World Crisis - Social Progress vs Social Fragmentation

Part I: the impact of longevity, family systems and mass higher education

The social drama of the World Crisis is often narrated against the theme of polarisation or the conflict between elites and ordinary people.

But this account of the crisis does not examine the deep changes in fundamental aspects of social experience over the last 150 years. Worldwide, many basic aspects of experience have been transformed by profound changes in ways of life, such as population ageing, changes in fertility, increased wealth and education, or reduced commonality of religious or cultural beliefs.

These changes generate and amplify social fragmentation or differentiation, which in turn is the engine of many problems experienced as integral to the ‘polycrisis.’

This post is the fourth in a series of articles beginning with an overview on the World Crisis or Polycrisis, then followed by essays on seven drivers of the ‘crisis’:

1. Imperial or ‘Great State’ rivalry

2. Political Disorder

3. Social Fragmentation

4. Cultural Decay

5. War

6. Economy

7. Environmental Threat.

I will publish the essay on social fragmentation serially in three parts over coming weeks. Please upgrade you subscription in order to read all of these articles, and all of my content.

Image: Emmanuel Todd, French historian and demographer, author of Lineages of Modernity