The dying liberal order

It's amazing that I don't even think that this is  abnormal any more. The amount of factually false statements that I see from so called "educated" friends on social media is frankly shocking. And they always cite a "news" story. I have well educated friends that have posted (in all seriousness) about the "imminent end of the world" (actual phrasing). We don't have an independent press or government anymore. Which makes it hard to have a "diverse liberal democracy".

Because if you can't trust the state or the news or educational institutions to play it fair, then you fall back on the old ways: clan and tribe.  "Blood of my blood". So much "diversity", so little honesty.

And those whose families have been obliterated by generations of social "innovation", welfare and taught helplessness are like abandoned children wandering in a war zone.

See to your neighborhood, your church (seriously, you should have one) and your kin because the broader institutions we have used to transcend them are rapidly bleeding out what's left of the trust they spent so many years accumulating.

And that's what I think about that.

Is the flight to identity politics is driven by family collapse?

I think you'll find this interesting.  Not particularly partisan but very relevant.  The Church tries fitfully to be a family substitute for the increasingly atomized lower half of our society.  It's a poor substitute for kin. When I talk to homeless about their problems I always ask 'where are your kin?' because in the dark, evil past, that's where many of these people found help and shelter (and discipline).  Today we have 'experts' who focus on bits of people but take no ownership.

It's not a solution. It's just immense expense joined to immense misery. But the commercialization and professionalization of 'social services' that used to be performed by families is So. Damned. Profitable.

The technocracy is eating us alive and nobody knows how to stop it. You see it at its worst in our most 'hip' precincts. (To be clear: the piece isn't partisan. But I am).