What is the way back from our societal atomization?

In the course of a Dennis Prager column on causes of mass shootings (in which he admirably points up how Barack Obama's disdain for the country he used to preside over was on full display recently), he enumerates the basic societal changes that have not only been a precipitating factor in those, but a number of other ills as well:

. . . wouldn't the most productive question [to ask about why the number, by decade, of them has gone from few than 10 before the 1970s to the number we have now] be what, if anything, has changed since the 1960s and '70s? Of course it would. And a great deal has changed. America is much more ethnically diverse, much less religious. Boys have far fewer male role models in their lives. Fewer men marry, and normal boy behavior is largely held in contempt by their feminist teachers, principals and therapists.

And the numbers for each societal change bear him out:

Regarding ethnic diversity, the countries that not only have the fewest mass murders but the lowest homicide rates as well are the least ethnically diverse -- such as Japan and nearly all European countries. So, too, the American states that have homicide rates as low as Western European countries are the least ethnically and racially diverse (the four lowest are New Hampshire, North Dakota, Maine and Idaho). Now, America, being the most ethnically and racially diverse country in the world, could still have low homicide rates if a) Americans were Americanized, but the left has hyphenated -- Balkanized, if you will -- Americans, and b) most black males grew up with fathers.

And

Regarding religiosity, the left welcomes -- indeed, seeks -- the end of Christianity in America (though not of Islam, whose robustness it fosters). Why don't we ask a simple question: What percentage of American murderers attend church each week?

And

Regarding boys' need for fathers, in 2008, then-Sen. Obama told an audience: "Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools; and 20 times more likely to end up in prison."

Yet, the Times has published columns and "studies" showing how relatively unimportant fathers are, and more and more educated women believe this dangerous nonsense.

Then there is marriage: Nearly all men who murder are single. And their number is increasing. 

In a City Journal essay, Kay Hymowitz discusses a study released by the insurance company Cigna and a UN World Happiness Report showing that the US and the West generally, as well as Japan, which is a fairly Westernized Asian nation, are beset by rampant loneliness. The bulk of the essay is an inquiry into why that is so:

Certainly, some voguish explanations for the crisis should raise skepticism: among the recent suspects are favorite villains like social media, technology, discrimination, genetic bad luck, and neoliberalism.

Still, the loneliness thesis taps into a widespread intuition of something true and real and grave. Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of “deaths of despair” suggest a profound, collective discontent. It’s worth mapping out one major cause that is simultaneously so obvious and so uncomfortable that loneliness observers tend to mention it only in passing. I’m talking, of course, about family breakdown. At this point, the consequences of family volatility are an evergreen topic when it comes to children; this remains the subject of countless papers and conferences. Now, we should take account of how deeply the changes in family life of the past 50-odd years are intertwined with the flagging well-being of so many adults and communities.

Parallel with Prager's point much?

She discusses a concept I wasn't previously acquainted with, but which makes a great deal of sense: the Second Demographic Transition:

 (The first transition occurred around the time of the Industrial Revolution, as the high death and birth rates that had been humanity’s default condition since the Neanderthals declined dramatically, leading to rapid population growth.) Mostly associated with the Belgian demographer Ron Lesthaeghe, the SDT (the unfortunately evocative acronym) is a useful framework for understanding the dramatic rupture between the Ozzie and Harriet and Sex and the City eras.

The SDT began emerging in the West after World War II. As societies became richer and goods cheaper and more plentiful, people no longer had to rely on traditional families to afford basic needs like food and shelter. They could look up the Maslovian ladder toward “post-material” goods: self-fulfillment, exotic and erotic experiences, expressive work, education. Values changed to facilitate these goals. People in wealthy countries became more antiauthoritarian, more critical of traditional rules and roles, and more dedicated to individual expression and choice. With the help of the birth-control pill, “non-conventional household formation” (divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, and single parenthood) went from uncommon—for some, even shameful—to mundane. Lesthaeghe predicted that low fertility would also be part of the SDT package, as families grew less central. And low fertility, he suggested, would have thorny repercussions for nation-states: he was one of the first to guess that developed countries would turn to immigrants to restock their aging populations, as native-born young adults found more fulfilling things to do than clean up after babies or cook dinner for sullen adolescents.

The disruption of family life caused by the SDT in the U.S. has been rehearsed thousands of times, including by this writer, but the numbers still startle. In 1950, 20 percent of marriages ended in divorce; today, it’s approximately 40 percent. Four in ten American children are now born to unmarried mothers, up from about 5 percent in 1960. In 1970, 84 percent of U.S. children spent their entire childhoods living with both bio-parents. Today, only half can expect to do the same.

There have been reverberations:

 (The first transition occurred around the time of the Industrial Revolution, as the high death and birth rates that had been humanity’s default condition since the Neanderthals declined dramatically, leading to rapid population growth.) Mostly associated with the Belgian demographer Ron Lesthaeghe, the SDT (the unfortunately evocative acronym) is a useful framework for understanding the dramatic rupture between the Ozzie and Harriet and Sex and the City eras.

The SDT began emerging in the West after World War II. As societies became richer and goods cheaper and more plentiful, people no longer had to rely on traditional families to afford basic needs like food and shelter. They could look up the Maslovian ladder toward “post-material” goods: self-fulfillment, exotic and erotic experiences, expressive work, education. Values changed to facilitate these goals. People in wealthy countries became more antiauthoritarian, more critical of traditional rules and roles, and more dedicated to individual expression and choice. With the help of the birth-control pill, “non-conventional household formation” (divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, and single parenthood) went from uncommon—for some, even shameful—to mundane. Lesthaeghe predicted that low fertility would also be part of the SDT package, as families grew less central. And low fertility, he suggested, would have thorny repercussions for nation-states: he was one of the first to guess that developed countries would turn to immigrants to restock their aging populations, as native-born young adults found more fulfilling things to do than clean up after babies or cook dinner for sullen adolescents.

The disruption of family life caused by the SDT in the U.S. has been rehearsed thousands of times, including by this writer, but the numbers still startle. In 1950, 20 percent of marriages ended in divorce; today, it’s approximately 40 percent. Four in ten American children are now born to unmarried mothers, up from about 5 percent in 1960. In 1970, 84 percent of U.S. children spent their entire childhoods living with both bio-parents. Today, only half can expect to do the same.

The upshot? Millennials and those after them place a higher priority on career than on marriage and family:

The challenge is to find ways to communicate that need to coming generations before they make decisions that will further fragment their lives and communities. So far, that’s not happening. Millennials and their younger brothers and sisters say that they would like to marry and have children, but only 30 percent see a successful marriage as one of the more important things in life. About half shrug off single parenthood as a nonissue; in their view, cohabitation is fundamentally the same as marriage. Though the overall share of American babies born to unmarried mothers has declined a bit in the past few years, the majority of births to millennials are to unmarried women. So far, younger kids—Gen Z, as they are sometimes called—don’t look as though they’re ready to rebel from the nonchalance of their older siblings. In a 2018 survey of attitudes of 10- to 19-year-olds by PerryUndem Research and Communication, three-quarters rated having a successful career as “very important.” Fewer than a third said that marrying or having children mattered that much. Notably, boys and girls had almost identical answers.

Hymowitz's essay, as you can see from these exceprts, is an important deep dive, but she doesn't include any appreciable examination of something that was front and center among Prager's points: religion - specifically of the Judeo-Christian variety.

Given that God designed marriage and family, it only makes sense that home environments that neglect or exclude Him are more likely to see their cohesion fray.

Without the connection of kinship, we assume we can invent ourselves. We chart paths of ambition, achievement and amusement to no discernible end. And "meaning" begins to seem like a meaningless  thing to contemplate. And it's not far down that slope to the question of why it matters that a few dozen people get shot up in a public place. After all, we no longer attach any stigma to forms of self-mutilation such as tattoos and piercings and "gender reassignment" surgery.

All kinds of consequences flow from having no one expecting you to be home for dinner or to be in your own bed when dawn breaks. And, ultimately, there's no reason for that kind of accountability once no one sees that God insists on it.