June 7, 2024
An Epidemic of Loneliness in the Age of Boundaries
Social media features a different viral villain every day. If we’re lucky, he or she tells us something about ourselves. In just such a case, a man named Marcus Shepard got more than 12 million views on his post bragging of a breakup with a friend with whom he hadn’t had “meaningful offline contact in almost…
May 13, 2024
Do Mothers Have “Societal Support”? Does It Count if It Comes from Neighbors?
It is an annual tradition, for some reason, for folks on social media to dump all over Mother’s Day. Some on the fringe decide it’s sexist or cisnormative or something to believe only women can be mothers or that mothers are special. The abortion lobby hates the idea that womanhood is associated with motherhood. But last year, I stumbled across an anti-Mother’s…
June 20, 2023
College isn’t just about career or credentials — it’s also about friends, formation, and, if you’re lucky, marriage
A few weeks ago, my college friends and I all got together for the weekend. We are seven guys in our mid-40s who have been friends for about 25 years. We drank beer and flavored seltzer and spoke about marriage, parenthood, artificial intelligence, Moby Dick, Homer, and faith, along with reminiscing about college days. It was a truly glorious weekend, and…
May 4, 2023
The Social Breakdown: The Poverty of Family, Community, and Religious Life in America
On May 4, AEI’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility (COSM) hosted the launch of “The Social Breakdown,” a new research series dedicated to the study of social capital. Event Summary The morning began with a keynote address from the Hudson Institute’s William Schambra, who covered AEI’s long history of studying mediating structures and civil…