{"id":61442,"date":"2022-01-12T19:36:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61442"},"modified":"2022-01-12T19:36:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:36:00","slug":"social-cohesion-is-vital-and-were-losing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61442","title":{"rendered":"Social Cohesion Is Vital, and We&#8217;re Losing It"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"position-relative w-100 pt-0\">\n<section class=\"overflow-hidden article__header-image\">\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"views-article__field-article-img\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"image__field-media-image d-flex justify-content-center article__media--image\">\n<div><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/banner_image_1x_xl\/public\/2022-01\/american-ripped-1.jpg?h=c6980913&amp;itok=_x_doqMc\" alt=\"american-ripped\" width=\"1280\" height=\"462\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"container content\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-7 mx-auto\">\n<div class=\"text-tiny leading-tight tracking-tight pt-3\">\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"views-article__field-main-caption\">\n<p>An American flag in front of a damaged school area in Dayton, Ohio on May 28, 2019. (Photo: Seth Herald\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"container pb-5 pt-4\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-7 mx-auto\">\n<h3 id=\"node-title\" class=\"mb-2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2022\/01\/12\/social-cohesion-vital-and-were-losing-it?fbclid=IwAR3611sp8eavfDfMhdtAXWq-qHhzTWbXXrwsso-4EcrNhaa6vm0eS_Fv9Es\">Social Cohesion Is Vital, and We&#8217;re Losing It<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"views-article__field-subtitle\"><strong>As with climate change, inequality, and our other collective problems, solutions will entail confronting and reining in power\u2014whether the power of wealth, of outsized political representation, or of social media companies.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"views-article__body prose node__body\">\n<p><strong>The United States is<\/strong>\u00a0tumbling toward socio-political crisis. Here are just a few of the distress signals recently visible:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">The insurrection at the US Capitol building (January 6, 2021).<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Rapidly increasing numbers of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/death-threats-members-congress-have-doubled-this-year-capitol-police-say-1592587\">death threats<\/a>\u00a0against politicians\u2014including threats from fellow politicians.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">A majority of followers of one of the two main political parties telling pollsters that they would approve of violence as a means to political power (for the population as a whole,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/01\/01\/1-3-americans-say-violence-against-government-can-be-justified-citing-fears-political-schism-pandemic\/\">one in three<\/a>\u00a0now say that political violence can be justified, up from one in six in 2010).<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">A state governor planning to set up a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nbc-2.com\/news\/politics\/2021\/12\/06\/governor-desantis-wants-to-create-state-militia-using-taxpayer-dollars\/\">militia<\/a>, answerable only to himself.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Continual demonization by members of both major political parties of their opponents as &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/politics\/2019\/10\/10\/how-partisans-view-each-other\/\">unamerican<\/a>.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">US generals\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/paul-eaton-npr-january-6-insurrection-trump-1664661\">warning<\/a>\u00a0that disaffected military personnel may lead another insurrection in 2024.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Threats to &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/news.yale.edu\/2020\/11\/17\/polarization-us-politics-starts-weak-political-parties\">primary<\/a>&#8221; elected leaders (i.e., to challenge them in primary elections with candidates more extreme and doctrinaire), leading to ever-further radicalization and polarization of the political positions of policy makers.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">The proliferation of weapons (there are now\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smallarmssurvey.org\/\">120.5 guns<\/a>\u00a0in the US for every 100 people).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;ve all seen this basic movie plot before\u2014in &#8220;failed states&#8221; in the modern world, and in declining civilizations throughout history\u2014and it seldom ends well.<\/p>\n<p>For a society to succeed, people must cooperate. They must trust government leaders, who in turn must work together, at least partly for the benefit of the society as a whole&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An American flag in front of a damaged school area in Dayton, Ohio on May 28, 2019. (Photo: Seth Herald\/AFP via Getty Images) Social Cohesion Is Vital, and We&#8217;re Losing It As with climate change, inequality, and our other collective problems, solutions will entail confronting and reining in power\u2014whether the power of wealth, of outsized [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[141,7669,32479,1081,2768,827],"class_list":["post-61442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-climate-change","tag-common-dreams","tag-problem-sovling","tag-richard-heinberg","tag-social-cohesion","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61443,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442\/revisions\/61443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}