A Shock to the System

America’s Social Network is Coming Undone

New year, same formidable challenges: economic insecurity, geopolitical conflict, political polarization, demographic transformation, and an ever more warming planet. Each is extraordinarily complex on its own, while together they constitute a truly byzantine state of affairs. To better understand what is happening it helps to zoom out for a more comprehensive perspective. To see the forest for the trees.

An apt metaphor, a forest is an ecosystem: an ecological community of organisms that continuously interact with each other and their environment; in this case, plants trees, insects, and animals. Yet links like this are not limited to natural habitats and describe a widening array of interconnected man-made enterprises. Though the latter are more fittingly labeled social systems.

First formally defined by American sociologist Talcott Parsons, social systems are networks of relationships among individuals, organizations, and institutions. Here, the organisms are human and often referred to as actors. And since they engage in myriad interactions, their systems are extremely complex. More so because like Russian nesting dolls they exist as sub-systems of larger frameworks that are themselves parts of even more extensive schemes. Americans, for example, are members of families that reside within cities and towns located in states that constitute the USA. What’s more, people regularly participate in tangential systems like schools, workplaces, and civic and religious congregations. Plus, their lives are governed by intangibles such as economic, political, and cultural systems.

The complexity of interactions notwithstanding, most social systems eventually develop fixed canons of relationships based on collective goals and common values. Early on these associations are dynamic, a form of homeostasis that enables systems to successfully adjust to ongoing change. But as systems mature, they become more rigid. Roles and relations are often locked in, with certain sectors likely to dominate. There are fewer options and systems become less resilient. Thus, when severely disrupted, they can no longer readily adapt through conventional means.

Shocking

Historically, America has weathered countless disruptive storms with remarkable hardiness. But is this time different? So far in this century the country has already encountered four significant convulsions, each presaged by prior events, yet still arriving as shocks. Before planes brought down the World Trade Center on September 9, 2001, the U.S. government was privy to numerous terrorist threats. Warning signs were evident too, prior to the economic crash in December 2007.

This “Great Recession” also epitomized what can happen when social systems are tightly coupled. No sooner had markets collapsed in one part of a fiscally attached world than financial failures cascaded globally. Covid 19 spread much the same way, just as Bill Gates and others had predicted it would. And though the January 6 committee’s final report reveals that Donald Trump and company had planned elements of the insurrection months in advance, historian Michael Beschloss noted “this day [had] been foreshadowed by every hour of his presidency.”

In each instance, national leaders not only failed to clearly foresee the onset of a crisis, they have been unable — or unwilling — to adequately contend with the aftermath. Granted acts of terrorism by foreigners have been fewer and far between since 911, but their domestic counterparts have surged. The implosion of the FTX currency exchange provides a chilling parallel to the downfall of Lehman Brothers. In the months since Joe Biden declared the pandemic over, America is recording as many as 50,000 new cases a day, while spending proportionately less on public health than it did in the 1930s. Rather than address the issues raised by January 6, the Republican majority in the House has promised to investigate the investigators, essentially white washing the Capitol attack.

High Anxiety

The incapacity to anticipate or manage major disruptions is common in social systems. Shocks proliferate in ways that elude forecasting. Rapid and/or radical change can dismantle entrenched attitudes and behavior, such that practices that were once effective become outdated as more appropriate processes have yet to emerge. Those who are aware of potential perils choose to stay silent out of personal self-interest. And then there is just plain denial. Whatever the reason, the collateral anxieties further destabilize the system.

The impact of recent upheavals has been cumulative, with levels of uncertainty and insecurity that have precipitated what the American Psychological Association has characterized as “a battered American psyche.” This national distress is exacerbated by a lack of public support. According to the Social Progress Index, which measures how well countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens, assistance in the U.S. has stagnated since 2011, and has been in decline since 2017.

Moreover, the United Nations has reported that Americans, like so many others around the globe, are caught up in an “uncertainty complex” in which six in seven people worldwide are increasingly insecure. The more they feel vulnerable the less likely they are to believe others, to the point that the current level of trust among individuals is the lowest the U.N. has ever recorded.

Mistrust permeates institutions as well. Polls underscore how little confidence Americans have in the President, Congress, and Supreme Court, which has rendered government largely dysfunctional. The reputations of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the Fourth Estate, and Corporate America have also been impeached. What makes this particularly troubling, argues political economist Francis Fukuyama, is that trust is a foundation of social capital, which is a positive product of human interaction. It is the “unspoken, unwritten bond between fellow citizens that facilitates transactions, empowers individual creativity, and justifies collective action.”

Standing Still

Not surprisingly, American society is in disarray. Indeed, if progress is three steps forward and two steps back, the nation is at a standstill. Parts of the population are moon walking. And not very gracefully. This reactionary faction — markedly white, male, and religiously illiberal — has been noticeably aggressive of late, lobbying for a return to the kinds of political and cultural values that supposedly prevailed before most Americans were born.

Albeit they are in the minority on almost every critical issue — abortion, education, gender identity, healthcare, and other social programs — their influence exceeds their numbers. They have induced state legislatures across the country to roll back rights, especially those of the most marginalized citizens; sometimes abetted by the Supreme Court. And just 50 of 222 Republican members of the narrow House majority threaten to upset an already unsettled economy. Consequently, those who want to pursue a different trajectory are being forced to defend and protect what has been gained over the years.

Age Matters

Regardless of current circumstances, the way social systems change tends to play out over generations; and the process may well be under way. Thanks in large part to younger folk, public opinion is becoming more liberal. Various surveys of voters ages 18 to 29 suggest they are more likely than any other age group to support positions like abortion and minority rights. According to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, their turnout in the 2022 midterms was the second highest among young people in the last three decades; even higher in some battleground states.

Just as importantly, the nation’s youngest voters are also its most diverse, and may someday narrow the gap between elected officials and constituents. In the 118th Congress for example:

· The average age in the House of Representatives is 57 and the average member of the Senate is almost 64; substantially older than half the country, which is 39 or below.

· Almost 88% of members of the Congress — 99% of Republicans — are Christian, compared to 64% nationwide.

· With a quarter of voting members in both houses identifying as something other than non-Hispanic White, they comprise the most racially and ethnically diverse legislature to date; though still far less so than the country as a whole.

· A record 149 women currently serve in Congress, but hold only 27.9% of seats.

· The thirteen voting members of the 118th Congress who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual represent the highest number of openly LGB members in history; though still a smaller proportion (2%) than the 6.5% of the adult population overall.

Which Way from Here

To be sure, as people get older, they generally move to the right. But at least one group — millennials — has, so far, shifted far less than any previous generation at this stage of their lives. Still, no matter what direction they and their younger cohorts move society, they will do so in the face of more shocks.

For one, they will be impacted by the aging of their predecessors more so than any demographic before them. Every day, about 10,000 people turn 65 in the U.S., and one in five Americans will be that age or older by the end of the decade. The expected fallout will be slower growth, lower productivity, and an increasing dependency on social support. “Many forces will shape our economy and our society,” warned former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, “but in all likelihood so single factor will have as pervasive an effect as the aging of our population.”

Perhaps, but climate change will certainly give it a run for its money. As temperatures continue to climb, the world is under assault by heat waves, drought, extreme storms, and other environmental calamities that are wreaking havoc on both natural and human systems. In 2022, global warming forced more than 100 million people to migrate beyond their borders, surpassing the number displaced by all violent conflicts combined, including the war in Ukraine. Hundreds of millions more will have to move over the coming decade. For those who remain, the upshot of natural disasters may produce the kinds of intolerable conditions that engender civil disorder and war.

Of course, effectively managing a transformative social system requires understanding it. Sadly, that has gotten harder as technology has too often distorted how individuals and organizations communicate and consume information. The pace and ubiquity of misleading facts and data has escalated to such dangerous levels that the scientists behind the Doomsday clock, which assess how close humankind is to annihilation, have supplemented the threats of climate change and nuclear conflict with “the intentional corruption of the information ecosystem on which modern civilization depends”. And the world is only beginning to come to terms with the intimidating potential of artificial intelligence.

It is difficult to gauge, while in the moment, when the shocks will end and whether and to what extent the system will recover or re-emerge as something very different. The outcome will be clear only in retrospect. But given the current state of affairs, this country likely has a long way to go.