We are all wandering through a difficult time in history. War in Ukraine, inflation, shootings in Uvalde & Highland Park, political division, gun violence in our cities and bitter disagreement on the issue of abortion. Meanwhile, ordinary people are trying to find meaning in the turmoil; trying to sort it all out. Like Alexander Papaderous hopelessly trying to put the mirror pieces back together.

It’s one of the reasons why I wrote Why We Lost Faith in Our Institutions and Each Other last month. Author David Brooks calls this loss of faith “the great disembedding.” We once embraced tight communities, and hierarchical, human organizations with prescribed social norms. You know, those core institutions made America the greatest place in earth?

Our core institutions have value, even if all institutions are flawed. For all their imperfections, core institutions are the best way to transfer goodness to future generations.

Instead, we now embrace a hyper-individualistic way of life. A society almost totally devoid of social, emotional or physical contact....