Fragmented Societies
I recently read ‘The Social Animal’; an ok book with some ‘aha’ bits.
One idea that stuck with me was about how societies are evolving over time.
Over the past few years, I have kept asking myself that shouldn’t surviving something like Covid have brought us closer together? Instead, we’ve seen more conflict, division, and uncertainty the world over.
Are shared experiences making us stronger, or, as the Joker put it, just stranger?
The book offered a possible answer by way of British philosopher Phillip Blond views. He argues that individualist revolutions haven’t led to freer societies, but rather to more fragmented ones. And what that does is nudge the state to fill the resulting gaps.
As Blond observed, “Look at the society we have become: We are a bipolar nation, a bureaucratic centralized state that presides over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.”
And that can be said of many countries today.
Until a better explanation comes along, this seems to fit, yes?
