“We have met the enemy and he is us.” So claimed Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly in a well-known poster for the first Earth Day in 1970.

The historically curious may recall that Kelly’s line was itself a turn on Commodore Oliver Perry’s classic dispatch to his commanding officer during the War of 1812. Then the enemy was the British and the conquest was the control of Lake Erie.

Although some like to imagine that our difficulties are caused by some external foe who must be “taken,” many of us realize that we are often our own worst enemies. Trying to find happiness—a persistent theme of my posts—we commonly manufacture difficulties, not just for ourselves but for other people. The problematic “us” Kelly alludes to is both ourselves as millions of individuals and as the collective society that organizes our lives.

Understanding the connection between private life—with all its triumphs and travails—and the conduct of the wider society is the challenge that C. Wright Mills presented to readers in his noted book The Sociological Imagination. It is also the theme of my own recent book Anatomies of Modern Discontent: Visions from the Human Sciences. In that writing, I discuss many classic visions of what’s wrong with modern existence. Let me share a few of those below.

1. The decline of community.

In earlier times, people were held together by facts of geography or local circumstance. People worked, shopped, prayed, and played with familiar others. Many of us who are older can recall a “small-town America,” where people recognized one another and knew details of their lives. Acquaintances—and deep friendships—might last a lifetime.

I won’t romanticize that world. After all, small communities could also be very status-conscious and confining. But clearly, many of us have lost that commitment to neighborliness, local pride, and intergenerational family bonding. Today, few people recognize us as we go about our daily affairs; even fewer “know” us. Public identity is superficial and fragmentary.

Many would say that we now have new “communities,” fostered by social media sites. We belong to specialized groups with whom we work, play, and bond. More than that, we’re stimulated by the prospect of mobility. We like choosing our associates. We’re not stuck with the “same old people.”

Fair enough. However,........

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