Shut it Down and Get Shut Down: The Gaza Protests Follow a Familiar History

It’s deja vu all over again.

Large, left-wing, American[1] protests fueled by student outrage follow a familiar—and typically self-defeating—pattern. It happened with the anti-Vietnam War protests, Iraq War resistance, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, now Gaza. (I simplify some, but not much.)

U.C. Berkeley (which has been relatively quite this time around).

An outrage brings students and young adults out onto the streets to protest.

Most Americans don’t know, or care, or pay attention, but the protestors at first do get organized, find allies, and gain some public sympathy.

The powers that be do not concede and so the protestors increasingly take actions that disrupt bystanders’ lives—blocking roads, taking over buildings, walking out of classrooms, interrupting normal commerce and government operations, and so on. The message is, We’ll shut it all down until we get what we want.

The authorities escalate their efforts to control the protests. Disorder mounts. Bad actors—activists for other causes, semi-professional and violent agitators (pro and con—e.g., Antifa, Oath Keepers), and plain criminals—join the fray.

Now the wider American public starts to pay attention, getting annoyed and exasperated. Whatever the cause, the chaos must end, law and order must be restored, and the chaos-makers must be punished. Average Americans turn toward the right, the usual upholder of order. The right wins more elections and promotes policies that the protestors were objecting to. Who shut whom down?

No surprise then that in today’s (May 3, 2024) news, we read that on many campuses, most of the arrested protestors  were not affiliates of the college and, more important, that American adults who say that colleges’ responses to the “pro-Palestinian campus protests” have been “not harsh enough” outnumber 2 to 1 those who say they have been “too harsh,” 33% to 16% (with 20% saying “about right”), and that Republicans from Trump down are now campaigning on this crisis—that is, on the protest crisis, not the Gaza crisis.

A Reminder on American “Exceptionalism”: Dying Young

This post is just a brief reminder of what American “exceptionalism” has come to: The U.S. is exceptional in short lives.

This graph[1] shows the historical trajectory in expected lifespans for the U.S. and several large, affluent, western, democratic, “peer” countries. (You can choose other peer countries from Our World in Data; it won’t change the story.) Generally, lifespans have been growing. However: In the 1970s American lifespans were lengthening roughly in pace with those of peer countries. Then in the 1980s the U.S. and Denmark started falling behind. From 2000 on, Denmark rejoined the peer countries while the U.S. fell further and further behind. Even before the American disaster that was Covid, the U.S. was exceptional among western nations in how young its people died.

Why?

Another Podcast Interview: “Human Nature,” Identity, Whatnot…..

A video podcast interview conducted by student Juan Alonso Martinez on his Youtube channel, “Atlas.”

https://youtu.be/BxNOZSM81hQ?si=P9ygOcbZeZOp8OPx

American Friendship in the 2010s: Something Happened

In a recent and updated post, I reviewed the evidence clearly showing that there was and is not a so-called “loneliness epidemic.” (Surprise! Despite my post, the epidemic of epidemic alarms continues.) Many media stories about loneliness (e.g., here, here,  here) also assert that American adults have fewer friends or weaker friendships than they did some time before. While similar to the panic about loneliness, this claim is about relationships, not about emotions. So, what is happening to friendship?

In Still Connected (2011), I assessed the data from 1970 to 2010 and concluded that not much happened to friendship in those years; a 2014 post reaffirmed that conclusion. However, later reports seem to describe a more recent decline in American friendships. And, unlike with loneliness, there may indeed be something happening here, though what it is ain’t exactly clear (apologies to Buffalo Springfield).

Friendship is a messy topic in part because of confusion about what “friends” mean and how to count them. So, this post also becomes one about meaning, measurement, and method. In the end, the 2010s do look a bit different. The reasons why range from the social media (probably not) to economics to housing arrangements (maybe).

Discerning Fact from Fiction in American History

Just out last month is a collection of essays edited by two Princeton historians, Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past. An excellent contribution to public education (despite its too-twee title), the book’s premise is that these myths derange our politics and undermine sound public policy. Although the authors address a few “bipartisan myths,” they focus on myths of the Right.

Geo. Washington, Cherry Tree

For example, Akhil Reed Amar argues that the Constitution was not designed to restrain popular democracy but was instead a remarkably populist document for its time. Daniel Immerwahr debunks the sanctimony that the U.S. has not pursued empire; just ask the Tejanos, Sioux, Hawaiians, Filipinos, etc.. Michael Kazin criticizes the depiction of socialism as a recent infection from overseas. He recounts the long history of popular support for socialist ideas like curbing corporate trusts and he describes the respectability of the Socialist Party a century ago. Elizabeth Hinton challenges the view that harsh police suppression is typically a reaction to criminal violence. She chronicles the long history, especially but not only in the South, of authorities aggressively policing even quiescent communities.

The contributors may have, however, foregone an opportunity to increase public confidence in professional history.[1] They might have done so by conceding the kernels of truths that are found in some conservative stories and also by addressing myths on the Left. There is recent precedent for such balanced fact-checking: Liberal academics pointed out the historical errors in the “1619 Project” and in the blockbuster show, Hamilton. What might have been done with Myth America?

Grounding Political Polarization: Move or Stay Put?

The multiple dimensions of political polarization have become familiar to most informed Americans. One dimension that has become increasingly evident is geography. More Americans are living in communities where the great majority of residents share their politics.

People are not staying in or moving to places according to local party registration rates so much as they are staying or moving based on cultural and lifestyle preferences, those preferences having become more strongly associated with political party. So, if you are into church, hunting, and tackle football, you’re disproportionately likely to be in red, especially rural, places, while if you are into museums, unusual ethnic food, and touch football, you’re more likely to be in blue places.

Now, two recent studies reveal in closer detail what has been happening to foster political and cultural segregation over the last 20 or so years. And that segregation is connected with another major trend of the last generation: the accelerating tendency of Americans to stay in their homes and communities, as shown in this graph.[1]

Interview with Daniel Cox on American Religion Past and Present

Daniel Cox, Director and Founder of the Survey Center on American Life, interviewed me about the status of religion in the U.S. (though he is probably more expert than I!) for his excellent substack series, American Storylines, here. Dan gave me a chance to reflect on religious trends, how we study those trends, and how we might broaden our perspectives.

FYI: Podcast Appearance

I am interviewed on “Unlicensed Philosophy with Chuong Nguyen” largely about Made in America and other topics around “American exceptionalism.”

An Epidemic of the “Epidemic of Loneliness,” Part 2: Naming and Talking Loneliness

In the previous post, Part 1, I criticized claims of a so-called “epidemic of loneliness” in America. Those claims are based on misunderstanding loneliness–for example, confusing it with actual isolation, not appreciating that most loneliness is longing for a romantic partner, and muddling loneliness up with other sad emotions.

Moreover, there is little evidence that Americans have been increasingly feeling lonely. More American teenagers may have since about 2010 felt loneliness as well as other distressing emotions. But the panic that there is a large and general “loneliness epidemic” is not warranted by the data. If so, why is there so much concern about loneliness?

This post examines talk about loneliness, listening for that talk in the present, in ancient civilizations, and back again in recent times. Naming and addressing loneliness seems to be another form of self-absorption that spread from the genteel bourgeois of the 19th century to the wider public.

An Epidemic of the “Epidemic of Loneliness,” Part 1: There Probably is No Epidemic and It May Not Be Loneliness

Experts tell us that we are experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness.” This metaphor is all over the media[1]; the Surgeon General repeatedly warns us of it[2]; Hillary Clinton blames it for MAGA mania; meme entrepreneurs establish loneliness institutes and propose loneliness legislation; and some voices urge a U.K.-style Department of Loneliness.

Why has there been in roughly the last decade (even before the Covid epidemic) so much talk about a loneliness epidemic? The hard evidence for a loneliness surge is thin; Americans have heard such alarms often before; and the entire diagnosis is confounded by false assumptions and historical false memories. But if there is not a rising tide of loneliness, then why the outpouring of concern?

Part 1 of this essay addresses the contemporary claims and evidence about a surge in loneliness in the last few decades or years. Part 2 will present a brief history of concerns about loneliness, its actual naming as an emotion in the last few centuries.