America Is Fraying, What Comes Next? |
Clients arrive as they always have, one after another, bringing familiar concerns from everyday life: marriages under strain, kids in trouble, and work that just won’t let up. But more and more, something new has begun entering our shared space.
The air feels heavier. And the struggles are changing shape. Beyond my office walls, the world is shifting, and my clients sense the tremors. The things they once trusted, global order, democratic norms, and even their own personal safety, no longer feel solid. They feel brittle, as if one strong wind could bring it all down.
And what they’re sensing isn’t imagined. American culture is changing. There’s a growing pull toward self-interest, power, and even domination. There’s a hardening in tone. It feels as if the culture itself is whispering: Toughen up. Care is for the weak. Trust in human nature is naïve. And as that message takes hold, values that sustain shared life, compassion, kindness, and generosity feel like they’re being pushed to the margins.
This road has been under construction for quite a long time. For decades, our modern consumer culture has been silently steering us toward hyper-individualism and away from the balance between self and community; toward hyper-wealth and away from the balance between personal accumulation and shared security; toward hyper-technology and away from the balance between powerful tech and real human connection (Mintz, 2024).
And in that growing distance between neighbors, trust began to fray. Faith in one another weakened. And we are left with a new idea taking hold, slowly at first, more intensely now: Perhaps our safety lies in protecting ourselves from one another, rather than relying on each other.
But this isn’t what any of us really want. Not even close.
Despite the stories some in leadership tell, and despite what our culture keeps........