The larger issue that your getting at is the rise of “individualism” over the last 40 years. The first time I heard that I remember thinking what a ridiculous

The larger issue that your getting at is the rise of “individualism” over the last 40 years. The first time I heard that I remember thinking what a ridiculous concept, people have always been interested in success and self-improvement in America. But after hearing nearly every brilliant sociologist and conservative/liberal political commentator make the same comment, I started to see things differently. The loss of community in America has been really sad. As jobs have become harder to get, as social programs from the government have decreased, as people have turned away from churches, people have either lost the community embedded in those institutions or the financial guarantees that allowed them to pursue community without worrying about-side hustles or growth hacking. Christopher Lasch’s The Age of Narcissism (1979) or anything recently by Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Lind, or even Laura Ingraham all point to the same loss. A really sad statistic I heard the other day was the experience in suicides of those 12-14 years old. It’s doubled in the last 5 years among boys and girls. I would think childhood would be a somewhat happier place but even it is engulfed by sadness. EDIT: Just saw you mentioned Bowling Alone so I took that out. Also want to say community vs individualism is a recurring theme in the history of America, one tends to dominate for 40-50 years before succumbing to the other.