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

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

Starting point is 00:00:36 or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Human beings were created to be in community with others. We were created for family, for friendship, for connection with our neighbors, camaraderie with our fellow countrymen, reliance on our fellow church members. This is part of being made in God's image. God, who is in perpetual, eternal community with himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Genesis 218, God says of Adam the first man, it is not good that man should be alone. And so God created a helper, a mate, a wife. And to the two of them, God orders that they be fruitful, multiply to fill the earth. Yet over the past several decades, humans have become more isolated. We've become lonelier, spending more time inside, by ourselves, unmarried, childless,

Starting point is 00:01:28 out of church, separated from community gatherings and activities, and we're paying for it. Despite how insistently we're told that all we need is self-love, we're finding that we're not enough for ourselves. We are not self-sufficient. We're more depressed and more anxious than we've ever been. We need God. We need to derive purpose and love from the one who created us, who knows us and loves us. We need people. Without deep human connection, we grow depressed, anxious, paranoid, lost. The Biden administration has recently identified this problem and has published an 81-page proposal on combating loneliness. However, the proposed solutions don't suggest we need more faith and more stable families, but rather, surprise, surprise, more government control and surveillance.

Starting point is 00:02:18 This is what totalitarianism does. and has always done. It exploits human isolation to create government dependence and grow the state to our peril. With us today is author and senior writer for the federalist, Stella Morabito, whose focus is on propaganda, mob psychology, and the cult mindset. She wrote a book called The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. She gives us a fascinating look into how loneliness has been leveraged throughout history, and is being leveraged in America today to increase the government's interference with our lives. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Alley at checkout.

Starting point is 00:03:03 That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Stella, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Before we get started, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Sure. My background professionally is, you know, I started off with a master's degree in Russian and Soviet history and then went on to serve as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency focused on propaganda and media analysis. And then, you know, later raised my children as a stay-at-home mom for a while, but never lost an interest in this issue that my book is about, the weaponization. of loneliness and actually developed my thoughts a whole lot more while the stay-at-home mom. And then I started working as a senior contributor writing for the Federalist almost 10 years now since 2014. Yes. What originally peaked my interest in talking to you was seeing your book, the weaponization of loneliness. You've obviously had ample material to work with over the past few years with COVID and the restrictions that were put in place there. We saw firsthand how

Starting point is 00:04:20 loneliness was weaponized. But tell us about your book. Why did you decide to write this and how did the background that you just described contribute to this book? Well, I think it's really important that Americans in particular have a very keen understanding of how these dynamics of social isolation work on us. And to understand that social isolation is really the most powerful political weapon and it's been used as a political weapon for, well, throughout modern history especially, but we are hardwired to connect with other people, and that gives us a very primal fear, terror really, of ostracism. And that leads to self-censorship and all kinds of other, you know, manipulations that, you know, in this sort of psychological war to, that push really destructive agendas

Starting point is 00:05:18 forward. 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 including COVID and since COVID can be attributed to Americans' obedience to political correctness, this fear of auscrisism, this fear of loneliness that causes us to shut up and even lie about what we believe. And I think that this having gone on for decades, especially, has brought us to where we are now. And I think it's really important that we, you know, learn about these dynamics, how they work on us, within us, and affect public opinion,

Starting point is 00:05:59 and create an environment that allows really destructive agendas to take root. You know, we've been hearing about this loneliness epidemic for a while. There was that famous book, Bowling, Alone, that we learned that American, are becoming more isolated than we were in decades past when we're 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. And obviously, that has disintegrated, that social fabric has really come apart in the past few decades. Tell us a little bit more about how that has manifested itself or how that has been exploited politically for the purpose of, you know, growing the power of the government and controlling the populace.

Starting point is 00:06:51 Oh, my. Yes, it has been exploited. Well, let me begin by, you mentioned Bowling Alone by Putnam. That book came out a good 50 years after Robert Nizb, a very eminent sociologist, wrote his book, The Quest for Community. And it's very interesting to put those two books side by side, because Nizbet could foresee how this breakdown, and this was like he was writing in 1950s, how this breakdown in social bonds was making us a lot more vulnerable to the totalitarian impulse.

Starting point is 00:07:25 That's not something that Putnam really addressed in his book, but in any event, having noted that, I can tell you right now that I just wrote a three-part series for the Federalist that deals with the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's recent advisory called Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. And of course, we have had a loneliness epidemic in this country that preceded, you know, the headlines preceded COVID by a long, you know, by a long time. We've seen it way before COVID. But COVID just really drove the, you know, the enforced isolation,

Starting point is 00:08:10 really drove home a lot of this, and we could see how it was exploited, you know, keeping us apart from one another. And I think this all ties into propaganda and censorship. And as I just mentioned, that advisory on loneliness and isolation that the Surgeon General just put out. And I believe that a whole lot more attention needs to be paid to that advisory. And you can see my, you can read about it in my three-part series in the Federalists that ran in the past couple weeks. He is calling, this administration is calling for building an entire infrastructure under the pretext of saving us from our loneliness epidemic that would actually invade our private lives, invade the private sphere of life, which is really our only protection

Starting point is 00:09:02 against loneliness and isolation. but it calls for a whole infrastructure, not only a physical infrastructure, but a social infrastructure. It mentions DEI, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion as a part of overcoming this because there are certain privileges that people who are socially connected have that people who aren't socially connected don't have. So you can see this all playing into a sort of, you know, exploitative. of that loneliness epidemic in this advisory. You know, it calls for the medical sector to be brought in to track and monitor our levels of social isolation.

Starting point is 00:09:49 I hope I'm not getting too much in the weeds here, but I think it's really important for Americans to understand how this will affect if it's implemented, how this will affect our private lives. Hey, this is Steve Daste. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos.

Starting point is 00:10:35 If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. This interview will come out a few months actually after your three-part series for The Federalist was published. I do encourage people to still go read it. We will link it in the description of this episode. But can you tell us a little bit more about what the Surgeon General is actually proposing? because I did see him say a few months ago that, you know, we are having an epidemic of loneliness. It's increasing rates of depression and suicide, especially among young people.

Starting point is 00:11:20 I was actually pleasantly surprised to hear him say that. You don't typically hear that kind of thing from the progressive side. During COVID, we kept hearing, oh, we're better together. We're better together as they are pushing social isolation. And so you don't typically hear someone from a non-conservative perspective say, we need community, we really do need in-person interaction. 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. Exactly, Allie. That's exactly what I'm saying. And you hit the nail on the head. This is what's

Starting point is 00:12:02 been going on. I mean, federal government has been, I have to say, responsible for it to a large extent for the loneliness epidemic in our isolation. 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, I mean, you look at urban blight, you look at fatherlessness, the family breakdown, which leads to community breakdown. You look at addictions and, you know, all, you know, abortion and to the point of infanticide. You look at all of these things that break down human bonds. I mean, they all do. And yet they aren't, they aren't, they aren't, they aren't dialing them back. Federal government's policies, these kinds of policies from this particular administration and other administrations like it, have actually made the loneliness epidemic worse.

Starting point is 00:12:54 And they're not dialing back on them. So what is going on? Oh, they're having all of these, as you say, wonderful platitudes about how we need to reach out and they use beautiful language like we need to be kind and respectful. But you have to remember that when they use language, it's really in an Orwellian sense. For example, kindness for them means, you know, pushing for, quote, gender affirmation, right? It means, you know, transitioning kids. It means, you know, so many, it means abortion. It means so many things that break down human bonds. And so when they use words like that, community, kindness, respect.

Starting point is 00:13:38 so on, it's usually in a very, it's become in a very Orwellian sense. Yeah. So we need to be aware that not to be taken in by the language. Yeah. These all, and if you look at what he called the six pillars of overcoming the loneliness epidemic, I mean, the first one is to build the social and physical infrastructure. I mean, the physical infrastructure means addressing social isolation when it comes to Housing, transportation.

Starting point is 00:14:11 I mean, what does this mean? Think about it. Does it mean the 15-minute city? Does it mean, you know, everybody takes public transportation so that we're all, you know, basically alone together, you know, in that kind of metaphorical sense. Does it mean, and then the libraries, you know, that's the whole physical infrastructure, you know, everything that, every place. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:35 And this is in the report, in the advisory, where people can get. gather, all right? 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. It's really a very collectivist, communist view of connection. It's not that we each have individual identities, unique identities, and we interact freely and speak openly to one another. No, I only mentioned the first pillar, which is infrastructure. The second one is policy. And it has to imbue all of the policies, this idea of social connection. And,

Starting point is 00:15:35 And very specifically states that diversity, equity, and inclusion has to be a big part of all of that. So what does that mean? I mean, you wonder, does policy mean that your personal relationships are going to be regulated? How do you spread the wealth of social connection? 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. I mean, just in general, you get, you know, economic education, maybe your dad as a friend who gets you a job. All of these benefits are so-called privileges that might not be available to someone who does not have those social connections.

Starting point is 00:16:19 What does that mean? I mean, it means a, you know, kind of a collectivist view that we're all being pushed into under the pretext. Right. The pretext of overcoming social isolation. And, of course, the other four pillars involve the medical community, all the medical sector to track and monitor. I mean, it uses those words are levels of social isolation. And, of course, big tech, that's the fourth pillar. They've got to, you know, come in on it all and, you know, and be involved in tracking our levels of social isolation.

Starting point is 00:16:58 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. You're going to see all kinds of research grants trying to prove what the government is saying about all of this. And then the sixth one has to do with creating a culture of social connection, which, you know, again, that goes back to your willing, use of terms. You know, we reach out and, you know, everything has to do with pushing us in this direction. And also the advisory also says that we need to, all of us, every single one of us needs to be involved in this. It's kind of a mandatory requirement. Individuals, families, churches. That's the only time they mentioned spirituality, by the way, our churches,

Starting point is 00:17:55 is what they can do to promote the Surgeon General's advisory. 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. 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. For example, when you're talking about changing the physical infrastructure to promote community,

Starting point is 00:18:42 while Democrats have been talking, I mean, Obama tried to do this. They've been talking about getting rid of the suburbs for a long time. Getting rid of single family housing zones is something that we've already kind of seen in California because it's unfair, they say. It creates kinds of disparities. And so they want to ensure diversity. 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

Starting point is 00:19:10 and communities, that say someone grew up in a really difficult part of town, 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. Really, the changing of the suburbs, the changing of the physical infrastructures would make that kind of thing impossible. It would make that kind of mobility impossible. And so they're almost changing the definition of loneliness here. They don't actually mean that they're fighting social isolation. They're talking about fighting separateness. They're like fighting distinctions. They're fighting a world in which there is a suburb and then a bad part of town and then a good

Starting point is 00:19:55 part of town and the inner city. As we've seen in a lot of different progressive cities, they really want the democratic control of those major cities to extend to the rural areas, to extend to the suburbs. 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. 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. They've been trying to do that for a long time in the name of equality and equity.

Starting point is 00:20:48 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. Yes, that's exactly right. that's cover for an agenda that actually goes way back, as you pointed out, Ellie. I mean, you can look at Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union in the 1930s where they had densified housing. I mean, housing was very hard to come by. I mean, you would have people living in one room up to like 15 people, read Orlando Figuist's book, The Whisperors, Private Life in Stalin's Russia to get a really stark picture of how that densified housing created a stitch culture.

Starting point is 00:21:36 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. 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. That's how bad it got. People would preemptively report others just to protect themselves. And that's a form of mass hysterias. We really don't want to go there. But that's what this densified housing that they're proposing often leads to, especially with their intent, what their apparent intent is

Starting point is 00:22:26 to create this kind of over-blowered situation where there is just one central command, one central government, and we lose our fundamental rights to speak openly. I mean, if you look at the First Amendment, this is something I've written about in the Federalists, and I also wrote about in this series recently, if you look at the First Amendment, and I think the founders understood this, it really protects the private sphere of life. And you think about the private sphere of life, that's where human beings derive their power, their real power.

Starting point is 00:23:06 You know, the private sphere of life would be those mediating institutions that serve as buffers between the mass state and the individual. 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. You could call it friendship. And these are the places where you can let your hair down,

Starting point is 00:23:31 where you can fall back on a strong family structure as a support system, even if the whole world is shouting you down. If you have your family to go to, you have that inner strength. You have your faith to go to you. That gives you inner strength. And that is why, for example, the Communist manifesto calls for the abolition of the family. 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. You get influenced by your mother, your father, your generations, your grandparents, and your faith gives you a strong sense of inner strength that can serve as a means of resistance. They know that.

Starting point is 00:24:19 to charity. And so they have to break it down. They've always been pushing to break down the private sphere of life. And getting back to my main point, the First Amendment protects that. Number one, the very first part of it has to do with freedom to think your own thoughts, you know, freedom of religion, freedom of, which also means freedom of conscience, freedom of thought. And then secondly, the freedom to express those thoughts and speech. I mean, if you're not, you can't speak openly to another person, you can't really have relationships. You become isolated. And then number three, you have the right to record those thoughts in whatever media now. I mean, you can do video now back then. It was freedom of called freedom of the press,

Starting point is 00:25:06 but you had the right to record your speech, your thoughts, and, you know, distribute them. And then, of course, the right to your freedom of association. You can pick your own friends. This is not what this advisory is about. It's about kind of regulating friendships when you get right down to it. And then finally, the right to petition your grievances when all of those other rights are being violated. And we see all of that being attacked right now. It's all under assault. 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. This whole thing leads to more isolation, worse than ever.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Right. It's a dystopian. It's really a dystopian model. And again, it goes back. You can go back to the French Revolution looking at the de-Christianization campaign. where they were attacking anybody who was connected with a Catholic church that was not complying with the Jacobin, you know, reign. You can go look at the Bolshevik regime in Russia, where they claimed the private life really was a cauldron of possible counter-revolutionary activity was the way they put it. So they sought to attack the private sphere of life. Look at Mao's cultural revolution.

Starting point is 00:26:43 Look at Hitler's Third Reich. is all about everybody getting behind this mass central state. And that was your first, supposed to be your first loyalty, not to your family or to your faith or anything else. Right. 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, because that's human nature, by the way. People of all races, of all backgrounds, will move when they can, when they have the ability, they will move where they want to move. They will move to a place that is best for them

Starting point is 00:27:29 economically, is best for them safety-wise, within the capacity that they can. That's just how human beings are. Human beings tend to sort themselves out based on similarities. And so they're trying to change that. They're trying to socially engineer our communities, socially engineer our relationships. And when they talk about ensuring that we're extending our knowledge and that we're practicing kindness, what they mean is coerced agreement, 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. We have to have all the same definitions of words. We have to all agree that trans women are women and trans kids' rights or human rights, whatever, whatever it is. That's what they're talking about, as you said, it's propaganda, extending knowledge, bringing together communities.

Starting point is 00:28:27 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. So basically they're saying, we're going to force you guys to be together. We're going to force you guys to agree. And that's how we're going to solve loneliness. And as you said, that's just going to exacerbate the problem because proximity to people does not mean connection. We know that because I'm sure loneliness is still a big problem in these major cities

Starting point is 00:29:00 where everyone is very densely packed. Those people aren't happier than the people living in rural areas where you can't see your neighbor. It's not about that. It's about connection. 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. They don't really talk about the importance of church.

Starting point is 00:29:39 They don't talk about the importance of creating hobbies with like-minded people going outside because none of that helps the government grow. 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,

Starting point is 00:29:56 really the less you need the government. And the less people need the government, the harder it is for the government to have a justification. to grow. And so, yeah, that's what it is. It's not really that the government cares about us. I think that we can look throughout history and see that. They don't really care about our souls and our hearts and our emotional and mental well-being. The government exclusively and unconditionally cares about itself, maintaining itself, growing itself. And this is just another nice sounding strategy for them to do that. And I am afraid

Starting point is 00:30:33 I know that a lot of people will fall into it because it's good propaganda. No one wants to be pro loneliness. And so if you're called, you know, if you're called anti-friendship, anti-unity, of course, it's just another label that they can slap on people who oppose them. Exactly. Exactly. Now, they created the malady and now they're proposing the cure. And this is a typical kind of tyrannical process.

Starting point is 00:31:07 You know, they're really involved in something I call coercive thought reform, which is intended, just as you said, Ellie, to push everybody into a kind of a framework, kind of a hive mind, borg, a 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. And, you know, I'm not going to get into the whole thing with AI and all of that. You know, that's another dimension that we have to deal with. But in general terms, this is all very dehumanizing, and you're exactly right, it uses propaganda. It's effective when it takes a truth that is universal and it kind of distorts it.

Starting point is 00:31:56 For example, you know, yes, we're feeling lonely. and we've had this loneliness epidemic. And just as you said, Allie, people are going to be drawn to this. 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, that they don't really have real friends and so on and so forth. And that is a trap. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:22 We can't fall into that trap. We have to understand the underlying truth of, you know, what we're all talking about. a loneliness epidemic, 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, not this fake community that the left is always talking about, but true community where people actually come together, they care about one another. You saw it during the Hurricane Katrina when communities.

Starting point is 00:33:00 members developed something called the Cajun Navy. And these were just private boat owners who went out there and did the job that the government just really couldn't do. And they rescued hundreds, thousands, I don't know, so many people from the devastation. And, you know, people were on the rooftops and everything. Well, this happened through community volunteerism of the best sort. You're not going to have that anymore if this advisory is implemented. You know, everybody was going to have to first be beholden to the centralized government. By the way, the advisory states that this has to do with every level of government, local, right down to local. So it would pretty much destroy local autonomy. So that's what you, that's, that's where we are. And that's a scary prospect. 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. This is going to connect the whole world.

Starting point is 00:34:17 We're going to be more together and more relational than we've ever been. 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. But the truth is it's done the opposite. It's actually made us more isolated. And that's what I see when I look at these policies. And this is just what progressives do because progressivism is an ideology. And I don't know, maybe it's not even just accurate to say progressivism. Maybe it's all forms of totalitarianism.

Starting point is 00:34:55 But because progressivism today is the dominant totalitarian force in our nation, they don't understand human nature. They don't understand human nature. And Thomas Sol has written about this in Quest for Cosmic Justice, how these forces from the top down believe that they can socially engineer societies. It is a communistic idea, as you pointed out, to make everything exactly equal, to make sure that there are zero disparities. Of course, they don't include themselves in the policies that they are implementing on everyone else. And they never have to reap the consequences of their bad ideas.

Starting point is 00:35:34 Therefore, they never have to apologize for it. I think one of the best examples of that is Dr. Fauci. 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 the 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. He didn't have to deal with the consequences and he is going to continue to fail upward. Can you talk a little bit more about how you saw this epidemic be exploited specifically during COVID and by people like Dr. Fauci? Yes. 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. He's there in a vintage TV wagging his finger at us. 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, John Kerry, actually came out.

Starting point is 00:36:42 John Kerry actually came out and identified himself among all the other World Economic Forum folks as, you know, kind of the select, the, you know, who understood what was going on unlike, you know, the rest of us. And so, yes, there is always, and this has been throughout history, I have a long chapter on, Utopian, radical utopian revolutions. And I think that that urge, that's 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. I mean, it goes, it goes way back. And they're always pushing, they have the same methods and the same goals today as they did during the French revolution. I mean, the methods haven't changed. They didn't call it identity politics back then, but that's exactly what was going on. There were oppressors versus victims. And then political

Starting point is 00:37:51 correctness, you didn't say the wrong thing or you'd be hauled out. And then, of course, the mob is big in all of this. There are legions of mobs that are always out there to enforce political correctness and identity politics. So that's what I call those three parts of the machinery of loneliness. And those are the methods that go back to the French Revolution and before, as well as our practice today. And the goals are the same. You've got the same search or urge to create this perfect utopian society in the minds. You know, they're going to remake humanity in their own damaged about Klaus Schwab, by the way, even said that. We're going to change what it means to be human. I don't know if you heard that, but he actually said that. And that, of course, goes back to the new

Starting point is 00:38:41 Soviet man that was pushed forward in, you know, after Lenin, you know, Lenin's Bolshevik revolution in Russia. So it's the same methods of control through the machinery of loneliness to make us fearful some that we can form and comply and the same goals. But three things. things have changed that we didn't see back then that we see today. First of all, the reach is global today, right? I mean, it's not just confined to a region like Nazi Germany or Russia or China, Mao's cultural revolution. It's a global reach. And number two, the technology to do that has skyrocketed. 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 and, you know,

Starting point is 00:39:47 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. And number three, you don't have one particular dictator anymore. You don't have really a Mao or Stalin or Hitler or, you know, Robespierre in the French Revolution. You don't really have one ringleader. You've got what I call a hydraheaded beast that includes big tech and, and it's a, CEOs of the corporate world, you've got, you know, government heads, the world economic forum.

Starting point is 00:40:32 It's just hydraheaded. And that's what makes it so challenging and so scary. So those are the things that have changed and are only real protection, as Votslaville wrote in his 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, is really the hidden sphere of life, private life, we have to protect that at all costs, our relationship with our faith, our families, our friends, and keep them out of the hands of government control and regulation. I believe that it's our personal relationships that have always been the big prize of tyrants. That's what they're after.

Starting point is 00:41:14 They want to control who we talk to, what we say, what we think. and, you know, you can see it and take root in so many of these agendas that include this advisory on overcoming our loneliness and in social isolation. So it's something we just, I wrote the book so that we could understand these things and spot them. It's the exact opposite, loneliness, isolation, and this new world, a new human that these elites want to. to create, it's the exact opposite of how God made us. 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, or are we just all overgrown clumps of cells that can be socially engineered by the people in charge that are completely

Starting point is 00:42:30 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. We can be made to be compliant. We can be made to be all the same. We can be made to all just live amongst each other without sorting ourselves out. We can thrive without family, without real friendships. Really, that's what totalitarians think that we are, that we all are all just accidental clumps of cells that can be shifted into whatever shape the people in charge want us to. I mean, we certainly saw that, as you have mentioned, over the 20th century. That's why communism fails because it goes against human nature. It denies the nature that God gave us. Progressives always believe that human beings are just product

Starting point is 00:43:20 of nurture, that were just product of society. We hear that all the time, but really we have an innate nature. And when it is denied, that's when you get, as you mentioned earlier, that hysteria. That's when you get chaos. That's when you get the desperation and the depression that we feel because we were not meant to be alone in the first chapter of the Bible. Actually, it's a 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. And we read that in the very first book of the Bible. So it comes down to the belief, do you believe that the people in charge are the biggest authority in this universe, or do you believe that there is a God whose power is supreme over all of us who tells us

Starting point is 00:44:05 who we are? And I know that's not the point of your book, but like as a Christian, that's what I think about. It's really, really fundamental. Like these go down to theological beliefs about like who you believe created all of this and what is the purpose of life. These people who are in charge, believe that they have the right and the responsibility to define those things on our behalf. And gosh, we have seen over and over again throughout history how poorly, how deadly that is. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I have epigraphs throughout my book, like in the front of each chapter. But the epigraph for the entire book, coincidentally, Ali, is taken from Genesis 218, it is not good for man to be alone. We were created for communion with God and for communion

Starting point is 00:44:55 with one another. And if we can't have that, we have no love. There is no love in isolation, in total severe isolation. And we can't connect with one another. And so that's why we are so hardwired to connect with God and with one another, with other human beings. And if we don't have that were totally dehumanized. 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. I mean, you know, their families, they, they, you can look at all these different dynasties, really, of these elitist families. And, you know, they appoint, like George Soros just appointed his son to take over his so-called open society. You know, they have a bond,

Starting point is 00:45:51 but this is a bond that they would deny the rest of us, I guess, if their agendas were implemented thoroughly. 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. that's what the totalitarian impulse is all about is to play God and to put yourself in the place of God. And that's what's going on with this. And they harness the conformity impulse in everybody. I mean, because we need social connection, we are very susceptible to that conformity impulse. It's very natural for us to shut up about what we believe if we don't have a other relationships to fall back on, you know, that allow us to speak openly to others in society.

Starting point is 00:46:49 And then that creates a spiral of silence about the truth, really, that gives tyrants their opportunity to take over. So we have to fight that. We have to understand what's going on. I wrote the book to try to build an awareness of these dynamics so that we don't fall into these traps. Yep. And we don't have time to get into all of this. It's such a fascinating conversation, but like you mentioned, we need love. And in isolation, there is no love. And yet we also hear,

Starting point is 00:47:23 not just from the government, but again, it's just kind of everywhere. 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. All you need is to love yourself. And then you'll be happy that everything will fall into place, but gosh, that's just not true. It's just not true. Like the love that you can give yourself is not sufficient for everything that you need. That's, again, kind of this God of self-reliant, self-defining, self-sustaining, and we're not. Gosh, there's so many, so many other things that we could talk about. But so people can read your book and really understand, I mean, you bring in so much history and so many connections to different parts.

Starting point is 00:48:11 of American society. Can you tell people just a little bit more about your book where they can get all that good stuff? Thank you. Well, it is available online. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads. And, you know, I've written at my blog, Stella Moribito.net.

Starting point is 00:48:32 And you can follow me on Twitter. Handel is Stella underscore Morbito. and I write at the Federalist. But the book is available mostly, I mean, pretty much online, not really in bookstores. But I hope your listeners and viewers will take a look. Yes, definitely. I really do. Definitely.

Starting point is 00:48:59 Well, thank you so much, Stella. I really appreciate it. And I also encourage everyone to follow your writings at the Federal List, which are always super insightful and interesting. So thank you so much. And thank you, Alley. I really enjoyed it talking to you. Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Day.

Starting point is 00:49:21 If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave,

Starting point is 00:49:43 even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

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

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.