American Decline is Over Stated

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“This is societal collapse”

“The end of the world is so boring!”

“Another day in the apocalypse.”

Reading my Twitter feed, I find that there is beginning to be a prevailing opinion that the world must be coming to an end. And this is amplified by Americans who think that we are suffering from societal collapse and that the signs are all around us. I’m happy to report that is not even close to being true.

On this, I would push back. This is not societal collapse, not by far. Societal collapse is when the basic services of society grind to a halt. In most of this country, when you call 911, someone still answers and people still show up. The mail still comes. Water and power still operate. It’s not these systems always run perfectly. Ask anyone in Texas about that. But they still run. We don’t have to deal with planned and rolling brown-outs. Even California, who once faced such a fate has managed to keep that to a minimum. Schools, albeit under great pressure, continue to take in pupils. In societies where government services have gone away, none of this happens. Even though things might seem dire, our society is far from collapse. In fact, by many measures, our lives today are better than ever-before.

The proper criticism would be that our society does not have a system that helps the most that it can. Many people fall through the cracks. That is not societal collapse, that’s simply bad design. I think one of the reasons that people view the world around them as “collapsing” is because we are facing problems that anyone under 40 hasn’t ever seen in their life before. Inflation, pandemics, land-wars, shortages, are not something most Americans are used to dealing with on a daily basis. It has been a tough two years and the government has proven to be inept at dealing with any of these issues. Again, that’s not societal collapse: that’s a failure of democracy.

It is important to note that to some degree, it has always been this way. Only now do we have social media where those personal tales of systemic failure are amplified. We are more aware of how our society fails ourselves or our fellow citizens. This is not societal failure like the fall of Rome: more like societal neglect. We have failed to truly invest in American society and have instead let the wealthy grow richer and the poor shuffle off to Dollar General or Dollar Tree.

It is because of this, it can feel like society has not improved one bit. Polling data shows that while things are better, it doesn’t feel like it’s any better. I think that’s why people think society is falling apart. People look at their bills, their paychecks, and the horrors presented to us daily on the news and think that the world is practically ready to collapse tomorrow. But that has more to do with social media feeds and algorithms than it does with the actual state of the world.

During the New Deal, FDR changed America by putting the government to work creating opportunity and better living conditions for many citizens. This also corresponded to the successes of the labor movement, public health, public schools, and the first beginnings of social services. FDR created a new kind of modern society. This is the kind of investment in our society that we need. Instead of complaining about how American society is collapsing, let’s get busy on creating the kind of modern society that we actually want to live in.