Social isolation and loneliness in Canada
angusreid.org
angusreid.org
Seems to be working as intended.
With hindsight, we should have stopped after about 10 years of those reforms.
I name the two I did as they, famously, started the neoliberal revolution that the world has been trying the last few decades. That came a few years later to Canada as Trudeau was in power in the early 80s.
But there isn't a whole lot of that anymore - unless Trump goes to war with China and starts WWIII :(
I'm not sure how that is a counterpoint other than attempted wordplay.
Too much union power, and their political aspiration aggravated that rather than caused it. As the economy faltered they continued to seek above inflation pay rises driving inflation higher. Strikes could have one industry supporting another via sympathetic strikes. Until the oil crisis and rest of the seventies it hadn't mattered much, and no one much cared that some union had elected an extremist. The chaos that led to Thatcher and Reagan being necessary came from 73.
None of this related in the slightest to the many community, but not communist, town clubs, amenities, work social clubs, social care and countless other things that died or deformed in the reforms. Which helped push to the little or no community we see today. Thatcher once said something like "there's no such thing as society, just individuals".
Which is why I think the early changes were helpful, especially putting some constraint on unions, but not neutering them completely. The other 30 odd years of going in the same direction have been as damaging as those long fixed seventies problems, so I haven't been especially surprised at the global crises of mental health, loneliness and isolation we've ended up with.
Take care of your older friends and family and neighbours, and maybe even offer to connect with a stranger once in a while. It's good for everyone! :-)
Is the authoritarianism and coercion a necessary part of church? Clearly left to their own devices, people aren't self-organizing into social groups very well. And perhaps the silly beliefs are an important marker or side effect of social coercion, and can't easily be abandoned. Even if they're not causal, they are a great indicator that you are truly allied with the group.
Speaking about religion in genera:
Authoritarianism, no. I don't see how that's related. You can have a cohesive group without being a dick to everyone who doesn't conform to the exact letter of every little thing.
Coercion is required on some level but unless you really don't conform to any of the social norms of the group you should be fine. A religion can always structure itself to have a bare minimum amount of conformity and accept anyone above that. Being able to conform to group social norms or at leas minimize when you can't is part of being human.
I might have used a poor word. I certainly didn't mean for authoritarianism to mean "being a dick to everyone." I suppose I meant hierarchical structure, pressure, and control.
As a corollary, imagine the sort of social cohesion you see in the military. With regard to the values the military cares about, there's a high degree of coercion and authoritarianism. So, counterpoints about how you can be whatever religion, creed, political party etc aren't really valid in my mind. You can Muslim or Christian, but you can't ignore a salute, or a command, etc. The values the military wishes to coerce are nonnegotiable.
There can be no doubt that the military is good at systematically building cohesion in troops. I'm just wondering how well social cohesion can work without any of these aspects. In other words, does strict individualism harm social cohesion.
Plus, it’s 100% possible to have community without church.
Edit: cool, downvotes for disagreement.
Few other activities gather the same people regularly. I can immediately think of narrow social networks (like obscure subreddits), and online games, though.
Otherwise known as the most effective way to build friendships.
2: I never made a value judgement about religious institutions being good or bad. I merely said they were social in nature.
Before that in the Middle Ages, Westerners in the upper classes who had any sort of wealth were much more social living very much like people in the so-called third world live today where they would throw parties to show their wealth and took pride in showing off their children and their accomplishments. When that culture was bulldozed, people forgot that it even existed... and perhaps it never did in the frontier like Canada like it did in old Europe. The immigrants were always busy working to be productive and industrious and always not closely related to the people they lived near.
The 'very recent' social engineering has thrown western societies in a depressive state.
Even in the age of plenty, we miss the family bond in our solitary lives.
The excellent documentary The Century of the Self covers the evolution of marketing, the baby boomers and the psychology behind individualism:
Maybe we should be looking at the existing “cow paths” and figuring out how to make them more welcoming to the idea of being a shared communal space during the winter.
My mom hasn't driven in 40 years (she's 90). She's not a shut-in. Lives in an apartment with 100 other older, independent people. Took the bus until just recently. Goes to lunch with her kids several times each week.
And with the advent of the internet, we want to talk shutins, we want to talk young people online most of their waking moments?
Edit: Thinking about this more, it seems like there could be room in the market for “like Tinder, but for arranging social events” (ie party, soccer, whatever)
“John from 3 streets down would like you to play soccer this Saturday (26 people are going, you’ve met 5). Accept/Decline?”
That's what streaming services like Twitch are, aren't they?
The people from the less developed country are more sociable, in the true sense of the word, because they know that in the future they will need other people. In a developed country, with enough income, a decent market economy and rule of law, strangers can do most of what you want, if you pay them or just obey the law.
In poor countries the social net is: family, extended family, neighbors, various acquaintances.
In rich countries the social net is: your own income (impersonal), the state (impersonal), the healthcare system (also impersonal). Obviously, the things I listed for poor countries also apply, but to a much lesser degree.
Personal experience, YMMV, but it's a common thing I hear from people with the same background as mine.
Another thing is children activity - when I was a child, all children from my area were playing together outside all day (weather and school permitting), which resulted in parents knowing each other via various everyday interactions. Now, when people can afford to pay for extracurricular activities for their children, they just chauffeur them to their various activities and there is no parent community where the children actually live.