Increasingly Unhinged Public Comments as a Symptom of Community Loss
A new meditation on the dark side of individualism
On Friday, June 7, during the public comments portion of a Pima County Supervisors meeting, a local Tucson citizen, Mr. Doyle Taraba, suggested in person that the Pima County Supervisors be put before a firing squad, ostensibly for discussing plans to care for illegal migrants who make their way across the harsh Sonoran desert and into the county. 1
Mocking American traditions of due process - let’s hang’em! - and violent intimidation of elected officials - someone needs to shoot XXX! - once remained confined to living rooms, smoky organized crime meetings, and your local bar/tavern.
We now know that the internet has wildly amplified the volume and broadened the reach of political extremism in the United States, making this kind of speech appear more legitimate than ever to those who consume it routinely on Telegram, X, and other platforms. If violent rhetoric aimed at elected officials is all over X and Facebook, why not say this stuff in real life?
The digital town square has been the perfect hyper-individualist laboratory to practice self-expression without accountability for one’s actions. Moderation was absent for decades. Beyond LinkedIn, Roblox, and Discord, moderation remains light and weak. Even Substack got into hot water last year for its owners’ naively libertarian beliefs.
Politically extremist behavior in public (in real life) across the country has been on the rise in recent years, most of it from the far right (violent pro-Palestinian protests being a recent exception). The Brennan Center has a good survey on local election worker threats, for example, if you want to dig deeper. Arizona has been a well-known hotbed of politically extremist rhetoric in public in recent years. We’re infamous now. I won’t repeat any of the notorious remarks by local citizens and candidates because they are unnecessary for my larger point.
While the American media is excellent at skimming proximate causes for this kind of nasty public behavior (which has ebbed and flowed throughout American history), our country, and Arizona specifically, has other modern enablers of violent public rhetoric against public officials.
One of these enablers is the steadily growing alienation and disconnection among American adults, especially older Americans, for whom Arizona is a popular retirement destination. Older Americans move here as couples and may or may not develop strong local ties at all. They are very unlikely to know their neighbors as well as they did in the 1940s-1960s as children and teens. Yet, social scientists like myself are well aware that positive, reciprocal neighbor-neighbor interactions are the bedrock of any healthy human community (whether based on affinities of kinship, ethnicity, or class). Social dysfunction in residential settlements breeds dysfunction elsewhere because we bring those habits wherever we go.
Another problem lurks well below the surface and enables people like Mr. Taraba to behave outrageously in public. America currently favors an extreme form of individualism, one in which there is decreasing shame for behaving inappropriately in public (in general), including when a political end justifies unsavory verbal means. If you don’t know anyone locally when you’re in public, how do you remain accountable as a person with extreme political thoughts? You don’t. You are no more accountable than a meth addict. You feel empowered to say whatever you want, then retreat home to your spouse, pets, and internet/screen bubble of the like-minded. Your neighbors will never know of your bad behavior (unless it becomes news!).
This lack of public shame exists because of a generalized lack of community connection in Arizona and elsewhere in the United States. Americans have fewer close friends than ever and spend more time than ever consuming media, while in-person socialization is on the decline. We are a nation empirically living in a state of social retreat (a phrase I unpack in detail near the end of my new book).
We purchase what we need in our lives anonymously in stores or online and do not rely on local friends or family to do anything. There is a professional service provider for almost everything we need. America is a nation of consumers who acquire what they need impersonally from corporations. We do not trust easily or broadly because we do not depend on many others as human partners. Our social networks are mainly for entertainment and to cure boredom.
Because there is little need for the local community in a fully realized consumer society, as we age, we quickly retreat into social bubbles that do not force us to socialize more broadly and display tolerance publicly. If we do not even display tolerance in our extended families, we are unlikely to do it publicly. Self-sufficient isolation encourages disrespect for community norms and, in turn, reduces trust in the government. Suddenly, an impulsive, emotionally laced opinion formed on one’s recliner becomes as valid as anything a full-time government body proposes. For the enraged TV news viewer, the government is composed of strangers no different than the faces at your local Safeway.
In a nation where the older live in social retreat and sometimes extreme isolation, the likelihood of entering the public square and engaging in extremely anti-social speech is pretty high compared to prior eras, when entering the public square meant someone who knew you was probably sitting there.
Retirees in the United States, including Arizona, increasingly live alone or with just their partner in tiny social networks of weak ties, despite the stereotype of the extroverted, golf-cart-driving retiree on the marketing brochures at 55+ communities. Grandparents today are not even accountable for what they say and do to their family members in the same way they would have been decades ago. The 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl by retiree (and grandparent) Andrew Lester in St. Louis is a famous example.
So, if someone like Mr. Taraba becomes infatuated with extreme political rhetoric online, they are much more likely in modern America to deploy this hateful speech in public. We do not fear public rebuke like we once did. This is a real subtle problem with an overtly ugly symptom.
Only strong community networks prevent ‘free speech’ from becoming mad speech or individualistic hate speech in public. A strong community slows down the impulsive opinion before it gets uttered.
A highly diverse America faces the challenge of local reintegration across lines of ethnicity, kinship, class, and ideology, without doing it via racist and reactionary forms of community-building built on fear (i.e., the KKK is an excellent example of mishandling diversity out of unnatural fear).
For those of you who have made it through my new book, I need your support with Goodreads or Amazon reviews. I do not have the tribal media credentials to obtain op-eds or place freelance pieces, so Amazon reviews make or break indie books like mine—and marketing channels like Substack.
Here are some killer customer reviews for Our Worst Strength to inspire you -
this book is a must-read for anyone eager to explore the dynamics of American individualism and its broader implications. Its blend of rigorous research, personal narrative, and insightful commentary makes it a standout work in the fields of sociology and anthropology. Whether you're a student, a scholar, or simply a curious reader, you'll find this book both enlightening and enjoyable. Highly recommended! - Ryan Scheife
This book will delight those who love great storytelling with data, history with anthropology and sociology, and a laid back narrator with a gift for helping us see our lives and the society we live in with greater clarity - Dr. Nathalie Marthinek
Easy peezy review links below:
Alternatively, if you have more patience and would like to sign up on Netgalley to leave a review there…I need one more 4 or 5-star review to gain access to the coveted Reader Recommended box.
If you haven’t had a chance to order your Kindle or paperback copy, no time like the present. Here’s the final, post-release book trailer to inspire a mighty and brave click-through!
Tucson is at ground zero of border politics in America. Opinions are strong. I get it. One thing I can assure you, since I live here, is that Tucson is not overrun with tent cities of illegal immigrants. Hardly. We do have a huge homelessness crisis, a lack of air conditioning in single-family homes, flagrant criminal activity by the Sinaloa cartel, and a growing fentanyl problem. And lots of other problems.
Great points and a good read! That AI cover image is pretty rough though. Haha.
One of the most insightful analyses you've written. Scary. Truthful. Isolation can be a terrible thing that doesn't appear to be terrible until it manifests in these behaviors. Feels like a slippery slope without a rescue rope nearby.