Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 892 ｜ How to Solve the Loneliness Epidemic ｜ Guest： Stella Morabito

00:00:00.660 Human beings were created to be in community with others.

00:00:04.700 We were created for family, for friendship, for connection with our neighbors, camaraderie

00:00:10.040 with our fellow countrymen, reliance on our fellow church members.

00:00:14.820 This is part of being made in God's image.

00:00:17.180 God, who is in perpetual, eternal community with himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

00:00:23.060 In Genesis 2.18, God says of Adam, the first man, it is not good that man should be alone.

00:00:31.640 And so God created a helper, a mate, a wife.

00:00:34.900 And to the two of them, God orders that they be fruitful, multiply to fill the earth.

00:00:40.280 Yet over the past several decades, humans have become more isolated.

00:00:43.940 We've become lonelier, spending more time inside, by ourselves, unmarried, childless,

00:00:48.980 out of church, separated from community gatherings and activities.

00:00:52.500 And we're paying for it.

00:00:54.300 Despite how insistently we're told that all we need is self-love,

00:00:58.820 we're finding that we're not enough for ourselves.

00:01:01.800 We are not self-sufficient.

00:01:03.680 We're more depressed and more anxious than we've ever been.

00:01:07.040 We need God.

00:01:08.380 We need to derive purpose and love from the one who created us, who knows us and loves us.

00:01:13.680 We need people.

00:01:14.460 Without deep human connection, we grow depressed, anxious, paranoid, lost.

00:01:19.420 The Biden administration has recently identified this problem and has published an 81-page proposal

00:01:26.460 on combating loneliness.

00:01:28.600 However, the proposed solutions don't suggest we need more faith and more stable families,

00:01:33.960 but rather, surprise, surprise, more government control and surveillance.

00:01:38.700 This is what totalitarianism does and has always done.

00:01:43.500 It exploits human isolation to create government dependence and grow the state to our peril.

00:01:50.380 With us today is author and senior writer for The Federalist, Stella Morabito, whose focus

00:01:56.000 is on propaganda, mob psychology, and the cult mindset.

00:01:59.100 She wrote a book called The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation

00:02:04.480 to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.

00:02:07.080 She gives us a fascinating look into how loneliness has been leveraged throughout history

00:02:11.620 and is being leveraged in America today to increase the government's interference with our lives.

00:02:18.160 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:02:20.880 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:02:22.260 Use code ALI at checkout.

00:02:23.700 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:02:24.920 Code ALI.

00:02:25.460 Stella, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:02:38.080 Before we get started, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

00:02:43.500 Sure.

00:02:44.020 My background professionally is, you know, I started off with a master's degree in Russian and Soviet

00:02:52.200 history and then went on to serve as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency focused on

00:02:59.020 propaganda and media analysis and then, you know, later raised my children as a stay-at-home

00:03:06.560 mom for a while but never lost an interest in this issue that my book is about, The Weaponization

00:03:11.880 of Loneliness, and I actually developed my thoughts a whole lot more while I was a stay-at-home mom.

00:03:16.180 And then I started working as a senior contributor writing for The Federalist almost 10 years

00:03:22.920 now since 2014.

00:03:25.320 Yes.

00:03:25.540 What originally piqued my interest in talking to you was seeing your book, The Weaponization

00:03:32.080 of Loneliness.

00:03:32.920 You've obviously had ample material to work with over the past few years with COVID and

00:03:38.460 the restrictions that were put in place there.

00:03:40.200 We saw firsthand how loneliness was weaponized.

00:03:43.700 But tell us about your book.

00:03:45.320 Why did you decide to write this and how did the background that you just described contribute

00:03:49.500 to this book?

00:03:52.140 Well, I think it's really important that Americans in particular have a very keen understanding

00:03:58.200 of how these dynamics of social isolation work on us and to understand that social isolation

00:04:05.060 is really the most powerful political weapon.

00:04:08.860 And it's been used as a political weapon for, well, throughout modern history especially.

00:04:14.240 But we are hardwired to connect with other people.

00:04:18.560 And that gives us a very primal fear, terror really, of ostracism.

00:04:24.020 And that leads to self-censorship and all kinds of other manipulations that, you know, in this

00:04:33.800 sort of psychological war that push really destructive agendas forward.

00:04:39.280 And I feel as though all of the bad agendas, all of the really, you know, awful things that we're seeing and that up to and

00:04:47.660 including COVID and since COVID can be attributed to Americans' obedience to political correctness.

00:04:55.660 This fear of ostracism, this fear of loneliness that causes us to shut up and even lie about what we believe.

00:05:02.460 And I think that this having gone on for decades especially has brought us to where we are now.

00:05:09.840 And I think it's really important that we, you know, learn about these dynamics, how they work on us, within us,

00:05:18.340 and affect public opinion and create an environment that allows really destructive agendas to take root.

00:05:26.300 You know, we've been hearing about this loneliness epidemic for a while.

00:05:30.940 There was that famous book, Bowling Alone, that we learned that Americans are becoming more isolated than we were in decades past

00:05:39.540 when we were all a part of some kind of community, or most of us were, whether it was your church or whether it was just the PTA.

00:05:47.760 And obviously that has disintegrated.

00:05:50.200 That social fabric has really come apart in the past few decades.

00:05:55.400 Tell us a little bit more about how that has manifested itself or how that has been exploited politically

00:06:03.460 for the purpose of, you know, growing the power of the government and controlling the populace.

00:06:11.720 Oh my, yes, it has been exploited.

00:06:14.580 Well, let me begin by, you mentioned Bowling Alone by Putnam.

00:06:18.420 That book came out a good 50 years after Robert Nisbet, a very eminent sociologist,

00:06:24.700 who just wrote his book, The Quest for Community.

00:06:27.500 And it's very interesting to put those two books side by side,

00:06:31.420 because Nisbet could foresee how this breakdown,

00:06:36.340 and this was like he was writing in the 1950s,

00:06:38.980 how this breakdown in social bonds was making us a lot more vulnerable to the totalitarian impulse.

00:06:46.140 That's not something that Putnam really addressed in his book.

00:06:49.620 But in any event, having noted that, I can tell you right now that I just wrote a three-part series for The Federalist

00:07:00.860 that deals with the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's recent advisory called Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.

00:07:12.520 And of course, we have had a loneliness epidemic in this country that preceded, you know,

00:07:18.680 the headlines preceded COVID by a long, you know, by a long time.

00:07:23.940 We've seen it way before COVID.

00:07:26.480 But COVID just really drove the, you know, the enforced isolation really drove home a lot of this.

00:07:32.900 And we could see how it was exploited, you know, keeping us apart from one another.

00:07:37.560 And I think this all ties into propaganda and censorship.

00:07:42.120 And as I just mentioned, that advisory on loneliness and isolation that the Surgeon General just put out.

00:07:50.880 And I believe that a whole lot more attention needs to be paid to that advisory.

00:07:56.560 And you can see my, you can read about it in my three-part series in The Federalist that ran in the past couple of weeks.

00:08:02.640 He is calling, this administration is calling for building an entire infrastructure under the pretext of saving us from our loneliness epidemic

00:08:13.520 that would actually invade our private lives, invade the private sphere of life,

00:08:19.960 which is really our only protection against loneliness and isolation.

00:08:26.140 But it calls for a whole infrastructure, not only a physical infrastructure, but a, you know, social infrastructure.

00:08:36.260 It mentions DEI, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion as a part of overcoming this

00:08:43.000 because there are certain privileges that people who are socially connected have that people who aren't socially connected don't have.

00:08:50.560 So you can see this all playing into a sort of, you know, exploitation of that loneliness epidemic in this advisory.

00:09:01.680 You know, it calls for the medical sector to be brought in to track and monitor our levels of social isolation.

00:09:10.240 I hope I'm not getting too much in the weeds here, but I think it's really important for Americans to understand

00:09:15.700 how this will affect, if it's implemented, how this will affect our private lives.

00:09:35.260 This interview will come out a few months, actually, after your three-part series for The Federalist was published.

00:09:41.860 I do encourage people to still go read it. We will link it in the description of this episode.

00:09:46.360 But can you tell us a little bit more about what the Surgeon General is actually proposing?

00:09:51.400 Because I did see him say a few months ago that, you know, we are having an epidemic of loneliness.

00:09:57.420 It's increasing rates of depression and suicide, especially among young people.

00:10:01.300 I was actually pleasantly surprised to hear him say that.

00:10:04.060 You don't typically hear that kind of thing from the progressive side.

00:10:07.520 During COVID, we kept hearing, oh, we're better together, we're better together, as they are pushing social isolation.

00:10:14.480 And so you don't typically hear someone from a non-conservative perspective say, we need community.

00:10:21.600 We really do need in-person interaction.

00:10:25.660 But what you're arguing is that underneath the surface of those platitudes is really just a vehicle for more government control of our lives.

00:10:35.080 Exactly, Ali. That's exactly what I'm saying.

00:10:40.600 And you hit the nail on the head.

00:10:43.540 This is what's been going on.

00:10:45.120 I mean, the federal government has been, I have to say, responsible for it to a large extent for the loneliness epidemic and our isolation.

00:10:55.660 I mean, if you look at all of the policies that they've pushed over the decades, and they continue to push, by the way.

00:11:00.980 I mean, you look at urban blight, you look at fatherlessness, the family breakdown, you know, which leads to community breakdown.

00:11:09.940 You look at addictions and, you know, all, you know, abortion and to the point of infanticide.

00:11:16.500 You look at all of these things that break down human bonds.

00:11:19.820 I mean, they all do.

00:11:20.660 And yet they aren't dialing them back.

00:11:25.560 Federal government's policies, these kinds of policies from this particular administration and other administrations like it, have actually made the loneliness epidemic worse.

00:11:36.320 And they're not dialing back on them.

00:11:37.840 So what is going on?

00:11:39.440 Oh, they're having all of these, as you say, wonderful platitudes about how we need to reach out.

00:11:46.160 And they use beautiful language, like we need to be kind and respectful.

00:11:50.660 But you have to remember that when they use language, it's really in an Orwellian sense.

00:11:55.840 For example, kindness for them means, you know, pushing for, quote, gender affirmation.

00:12:03.540 Right.

00:12:04.080 It means, you know, transitioning kids.

00:12:07.980 It means, you know, so many.

00:12:09.680 It means abortion. 0.97

00:12:10.800 It means so many things that break down human bonds.

00:12:14.540 And so when they use words like that, community, kindness, respect, so on, it's usually in a very, it's become in a very Orwellian sense.

00:12:26.280 So we need to be aware that not to be taken in by the language.

00:12:32.360 These, and if you look at what he calls the six pillars of overcoming the loneliness epidemic.

00:12:40.020 I mean, the first one is to build the social and physical infrastructure.

00:12:43.700 I mean, the physical infrastructure means addressing social isolation when it comes to housing, transportation.

00:12:52.580 I mean, what does this mean?

00:12:53.880 I mean, think about it.

00:12:55.100 Does it mean the 15-minute city?

00:12:57.040 Does it mean, you know, everybody takes public transportation so that we're all, you know, basically alone together?

00:13:03.720 Does it mean, you know, in that kind of metaphorical sense?

00:13:08.280 Does it mean, and then the libraries, you know, that's the whole physical infrastructure, you know, everything that, every place.

00:13:16.560 Yeah.

00:13:17.000 And this is in the report, in the advisory, where people can gather.

00:13:20.860 All right.

00:13:21.400 And so the social infrastructure also means, you know, every kind of relationship, you know, whether it's, you know, has to do with school or work or, you know, recreation, every kind of relationship has to be driven by this idea that social connection needs to be brought about.

00:13:47.600 It's really a very collectivist, communist view of connection.

00:13:53.320 It's not that we each have individual identities, unique identities, and we interact freely and speak openly to one another.

00:14:02.860 No.

00:14:03.820 You know, I only mentioned the first pillar, which is infrastructure.

00:14:07.880 The second one is policy.

00:14:09.420 And it has to imbue all of the policies, this idea of social connection.

00:14:15.900 And very specifically states that diversity, equity, and inclusion has to be a big part of all of that.

00:14:24.420 So what does that mean?

00:14:25.340 I mean, you wonder, does policy mean that your personal relationships are going to be regulated?

00:14:31.960 How do you spread the wealth of social connection?

00:14:35.800 I mean, if you're, you know, you belong to a family that's cohesive, that gives you a lot of emotional support, and you get health benefits from that.

00:14:43.180 I mean, just in general, you get, you know, economic education, maybe your dad has a friend who gets you a job.

00:14:51.960 All of these benefits are so-called privileges that may not be available to someone who does not have those social connections.

00:15:01.040 What does that mean?

00:15:01.800 I mean, it means a, you know, kind of a collectivist view that we're all being pushed into under the pretext.

00:15:11.160 Right.

00:15:11.740 The pretext of overcoming social isolation.

00:15:18.020 And of course, the other four pillars involve the medical community, all the medical sector to track and monitor.

00:15:25.940 I mean, it uses those words, our levels of social isolation.

00:15:29.840 And of course, big tech, that's the fourth pillar.

00:15:32.200 They've got to, you know, come in on it all and, you know, and be involved in tracking our levels of social isolation.

00:15:39.340 And then, of course, they say the fifth pillar has to do with extending our knowledge, which really is, in my view, euphemism for propaganda and not allowing any other narrative.

00:15:55.080 You're going to see all kinds of research grants trying to prove what the government is saying about all of this.

00:16:01.020 And then the sixth one has to do with creating a culture of social connection, which, you know, again, that goes back to the Orwellian use of terms.

00:16:10.800 You know, we reach out and, you know, everything has to do with pushing us in this direction.

00:16:19.700 And also the advisory also says that we need to, all of us, every single one of us needs to be involved in this.

00:16:26.600 So it's kind of a mandatory requirement, individuals, families, churches.

00:16:33.180 That's the only time they mention spirituality, by the way, or churches, is what they can do to promote the Surgeon General's advisory.

00:16:40.960 You can tell me if my interpretation of this is correct just by reading what you've written in and knowing what I know about big government, but especially progressivism just as an ideology.

00:17:07.620 Really, a lot of the things that they are pushing, as you said, under the pretext of fighting loneliness, are things that they've already been trying to push for a long time.

00:17:18.280 For example, when you're talking about changing the physical infrastructure to promote community, well, Democrats have been talking.

00:17:25.520 I mean, Obama tried to do this.

00:17:27.660 They've been talking about getting rid of the suburbs for a long time, getting rid of single family housing zones.

00:17:33.000 That's something that we've already kind of seen in California because it's unfair, they say.

00:17:37.380 It creates kinds of disparities.

00:17:39.620 And so they want to ensure diversity.

00:17:41.760 That's really what they're talking about when they're talking about, I think, changing these physical infrastructures so that we are forced to be together, maybe with people in communities that say someone grew up in a really difficult part of town.

00:17:58.400 Say they grew up in the projects and they were able to go to school, have a good job, move their family to the suburbs so that they could live in a clean, safe neighborhood.

00:18:08.120 Really, the changing of the suburbs, the changing of the physical infrastructures would make that kind of thing impossible.

00:18:15.780 It would make that kind of mobility impossible.

00:18:18.260 And so they're almost changing the definition of loneliness here.

00:18:22.560 They don't actually mean that they're fighting social isolation.

00:18:26.060 They're talking about fighting separateness.

00:18:28.740 They're like fighting distinctions.

00:18:30.280 They're fighting a world in which there is a suburb and then a bad part of town and then a good part of town and the inner city, as we've seen in a lot of different progressive cities.

00:18:41.400 They really want the democratic control of those major cities to extend to the rural areas, to extend to the suburbs.

00:18:51.180 That, to me, is what it looks like when they talk about changing the physical infrastructures of places so that the government is taking control of libraries, of communities, of different places like that.

00:19:03.980 In the name of fighting loneliness, it's really just a cover for what they've been trying to do for a long time, which is to make sure that, you know, well-off people, poor people, black people, white people, Hispanic people, whatever, are all living amongst each other and that there's no distinction and no ability to move out of one part of town to go to a better part of town.

00:19:25.240 They've been trying to do that for a long time in the name of equality, and to me, it seems like that's what they're doing now, but now they're saying that it's, oh, to form community and to fight isolation.

00:19:38.360 Yes, that's exactly right.

00:19:39.880 That's cover for an agenda that actually goes way back, as you pointed out, Ali.

00:19:46.800 I mean, you can look at Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, where they had densified housing.

00:19:56.160 I mean, housing was very hard to come by.

00:19:58.360 I mean, you would have people living in one room, up to like 15 people.

00:20:02.900 Read Orlando Figa's book, The Whisperers, Private Life in Stalin's Russia, to get a really stark picture of how that densified housing created a stitch culture. 0.78

00:20:17.920 I mean, you know, surveillance, that's part of the whole picture is surveillance, not just in this advisory, but going back through history, where people are reported.

00:20:28.840 In Stalin's reign of terror, people became hysterical and fearful of being reported, so they would go ahead and report someone else who was completely innocent just in order to protect themselves.

00:20:43.280 That's how bad it got.

00:20:45.400 You know, people would preemptively report others just to protect themselves, and that's a form of mass hysteria, as we really don't want to go there.

00:20:56.280 But that's what this densified housing that they're proposing often leads to, especially with their intent, what their apparent intent is to create this kind of overlord situation where there is just one central command, one central government, and we lose our fundamental rights to speak openly.

00:21:22.360 I mean, if you look at the First Amendment, this is something I've written about in the Federalist, and I also wrote about in this series recently.

00:21:30.560 If you look at the First Amendment, and I think the founders understood this, it really protects the private sphere of life.

00:21:38.960 And you think about the private sphere of life, that's where human beings derive their power, their real power.

00:21:45.640 You know, the private sphere of life would be those mediating institutions that serve as buffers between the mass state and the individual.

00:21:57.080 For example, family, that's the biggest one, or a big one, faith, that's the other big one, and community, or even just friendship.

00:22:06.200 You could call it friendship.

00:22:08.820 And these are the places where you can let your hair down, where you can fall back on a strong family structure as a support system, even if the whole world is shouting you down.

00:22:21.820 If you have your family to go to, you have that inner strength.

00:22:25.180 You have your faith to go to you.

00:22:27.140 That gives you inner strength.

00:22:28.480 And that is why, for example, the Communist Manifesto calls for the abolition of the family.

00:22:34.240 And that was like nearly 200 years ago, because they understand that in that private sphere of life where they really have no business meddling, they just can't control you.

00:22:43.700 You get influenced by your mother, your father, your, you know, generations, your grandparents.

00:22:49.540 Or, you know, it's, and your faith gives you a strong sense of inner strength that can serve as a means of resistance.

00:22:59.960 They know this, to charity.

00:23:03.120 And so they have to break it down.

00:23:04.960 They've always been pushing to break down the private sphere of life.

00:23:09.100 And getting back to my main point, the First Amendment protects that.

00:23:13.840 Number one, the very first part of it, it has to do with freedom to think your own thoughts.

00:23:20.500 You know, freedom of religion, freedom of, which also means freedom of conscience, freedom of thought.

00:23:26.360 And then secondly, the freedom to express those thoughts in speech.

00:23:30.680 I mean, if you can't speak openly to another person, you can't really have relationships.

00:23:35.480 You become isolated.

00:23:37.020 And then number three, you have the right to record those thoughts in whatever media now.

00:23:43.220 I mean, you can do video now.

00:23:45.420 Back then, it was freedom of, called freedom of the press.

00:23:47.820 But you had the right to record your speech, your thoughts, and, you know, distribute them.

00:23:57.120 And then, of course, the right to your freedom of association.

00:24:00.600 You can pick your own friends.

00:24:02.480 This is not what this advisory is about.

00:24:04.660 It's about kind of regulating friendships when you get right down to it.

00:24:07.880 And then, finally, the right to petition your grievances when all of those other rights are being violated.

00:24:18.440 And we see all of that being attacked right now.

00:24:21.560 It's all under assault.

00:24:22.600 But we need to understand that if you don't have your private sphere of life, if you don't really have access, you know, to your family, your faith, your friends, without interference and meddling and eavesdropping and surveillance by the state and the state snitches, then you're isolated.

00:24:41.580 This whole thing leads to more isolation, worse than ever.

00:24:46.640 It's a dystopian.

00:24:47.980 It's really a dystopian model.

00:24:49.800 And, again, it goes back.

00:24:51.440 You can go back to the French Revolution, looking at the de-Christianization campaign, where they were attacking anybody who was connected with the Catholic Church that was not complying with the Jacobian, you know, reign.

00:25:06.460 You can go look at the Bolshevik regime in Russia, where they claimed the private life really was a cauldron of possible counterrevolutionary activity, was the way they put it.

00:25:20.180 So they sought to attack the private sphere of life.

00:25:23.320 Look at Mao's Cultural Revolution.

00:25:24.680 Look at Hitler's Third Reich. 0.88

00:25:26.420 It was all about everybody getting behind this mass central state, and that was supposed to be your first loyalty, not to your family or to your faith or anything else.

00:25:39.580 Right.

00:25:40.180 So, basically, what they're doing is they're taking control of our private lives, our private communications, our private conversations, even our private beliefs, how people naturally kind of organize themselves and sort themselves out.

00:25:58.400 Because that's human nature, by the way.

00:26:00.000 People of all races, of all backgrounds, will move when they can, when they have the ability.

00:26:06.140 They will move where they want to move.

00:26:07.880 They will move to a place that is best for them economically, is best for them safety-wise, within the capacity that they can.

00:26:16.200 That's just how human beings are.

00:26:18.240 Human beings tend to sort themselves out based on similarities.

00:26:23.180 And so they're trying to change that.

00:26:24.940 They're trying to socially engineer our communities, socially engineer our relationships.

00:26:29.720 And when they talk about ensuring that we're extending our knowledge and that we're practicing kindness, what they mean is coerced agreement.

00:26:41.620 That you have to, in order to be together, in order to be really unified, we have to have, as you've said, all the same thoughts.

00:26:49.540 We have to have all the same definitions of words.

00:26:52.880 We have to all agree that trans women are women and trans kids' rights are human rights.

00:26:59.980 Whatever, whatever it is.

00:27:01.700 That's what they're talking about.

00:27:02.900 As you said, it's propaganda.

00:27:04.860 Extending knowledge, bringing together communities.

00:27:08.620 It literally says enhancing healthcare surveillance into our lives, of course, under the pretense of protecting us, of protecting us from hurting ourselves, or, I don't know, protecting us from isolation in some way.

00:27:22.880 So, basically, they're saying, we're going to force you guys to be together.

00:27:26.600 We're going to force you guys to agree.

00:27:28.340 And that's how we're going to solve loneliness.

00:27:30.580 And as you said, that's just going to exacerbate the problem because proximity to people does not mean connection.

00:27:38.060 We know that because I'm sure loneliness is still a big problem in these major cities where everyone is very densely packed.

00:27:44.860 Those people aren't happier than the people living in rural areas where you can't see your neighbor.

00:27:49.420 It's not about that.

00:27:50.860 It's about connection.

00:27:51.940 And you'll notice in this 81-page proposal that the government is putting forth, as you mentioned, they don't really talk about the importance of marriage, the importance of keeping parents together, the importance of a mom and a dad, the importance of cohesive family units, the importance of friendships that are off of a screen and are actually in person.

00:28:18.720 They don't really talk about the importance of church.

00:28:20.800 They don't talk about the importance of creating hobbies with like-minded people going outside because none of that helps the government grow.

00:28:28.220 And, in fact, as you pointed out, it actually can inhibit government growth because the more you're depending on one another, the more you're depending on your family, the more you're depending on your faith, really the less you need the government.

00:28:39.220 And the less people need the government, the harder it is for the government to have a justification to grow.

00:28:45.680 And so, yeah, that's what it is.

00:28:49.560 It's not really that the government cares about us.

00:28:51.700 I think that we can look throughout history and see that.

00:28:54.300 They don't really care about our souls and our hearts and our emotional and mental well-being.

00:29:00.240 The government exclusively and unconditionally cares about itself, maintaining itself, growing itself.

00:29:08.100 And this is just another nice-sounding strategy for them to do that.

00:29:13.400 And I am afraid, I know, that a lot of people will fall into it because it's good propaganda.

00:29:21.500 No one wants to be pro-loneliness.

00:29:23.920 And so if you're called anti-friendship, anti-unity, of course, it's just another label that they can slap on people who oppose them.

00:29:34.980 Exactly, exactly.

00:29:38.320 No, they created the malady, and now they're proposing the cure.

00:29:42.600 And this is a typical kind of tyrannical process.

00:29:48.720 You know, they're really involved in something I call coercive thought reform, which is intended, just as you said, Ali, to push everybody into a kind of a framework,

00:30:01.580 or kind of a hive mind, Borg kind of thought, where everybody agrees with everybody else, or everybody agrees with the government, and we don't really think our own thoughts anymore.

00:30:12.300 And, you know, I'm not going to get into the whole thing with AI and all of that.

00:30:16.600 You know, that's another dimension that we have to deal with.

00:30:20.860 But in general terms, this is all very dehumanizing, and you're exactly right.

00:30:26.500 It uses propaganda.

00:30:27.820 And propaganda generally is effective when it takes a truth that is universal, and it kind of distorts it.

00:30:37.760 For example, you know, yes, we're feeling lonely, and we've had this loneliness epidemic.

00:30:44.220 And just as you said, Ali, people are going to be drawn to this.

00:30:47.520 I've even seen conservatives say, oh, he talks about how teenagers, you know, have too much screen time, and how bad that is for them,

00:30:57.580 that they don't really have real friends, and so on and so forth.

00:31:01.560 And that is a trap.

00:31:03.400 You know, we can't fall into that trap.

00:31:05.500 We have to understand the underlying truth of, you know, what we're all talking about, a loneliness epidemic.

00:31:12.940 But we also have to understand the only cure for loneliness are these strong, healthy, personal relationships that we develop in the context of family, faith, friendship, through true community.

00:31:29.580 Not this fake community that the left is always talking about, but true community where people actually come together.

00:31:36.460 They care about one another.

00:31:37.860 You saw it during the Hurricane Katrina when community members developed something called the Cajun Navy.

00:31:45.520 And these were just private boat owners who went out there and did the job that the government just really couldn't do.

00:31:51.960 And they rescued hundreds, thousands, I don't know, so many people from the devastation.

00:31:58.800 And, you know, people were on the rooftops and everything.

00:32:00.900 Well, this happened through community volunteerism of the best sort.

00:32:06.560 You're not going to have that anymore if this advisory is implemented.

00:32:12.060 You know, everybody is going to have to first be beholden to the centralized government.

00:32:17.040 By the way, the advisory states that this has to do with every level of government, local, right down to local.

00:32:24.880 So it would pretty much destroy local autonomy.

00:32:30.300 So that's where we are.

00:32:33.380 And that's a scary prospect.

00:32:47.180 It kind of reminds me of when Facebook was created and social media in general, we were told that this is going to help connect us.

00:32:56.900 This is going to connect the whole world.

00:32:58.720 We're going to be more together and more relational than we've ever been.

00:33:02.420 And I don't think it had the same necessarily malicious intent as big government does, because I'm sure that Mark Zuckerberg actually thought that he was going to bring local networks of people together and make it easier to build friendships.

00:33:17.840 But the truth is, it's done the opposite.

00:33:20.940 It's actually made us more isolated.

00:33:22.880 And that's what I see when I look at these policies.

00:33:26.300 And this is just what progressives do, because progressivism is an ideology.

00:33:31.040 And I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's not even just accurate to say progressivism.

00:33:35.240 Maybe it's all forms of totalitarianism.

00:33:37.180 But because progressivism today is the dominant totalitarian force in our nation, they don't understand human nature.

00:33:45.620 They don't understand human nature.

00:33:47.960 And Thomas Sowell has written about this in Quest for Cosmic Justice, how these forces from the top down believe that they can socially engineer societies.

00:33:57.560 It is a communistic idea, as you as you pointed out, to make everything exactly equal, to make sure that there are zero disparities.

00:34:06.000 Of course, they don't include themselves in the policies that they are implementing on everyone else.

00:34:11.820 And they never have to reap the consequences of their bad ideas.

00:34:15.360 Therefore, they never have to apologize for it.

00:34:17.700 I think one of the best examples of that is Dr. Fauci.

00:34:22.000 He never had to deal with the consequences, especially the long term consequences of implementing and suggesting the policies that he did that led to this social isolation, that led to the masking of children, that led to the shutdowns of schools and the increase in child abuse and all of that stuff that happens when you coop people up in their homes, especially vulnerable children.

00:34:43.320 He didn't have to deal with the consequences and he didn't have to deal with the consequences and he is going to continue to fail upward.

00:34:47.500 Can you talk a little bit more about how you saw this epidemic be exploited specifically during COVID and by people like Dr. Fauci?

00:34:57.360 Yes.

00:34:58.080 Well, as you can see on the cover of my book, Dr. Fauci is, you know, kind of the symbol of the weaponization of loneliness.

00:35:06.800 He's there in a vintage TV wagging his finger at us.

00:35:10.380 And you're exactly right that these elitist overlords, I mean, we can look at the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab and all of these people.

00:35:21.200 John Kerry actually came out.

00:35:23.980 John Kerry actually came out and identified himself among all the other World Economic Forum folks as, you know, kind of the select, you know, who understood what was going on, unlike, you know, the rest of us.

00:35:40.380 And so, yes, there is always, and this has been throughout history, I have a long chapter on utopian, radical utopian revolutions.

00:35:50.620 And I think that that urge, that urge for utopia, perfect kind of mechanically driven world that can be controlled by this vanguard or this elite group of the ruling class is so old.

00:36:10.680 I mean, it goes, it goes way back and they're always pushing.

00:36:15.520 They have the same methods and the same goals, you know, today as they did during the French Revolution.

00:36:22.740 I mean, the methods haven't changed.

00:36:25.380 They didn't call it identity politics back then, but that's exactly what was going on.

00:36:29.740 There were oppressors versus victims.

00:36:31.320 And then political correctness, you didn't say the wrong thing or you'd be hauled out.

00:36:37.180 And then, of course, the mob is big in all of this.

00:36:40.640 You know, there are legions of mobs that are always out there to enforce political correctness and identity politics.

00:36:46.480 So that's what I call those three parts of the machinery of loneliness.

00:36:51.820 And those are the methods that go back to the French Revolution and before, as well as our practice today.

00:37:00.140 And the goals are the same.

00:37:02.860 You've got the same search or urge to create this perfect utopian society in the minds.

00:37:11.340 You know, they're going to remake humanity in their own image. 0.74

00:37:14.180 But Klaus Schwab, by the way, even said that we're going to change what it means to be human.

00:37:18.200 I don't know if you heard that, but he actually said that.

00:37:21.120 And that, of course, goes back to the new Soviet man that was pushed forward in, you know, after Lenin, you know, Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

00:37:31.840 So it's the same methods of control through the machinery of loneliness to make us fearful so that we can form and comply.

00:37:40.360 And the same goals, but three things have changed that we didn't see back then that we see today.

00:37:48.780 First of all, the reach is global today, right?

00:37:52.420 I mean, it's not just confined to a region like Nazi Germany or Russia or China, Mao's Cultural Revolution.

00:38:03.060 It's a global reach.

00:38:06.480 And number two, the technology to do that has skyrocketed.

00:38:12.820 And so, you know, we see through, you know, all of these, not just AI, but the, you know, all the tracking that you feel and you see through social media.

00:38:26.500 And, you know, all of this, the screen time that draws us inward rather than outward to real life, that is also used and manipulated to bring us into conformity and compliance with their agendas.

00:38:44.140 And number three, you don't have one particular dictator anymore.

00:38:48.040 You don't have really a Mao or Stalin or a Hitler or, you know, a Robespierre in the French Revolution.

00:38:54.700 You don't really have one ringleader.

00:38:57.900 You've got what I call the hydra-headed beast that includes big tech and CEOs of the corporate world.

00:39:07.400 You've got, you know, government heads, the World Economic Forum.

00:39:12.320 And it's just hydra-headed.

00:39:15.880 And that's what makes it so challenging and so scary.

00:39:20.660 So those are the things that have changed.

00:39:24.120 And our only real protection, as Václav Havel wrote in his 1978 essay,

00:39:29.980 the power of the powerless is really the hidden sphere of life, private life.

00:39:36.100 We have to protect that at all costs.

00:39:38.820 Our relationship with our faith, our families, our friends, and keep them out of the hands of government control and regulation.

00:39:47.580 I believe that it's our personal relationships that have always been the big prize of tyrants.

00:39:55.020 That's what they're after.

00:39:56.080 They want to control who we talk to, what we say, what we think.

00:40:01.140 And, you know, you can see it take root in so many of these agendas that include this advisory on overcoming our loneliness and social isolation.

00:40:14.060 So it's something we just, I wrote the book so that we could understand these things and spot them.

00:40:21.900 It's the exact opposite.

00:40:36.320 Loneliness, isolation, and this new world, a new human that these elites want to create.

00:40:43.000 It's the exact opposite of how God made us.

00:40:45.940 And to me, like the fundamental disagreement that we really have when it gets down to it is were we created by a creator who created us with a special purpose and special needs in order to function well?

00:41:03.080 Or are we just all overgrown clumps of cells that can be socially engineered by the people in charge that are completely malleable, that can be changed by our values can be changed, our desires can be changed, our goals can be changed by policy via, you know, government overreach.

00:41:24.340 We can be made to be compliant.

00:41:26.320 We can be made to be all the same.

00:41:28.300 We can be made to all just live amongst each other without sorting ourselves out.

00:41:32.940 We can thrive without family, without real friendships.

00:41:36.260 Really, that's what totalitarians think that we are, that we are all just accidental clumps of cells that can be shifted into whatever shape the people in charge want us to.

00:41:48.640 I mean, we certainly saw that, as you have mentioned, over the 20th century.

00:41:51.980 That's why communism fails, because it goes against human nature.

00:41:55.520 It denies the nature that God gave us.

00:41:59.200 Progressives always believe that human beings are just product of nurture, that we're just product of society.

00:42:05.020 We hear that all the time, but really, we have an innate nature.

00:42:08.440 And when it is denied, that's when you get, as you mentioned earlier, that hysteria.

00:42:12.560 That's when you get chaos.

00:42:14.160 That's when you get the desperation and the depression that we feel, because we were not meant to be alone.

00:42:20.520 In the first chapter of the Bible, actually, it's the second chapter of the Bible, we read when God makes Adam the first man, he says, it is not good for man to be alone.

00:42:31.840 And we read that in the very first book of the Bible.

00:42:35.420 So it comes down to the belief.

00:42:37.920 Do you believe that the people in charge are the biggest authority in this universe?

00:42:42.400 Or do you believe that there is a God whose power is supreme over all of us, who tells us who we are?

00:42:47.760 And I know that's not the point of your book, but as a Christian, that's what I think about.

00:42:52.320 It's really, really fundamental.

00:42:54.620 These go down to theological beliefs about who you believe created all of this and what is the purpose of life.

00:43:01.880 These people who are in charge believe that they have the right and the responsibility to define those things on our behalf.

00:43:08.540 And gosh, we have seen over and over again throughout history how poorly, how deadly that is.

00:43:17.780 Oh, absolutely.

00:43:19.460 And, you know, I have epigraphs throughout my book, like in the front of each chapter.

00:43:24.160 But the epigraph for the entire book, coincidentally, Ali, is taken from Genesis 2.18.

00:43:31.060 It is not good for man to be alone.

00:43:33.560 We were created for communion with God and for communion with one another.

00:43:37.820 And if we can't have that, we have no love.

00:43:40.880 There is no love in isolation, in total severe isolation.

00:43:45.640 And we can't connect with one another.

00:43:48.360 And so that's why we are so hardwired to connect with God and with one another, with other human beings.

00:43:57.420 And if we don't have that, we're totally dehumanized.

00:44:02.320 And it's interesting you mentioned that what is going on with these elites who are trying to fight human nature, even though they are just as susceptible to it.

00:44:15.120 Or, I mean, you know, their families, they they you can look at all these different dynasties, really, of these elitist families.

00:44:23.420 And, you know, they appoint like George Soros just appointed his son to take over his so-called open society.

00:44:30.160 You know, they they have a bond, but this is a bond that they would deny the rest of us, I guess, if their agendas were implemented thoroughly.

00:44:41.180 And so really what you see here, going back to the Bible, is the original sin, wanting to be God and to play God, which is what we have in these elites and these tyrants.

00:44:54.100 That's what the totalitarian impulse is all about, is to play God and and to put yourself in the place of God.

00:45:01.800 And that that's what's going on with this. And they harness the conformity impulse in everybody.

00:45:09.580 I mean, we have because we need social connection, we are very susceptible to that conformity impulse.

00:45:17.720 It's very natural for us to shut up about what we believe if we don't have other relationships to fall back on, you know, that allow us to speak openly to others in society.

00:45:30.620 And then that creates a spiral of silence about the truth, really, that that gives tyrants their opportunity to take over.

00:45:43.540 So we have to fight that. We have to understand what's going on.

00:45:47.060 I wrote the book to try to build an awareness of these dynamics so that we don't fall into these traps.

00:45:54.160 Yep. And we don't have time to get into all of this. Such a fascinating conversation.

00:45:58.660 But like you mentioned, we need love. And in isolation, there is no love.

00:46:03.940 And yet we also hear not just from the government, but again, it's just kind of everywhere.

00:46:09.260 Definitely from like the progressive self-help world that I see targeting young women a lot is really we hear that self-love is all you need.

00:46:18.800 All you need is to love yourself and then you'll be happy that everything will fall into place.

00:46:23.280 But gosh, that's just not true. It's just not true.

00:46:26.840 Like the love that you can give yourself is not sufficient for everything that you need.

00:46:31.340 That's, again, kind of this God of self idea that we are completely self-reliant, self-defining, self-sustaining.

00:46:38.840 And we're not. Gosh, there's so many, so many other things that that we could talk about.

00:46:44.840 But so people can read your book and really understand.

00:46:48.500 I mean, you bring in so much history and so many connections to different parts of American society.

00:46:54.100 Can you tell people just a little bit more about your book, where they can get it, all that good stuff?

00:46:57.980 Thank you. Well, it is available online, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads.

00:47:07.100 And, you know, I've written at my blog, StellaMorobito.net.

00:47:14.160 And you can follow me on Twitter at the handle is Stella underscore Morobito.

00:47:19.180 And I write at the Federalist. And but the book is available mostly, I mean, pretty much online, not really in bookstores.

00:47:30.920 But I hope your your listeners and viewers will will take a look.

00:47:37.540 Yes, definitely.

00:47:38.420 I really do.

00:47:39.680 Definitely. Well, thank you so much, Stella. I really appreciate it.

00:47:42.860 And I also encourage everyone to follow your writings at the Federalist, which are always super insightful and interesting.

00:47:48.560 So thank you so much.

00:47:51.200 And thank you, Allie. I really enjoyed it. Talking to you.

00:47:54.200 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 18, 2023

Ep 892 ｜ How to Solve the Loneliness Epidemic ｜ Guest： Stella Morabito

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript