Breaking Down the Social Bonds By James Reed

     Here is an article that is saying some of the dreaded apocalyptic things that characters at this most loved site regularly say, usually with a half empty glass of some alcoholic beverage close by to dull the pain. The boundaries that once held society together, says Professor Frank Furedi, are breaking down (or being broken) and disaster awaits:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8537643/Boundaries-separating-adults-children-men-women-humans-animals-eroded.html

“Teaching children to ‘know their boundaries’ is a vital part of their education. This is because throughout the history of mankind, boundaries have played a key role in communities making moral distinctions between right and wrong. But increasingly today, those distinctions have become blurred. It is not merely the boundaries that divide nations that are under attack, with borders being weakened as politicians try to create super-states. The boundaries that separate adults from children, men from women, humans from animals and private from public lives are also being eroded. As a result, I fear that the bonds that hold society together are breaking. This, in turn, leads to another destructive influence – the fact that we are living in an age of non-judgmentalism. Indeed, there is a reason why we use the phrase ‘crossing the line’ – it signals that someone has violated society’s accepted moral code. It’s no wonder some politicians hate boundaries. Jean-Claude Juncker, former President of the European Commission – that behemoth which brought about the abolition of many of the EU’s internal frontiers through the Schengen Agreement – has described borders as ‘the worst invention ever made by politicians’. The effect of such a mindset that considers national borders as artificial, exclusionary, unjust or anti-human has been a disaster. By not drawing lines between nation states, how can we make important distinctions between different people? For borders are not just physical boundaries. Removing them leads to a state of mind that ignores the history of human development during which walls and borders were constructed to create security and peace. Now, however, national sovereignty is often belittled as an irrelevance in a globalised world. But without symbolic borders, people lose a large part of their national identity. The result? A cultural crisis.”

     Crisis indeed; we have multiple crises happening all over the place, much like multiple out of control bushfire. This extract is from Why Borders Matter: Why Humanity Must Relearn The Art Of Drawing Boundaries, by Frank Furedi, published by Taylor & Francis, and it is about time someone from the mainstream said this.
  https://www.amazon.com/Why-Borders-Matter-Frank-Furedi/dp/0367416824

     And, it is good to see some of the things we Cassandras have been saving for decades, finally getting an academic treatment in the 11th hour.