{"id":1997842,"date":"2023-08-11T13:27:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T17:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-hillary-clinton-is-a-big-fan-of-the-weaponization-of-loneliness\/"},"modified":"2023-08-11T13:29:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T17:29:28","slug":"yes-hillary-clinton-is-a-big-fan-of-the-weaponization-of-loneliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-hillary-clinton-is-a-big-fan-of-the-weaponization-of-loneliness\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillary Clinton supports the use of loneliness as a weapon."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fyes-hillary-clinton-is-a-big-fan-of-the-weaponization-of-loneliness%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1997842&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Hillary Clinton\u2019s recent article at <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2023\/08\/hillary-clinton-essay-loneliness-epidemic\/674921\/\">The Atlantic<\/a> <\/em>curiously bears exactly the same\u200b title as\u200b my own recent book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Weaponization-Loneliness-Tyrants-Isolation-Silence\/dp\/1637582021\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2EHU2Z4PTOK5L&#038;keywords=weaponization+of+loneliness&#038;qid=1691414080&#038;sprefix=%2Caps%2C213&#038;sr=8-1\">The Weaponization of Loneliness<\/a>.\u201d \u2064Her \u200bpiece has generated much criticism from conservatives\u2014and deservedly so. But\u2064 what neither Clinton nor her critics explain is what it actually means to weaponize loneliness and\u200c how such a process operates within us as well as in society at large.<\/p>\n<p>Those who critique Clinton\u2019s article tend to\u2063 focus almost \u2063entirely \u2062on her demonization of her political opponents. This is \u2064completely understandable. Indeed, \u200dshe pulls out all her usual suspects, including everything \u201cright-wing,\u201d white men, \u201cincels,\u201d Rush Limbaugh, \u2062MAGA, QAnon, Steve Bannon, parents concerned about the indoctrination of their young\u2064 children at school, and \u200cmore.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1798647802\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5358e79a577fc2dcafa535a6e3be7af7 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-5358e79a577fc2dcafa535a6e3be7af7\"><\/div>\n<p>In addition, Hillary resurrects \u200bher old theme \u200cof a \u201cvast right-wing conspiracy\u201d to claim that\u200c those\u200d responsible for our crisis of loneliness have created \u200dand exploited a \u2064growing sense of alienation through \u201cright-wing propaganda and misinformation, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-twitter-executives-account-for-censorship-actions-before-house-republicans\/\" title=\"Former Twitter Executives Account For Censorship Actions Before House Republicans\">malign foreign interference<\/a> in\u200c our\u2064 elections, and the vociferous \u200dbacklash against \u2064social progress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She uses \u2063smears like \u201calt-right\u201d and \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d dozens of\u2064 times throughout the piece.\u200b Ironically, her\u2062 language is precisely that of\u2062 suppression and isolation. Such demonization\u200b is a staple of\u200b those who want to shut down conversation, isolate\u200d those who disagree, and enforce compliance with increasingly\u2064 bizarre demands.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, back \u200don\u2062 Planet \u200cEarth, Americans\u2062 are definitely\u200c suffering from \u200can epidemic of \u2062loneliness and social isolation. This is not\u200c news. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-hillary-clinton-is-a-big-fan-of-the-weaponization-of-loneliness\/\" title=\"Hillary Clinton supports the use of loneliness as a weapon.\">related tragedies\u2014including \u200cspikes<\/a> in deaths of despair and\u2063 the adverse effects of social isolation on\u200c both mental and physical health\u2014have \u2063been in the headlines for decades. What could be a root cause of this dreadful fracturing?<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A \u2018Machinery \u2063of Loneliness\u2019 Drives This \u2062Crisis<\/h2>\n<p>Clinton\u2019s essay is \u200dplainly intended \u2062to \u2062promote Surgeon General\u200d Vivek Murthy\u2019s recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf\">81-page advisory<\/a> titled \u201cOur Epidemic of \u200dLoneliness and Social \u200bIsolation.\u201d She presents \u2062her 1996 treatise on soft collectivism, \u201cIt Takes a Village,\u201d as a forerunner to the\u2062 advisory.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3a3433d70e2fd9aa11700877f3a20d73 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3a3433d70e2fd9aa11700877f3a20d73\"><\/div>\n<p>Murthy\u2019s advisory should alarm all Americans. \u2063It declares\u2064 our loneliness epidemic to be a public health crisis that requires<em> urgent\u2064 government intervention<\/em>. \u2063But it \u2062can just \u200beasily serve\u200d as a blueprint\u200c for an even more massive government <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/07\/28\/beware-of-bureaucrats-wanting-to-be-your-bff\/\">invasion of the private\u200d sphere<\/a> \u2064of life, as \u200dI explained in a\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/05\/30\/to-address-the-loneliness-epidemic-the-feds-want-to-control-your-town-and-friends\/\">three<\/a>\u2013<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/05\/31\/federal-loneliness-advisory-sketches-blueprint-for-regulating-everyones-private-life\/\">part<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/06\/05\/federal-loneliness-advisory-threatens-to-destroy-freedom-by-occupying-private-life\/\">series<\/a> here at The Federalist.<\/p>\n<p>The initiative must be resisted at \u200ball\u200c costs. To understand why, we first ought to consider Hannah Arendt\u2019s\u2064 epic book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Origins-Totalitarianism-HANNAH-ARENDT\/dp\/0241316758\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JH56Y0SZTWYF&#038;keywords=origins+of+totalitarianism+hannah+arendt&#038;qid=1691526835&#038;sprefix=origins+of+totalitarian%2Caps%2C620&#038;sr=8-1\">The Origins of \u200bTotalitarianism<\/a>.\u201d\u200c She noted that people cannot \u2064be fully terrorized\u2062 into compliance\u2063 unless they are first isolated\u200c from one another. \u200c\u201cTherefore,\u201d Arendt wrote, \u201cone of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bringing about that isolation involves what I call a \u201cmachinery \u200bof loneliness.\u201d It\u2019s not a new process. It goes back through modern history, at least since the \u2062French Revolution. We must become aware of the process if \u200dwe hope to \u200drein it \u2063in and revive civil society\u2063 with institutions worthy\u2064 of trust.<\/p>\n<p>There are \u200dthree main components of the machinery of loneliness: \u200didentity politics, political correctness, \u200dand mob\u2062 agitation. Identity politics strips us of our individuality, and divides us into camps\u200d sorted by various identities of \u201coppressor\u201d or \u201cvictim.\u201d Political\u2064 correctness controls our speech\u2062 by inducing \u200cus to\u2064 self-censor \u2062under threat of\u200c ostracism. Mobs take different forms, but they serve to enforce all of the\u2063 above\u200d while \u2063cultivating\u2063 conformity,\u200b compliance, and social distrust.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2d4a1509217a0a136b9ed13315390dd2 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2d4a1509217a0a136b9ed13315390dd2\"><\/div>\n<p>The\u2063 machinery is further fueled in other \u2063ways \u2062to threaten\u200d people with isolation if they don\u2019t conform. These include propaganda, censorship, the criminalization of comedy, and snitch culture. New technologies \u200bplay a role too.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Harnessing the Terror of Social \u200bRejection<\/h2>\n<p>The\u200b hard-wired human\u2064 terror of social rejection is easily weaponized \u2063under such conditions. This fear is the spark that ignites \u200bthe fuel \u2062of our conformity \u2062impulse and keeps the \u2064machine running. We get drawn into\u200d that \u200cmatrix whenever we sense we must comply \u200cin order to gain social acceptance, which is a\u200c primal human need.<\/p>\n<p>Those\u2063 with a totalitarian impulse for \u2064social\u2064 engineering are deeply invested in keeping this machinery \u2063in motion. Attacks \u200con free speech are absolutely essential to\u2064 this process. If we can\u2019t speak openly \u2063to \u2063one another, we cannot organically develop bonds of trust. And if we can\u2019t develop trusting relationships\u2014whether as family, as \u200dchildren \u2064of\u2064 God, or as friends and cheerful neighbors\u2014then we\u2019ve gone\u200d a long way towards a Stockholm \u200bSyndrome-like dependence upon our government captors.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, \u200dthis machinery seems to have gone hand-in-hand with policies that\u2062 promote alienation, despair, and loneliness. For example, we \u2064have a massive welfare state that grows urban\u2062 blight, family breakdown, abject \u2064dependency, and community\u2062 breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2063 see little done to address \u2064the opioid epidemic and the homelessness and crime that goes with it. We now see \u200delites invested in \u200binfanticidal abortion, transing children, and abolishing the rights of parents to bring up their \u2063own children. All serve to isolate \u2062us,\u2062 to destabilize healthy \u2062human relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Recall also how Covid mandates \u2064literally enforced our isolation\u2063 through face coverings, lockdowns, threats to take the\u200b untested injection or lose your job, and brutal\u2064 separation \u2062from our dying loved ones. <\/p>\n<p>Perhaps \u200bmost menacing today are the calls for censorship under \u2062the pretext of protecting us from\u200b misinformation. Any government that monitors and punishes the open conversations of its\u200b citizens is \u2063absolutely isolating them against one another.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Government Disruption of Healthy Relationships<\/h2>\n<p>The weaponization of loneliness is baked <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/06\/05\/federal-loneliness-advisory-threatens-to-destroy-freedom-by-occupying-private-life\/\">into Murthy\u2019s advisory<\/a> because it enforces much of\u200d the above \u200bwith programs that disrupt the development of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-hillary-clinton-knows-a-lot-about-the-weaponization-of-loneliness\/\" title=\"Hillary Clinton is well-versed in the concept of using loneliness as a weapon.\">healthy human relationships<\/a>. They include identity \u200cpolitics, \u2064surveillance, \u200bpropaganda,\u200d and the censorship required by the DEI\u200d regime of \u201cdiversity, equity, and inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So perhaps\u200c it\u2019s not surprising that \u200dpromoters of government bureaucracy \u2063like \u200cClinton and Murthy have\u2064 suddenly developed a ravenous \u2062interest in \u201ccuring\u201d us of the loneliness \u200cthat many of their pet policies cultivated in the first \u200bplace.<\/p>\n<p>Be further warned \u2063that the scope of \u200bthis project is vast, and now there\u2019s\u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisMurphyCT\/status\/1681350024200962053\">legislation<\/a> introduced to enact it all. As with all\u2062 collectivist schemes, we\u2064 should \u200dbe able to see that it\u200b amounts to a social \u200bcredit system under the usual\u2063 guise of compassion. Worse,\u200b it \u200cwill lead us all\u200c into far \u200d <em>more<\/em> atomization, not less.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, Hillary\u2019s utopian village relies on the authority and force of the federal bureaucracy and the vilification\u2064 of competing views. Sadly, \u201cThe Weaponization of Loneliness\u201d as a headline over Clinton\u2019s Atlantic article appears more like a statement of her intent, not the warning I express \u200din my book\u2019s subtitle, \u201cHow\u2064 Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and \u200dConquer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the\u200b best thing government actors can do\u2014but won\u2019t\u2014is\u200b <em>get out of the way<\/em>. If they really wanted to help, they would encourage families and institutions of faith and \u2063friendship to develop \u2064organically,\u200b without constant threats of demonization, and the loneliness that\u2063 goes\u2062 with them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-69b319785421f72d55cdb42dd2c34631 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-69b319785421f72d55cdb42dd2c34631\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hillary Clinton\u2019s article in The Atlantic shares the same title as my book, &#8220;The Weaponization of Loneliness.&#8221; It has faced criticism from conservatives, rightfully so. However, neither Clinton nor her critics clarify the meaning or process of weaponizing loneliness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":1997843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1997842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1997842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1997843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1997842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1997842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1997842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}