We Don’t Want NO Institutions; We Want GOOD Institutions

The erosion of legitimate authority has led to disorder, but restoration can still prevail.

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Many Americans seem to feel that we are living in the worst possible timeline. In How to Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi asserts that America has “stage four” racism—drawing a parallel to stage four cancer, the most critical and life-threatening stage. Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz spoke for millions of highly online Americans when she lamented that “we’re living in a late stage capitalist hellscape during an ongoing deadly pandemic w[ith] record wealth inequality, no social safety net/job security, as climate change cooks the world.” Meanwhile, young people are experiencing record levels of depression and anxiety, which many commentators attribute to the harsh realities of the modern world.

But this pervasive sense of doom-and-gloom doesn’t pass the smell test. While the issues these commentators highlight are real, they are objectively less dire than those faced during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, or the poverty, famine, and disease that plagued most of our ancestors throughout human history.

So what is really going on?