I can't help but wonder what Jonah Goldberg's review of this book will be given his prior effort earlier this year?
I'm also reminded here of Mark Granovetter's ideas that getting a job is more closely tied to who you know. One's job is often very closely tied to their identity, and even more so when the link that got them their job was through a friend or acquaintance.
The other reason I am writing it, however, is that I know that many of my fellow exvies have, like me, struggled for years to make an open break with their families because of the pressure to conform that comes from inherently abusive fundamentalist socialization.
Some of this reminds me of the insularity and abusive practices of the Hasidim in the recent documentary One of Us. I think there are more pockets of people living like this than most people admit or we as a society should allow.
I also think there's a link to Fukuyama's growth of politics here which is highlighted by Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West.
In a world of publishing platforms that are dominated by venture capital-backed operations, (even the newsletter platform Substack has raised $17.5m in VC funding) this is a refreshing state-of-affairs. The Ghost Foundation has an annual run rate of $1.73m (and posts this publicly) — and hasn't taken VC money. Ghost was actually launched as a Kickstarter, which long-term readers might remember…
Something to watch with respect to this is Jonah Goldberg and Steven Hayes who are working with Substack to put out a membership driven news website.
He believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for better or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life. This was contrary to previous theories on suicide which generally maintained that suicide was precipitated by negative events in a person's life and their subsequent depression.
Is this what America is experiencing in the midst of Donald J. Trump's new Republican party?
I'm left wondering if there is a potential link to Jonah Goldberg having used the word Suicide specifically in the title of his recent book? Neither Durkheim nor anomie appear within the text however.