Shorn of the deepest ties /January 4, 2023 by Nathan Jones “Statism arose as a violent reaction against [a] feeling of atomization. As naturally political and social creatures, people require a thick set of constitutive bonds in order to function as fully formed human beings. Shorn of the deepest ties to family (nuclear as well as extended), place, community, region, religion, and culture, and deeply shaped to believe that these forms of association are limits upon their autonomy, deracinated humans seek belonging and self-definition through the only legitimate form of organization remaining available to them: the state.” — Patrick Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed (2018)