The Frank Forum

  Since I started my research into America's seemingly unexplainable malady of civic disengagement - or, what I prefer to call, "social hibernation" - I came to the conclusion that this was a mostly internal problem. People will only be able to ameliorate this epidemic of loneliness - I, maybe erroneously, proclaimed - when they undergo a kind of spiritual reawakening: an "Aha!" moment wherein they collectively understand the merits of family cohesion, committed relationships, local civic engagement, and club membership.  Much of what I read reaffirmed this hypothesis. Marvin Olasky, in his pivotal work, The Tragedy of American Compassion, rejects the idea that environmental change could have a meaningful impact on human social behavior: The new view saw folks as naturally good and productive, unless they were in a competitive environment that warped finer sensibilities. In the new thinking, change came not through challenge, but through placement in a pleasant ...

  Today we remember and celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr.  King, a black man living in a racially segregated America, stood tall in a sea of hate, bigotry, and divisiveness.  But, while he was no doubt an integral part of the Civil Rights movement's success, nothing would have been accomplished without the laborious and persistent efforts of organized activist groups.  There is perhaps no better example of this than the case of the Freedom Summer Project. I've blogged about this before (read here ), but the lesson bears repeating.  In the summer of 1964, a group of young Civil Rights activists traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi to stage various demonstrations in the midst of hostile inhabitants and law enforcement. Individuals from these networks of black and white college students were beaten, kidnapped, and, in some cases, killed.  Doug McAdam, a professor of sociology at Stanford University, contributed the defining study of Freedom Su...

  Non-Western countries are known to be more collectivistic and group-oriented, especially when compared to Western countries like Great Britain and America.  Lawrence Mead, my former professor and thesis supervisor at NYU, articulated this cultural difference in his 2019 book, Burdens of Freedom: Cultural Difference and American Power: ...Western culture is individualist, while non-Western cultures tend to be conformist. Westerners take action largely to fulfill personal goals and values, if necessary, changing the world to do so. In this sense, they live their lives from the inside out. In the non-West, by contrast, most people take their cues largely from without - from their immediate associates, higher authority, or tradition. They adjust to their environment much more than they seek to change it. They live their lives largely from the outside in.  Professor Mead is easily the most valiant and intellectually honest professor that I ever had the honor of taking. He re...