Most social trends aren't what they seem

Most social trends aren't what they seem

We live in a golden age of social trend-spotting. Have you heard of the crisis of democracy, the loneliness epidemic, or the decline of empathy? Public intellectuals, journalists, and politicians often cite broad social trends like these to explain the current state of the world, but many of these trends turn out to be illusory. Take, for example, “crisis of democracy,” the idea that since the early 2010s, the world has experienced democratic ba…