases this on is tenuous at best. The correlation she presents is that with time incomes rose and communities fractured and family structure shrunk.
The counterpoint is that in the past the people with the greatest amount of wealth, were very keen on maintaining family and community relationships. Modern royalty still invites all the royals in the entire world when they have a function.
The whole article views the past and "traditional" structures through very rose tinted glasses.
Regarding the effects of wealth, it's also worth pointing out that many people with significant wealth don't raise their own kids.
Every person I've ever met with net worth of many many millions (probably only 1/2 a dozen) didn't raise their own children. They had a full time staff of caregivers (nannies) who were the adults present with the children the overwhelming majority of the time.
I have thought about this and realised it is not really a counterpoint.
At the very top, there is the illusion of community and camaraderie. Thing is, it is impossible to say whether your connections will actually turn up and help you. When you are not wealthy, you are forced to depend on other people, so you know early on who actually puts their money where their mouth is.
If you are a wealthy person, chances are you'll never be in this position. You can pay your way out of any situation. Going from one gala to another does not really amount to community IMHO.
Note that the definition of "wealthy" here is quite loose. Even the average HN SWE would comfortably qualify as wealthy. We may have our friend circles but it is not easy to say if we can count on someone to be there by our bedside if we end up with a terminal illness that leaves us bedridden.
For a long time, family was the bedrock that could be relied on no matter what. Now, nobody knows.
I'm inclined to think we're less alone than ever, with the Internet. We're certainly sharing more with each other than ever, for better or worst.
Certainly, how we share (eg. online) has changed, but that's something we'll have to get used to, whether we like it or not. Or, feel free to reach out to people the old ways.
Edit: I worded this comment very poorly. What I'm really trying to say is that we seem to be moving toward a more virtual engagement with each other. Hopefully, this leads to something more positive than a "we all live in life support pods and live and interact in corporate-operated virtual worlds" ala The Matrix.
Then again, maybe that leaves a less crowded real world for those of us who choose not to participate?
> all of us, eventually, will become the old, sick, boring option.
And? As the french say: the young congregate in groups, older people in couples, and the elderly are solitary.
> ... high trust communities in which people felt safe leaving their doors unlocked and people really did look out for one another.
False dichotomy: you can have this and have small independent households (and have a high GNP). It just takes a culture (as opposed to Ms Perry's?) where people are, generally, considerate.
(If Ms Perry fears being lonely, I would suggest that avoiding making unsolicited comments about other peoples' life choices often makes one better company.)
Not by choice on the last point, nor is it good for them given the studies / anecdotal evidence of Japanese people with life-long friends being the happiest.
I have aging parents and friends with aging parents, and they become isolated, lonely, and desperate, and this isn't by choice.
Fitness and photography both sound like it'd be easy to meet up with like-minded folks. (my village has several fitness circles of varying sorts, and I think I've seen photography classes being offered locally; they're definitely on offer 15 minutes away)
Coding, engineering, and mechanics sound more difficult: how distant are their nearest makerspaces?
>False dichotomy: you can have this and have small independent households (and have a high GNP). It just takes a culture (as opposed to Ms Perry's?) where people are, generally, considerate.
This is a prescriptive statement masquerading as a descriptive one. Saying a considerate society is high trust does not will into reality either considerateness or a high-trust social fabric, neither of which you've demonstrated to be mutually dependent.
Existence proof: my continental european society is high trust; my best guess as to why this is the case is considerateness. (but "education" here refers not only to strengthening technical and academic skills, "savoir-faire", but also to strengthening soft skills, "savoir-vivre"; ymmv) If you have more plausible mechanisms, I'm all ears.
PS. I'm not attempting to will this into existence in the UK context; just pointing out that it does exist outside the UK context.
The "considerate culture" you are advocating for is only possible when the material conditions for poverty are absent. You need a really strong social safety net.
Poverty is more strongly correlated with criminality than any other factor. If you want a world where everyone can feel safe leaving their door unlocked then you need a world where no one is left behind.
The problem with liberalism is that it is an individualistic ideology and the further we have gone down that road (now, neo-liberalism) with austerity and cost-cutting measures, the social safety net is bad and only getting worse.
I don’t think this is more about liberalism and individualism as much as it is a consequence of global capitalism. “Old communities” that we reminisce about so much, although strong when it comes to social safety nets, were very rigid. Most people did not venture out beyond their own communities, and even if they did, it was temporary. There was also relative homogeneity in economic status and socially the communities were relatively conservative. New ideas were less acceptable.
What you see right now is people moving away to pursue better economic opportunities, which naturally causes intermixing of people from different facets of life in a neighborhood, which then can lead to the “loneliness” depending on how many things people have in common.
If you go to areas with fewer or less diverse economic opportunities, those communities we want still exist.
Even if that may be the case - I do believe that the author has written something worth reading. Even if you disagree with the conclusions in the article, having exposure to her perspective is ultimately a positive in that it at least gets us thinking.
Based on her other associations, I’m gonna wager the “trans women aren’t women” kind of feminist, the “feminism is for white women” kind of feminist, the “pull the ladder up after me” kind of feminist.
Make no mistake that early feminists shouldn’t all be painted with a broad brush, many of them did amazing things to further women’s rights, but some really sucked and someone those were the face of the movement.
Woof she’s a lot! Also that led me down reading about ARC and it’s wild to think that one of their organizing principles is the pursuit of truth while having Peterson as an organizer.
Feminism is a wide umbrella of ideologies, many that contradict with each other. A TERF may call a sex-positive liberal feminist anti-feminist and vice versa.
This is nonsense. If enough elderly people want a community, they will form one. Especially if they have means, as the article postulates people do. The reality is a lot of elderly people don't want to meet new people. They want their family to visit and that's it.
If the family doesn't want to visit you, it's probably for reasons. So make sure to have and maintain good relationships with the people you care about. Whether you are currently young or old or somewhere in the middle.
1. The author posits the idea that we will become boring or unlikeable, even if we were not this way before. I personally don't see that take place in my surroundings. People's personalities don't tend to change too much, and barring some radical illness such as dementia (which the author mentions), I find it hard to believe that someone generally found as interesting would become boring after a certain amount of time.
2. The author points out the dichotomy between people wanting independence from community for most of their lives, while also wanting care when they are in need, but from my experience, people who desire independence strongly also desire it in times of weakness. I know many people in my extended family who have been independent and they continue to ask for nothing and want nothing even as their bodies fail.
I'm also a little confused as to the notion of people desiring independence from community. While I know many people that desired independence from local community microcosms, such as church, small rural towns, or disagreeable family, many of those people still want community. I really am not seeing the issue that this author refers to in the article of people essentially wanting to be independent and optional from all communities in order to maintain wealth. In my experience the main issue people are having is that we don't have ready made replacements to traditional communities and online communities are not fulfilling the social requirements of being a human.