A social manifesto

Note: In the true spirit of Blygger, I’m starting a post about something that’s been on my mind and I’m going to try to edit this and develop it and turn it into some kind of full manifesto at some point. I’ll pin it at certain points to preserve how it develops. But let’s just get a few ideas down and I’ll come back to this.

I have moved back to a small town, the kind where you're very likely to run into people you've known for a very long time almost anywhere you go. I'm part of a little social group here that's stuck together for 30 years now, but people hardly ever get together. Maybe a couple times a year. Also, the group hasn't changed at all. No one is bringing new people in, other than spouses. And the group doesn't really overlap with other groups. Which is strange.

But the strangest thing I've noticed is that no one really knows how to be at gatherings any longer.

There's no norm here of, like, brining a bottle of wine when you come to someone's house. There's no norm of circulating with strangers. There's definitely no norm of dressing well. Folks don't even really seem to know why they would want to get together. 

Thesis: The decline of IRL activity is both a cause and a symptom of the decay of the US

Of course if you buy this, you have to buy that the US is in cultural decline. I resisted this for a while but I've become convinced that it is.

If people get together more, that rebuilds the culture. The culture suffers when people aren't interacting in person. The more they do, the stronger it is.

What especially makes it stronger is if people encounter people who aren't in their natural group, age, social class, area of interest. That really builds connction.

• Social collisions are good.
• Something about the internet has hollowed out third-spaces. 

Argument: People should really try to get people together

Every party is a little bit of rebuilding of society. It's a pull request on culture.

People who think the culture is suffering should take leadership and do work to get people together. Off their phones and in person again.

• Corollary: People should not flake when they commit to plans. 

Argument: It's good for people to drop by and call out of the blue

The fact that we worry as much as we do about imposing or interrupting people is the sign of a fragile culture. Folks should have a coterie of people among whom dropping by is very normal. 

And, yes, my social life here in Southeast Kansas is terrible and I have no earthly idea what to do about it. 

Argument: Seriously, shut up about dating.

This discussion always comes back to dating and coupling. 

Dating is downstream from a good social system, though. Dating is largely the problem for a lot of people now. People don't mix enough. Dating and marriage should be an epiphenomena of people knowing lots of people and seeing lots of people regularly.

If you read old books about England in its glory days, everyone is moving through all these institutions. The church. Dances. Small dinners. There's so many social events going on. You are sure to see people again and again.

This makes for a much stronger society. If we can get something like that in place then marriage is more likely to work itself out.

• On the other hand. Today, lots of people get into a couple and drop out of life. They have their person and it wrecks there motivation to mix up with the world any longer. This is no good. 
• But people need more ways and institutions to mix up in. The choices today are either hosting a party yourself, going to a bar, going to church or playing sports. Each of these shuts out a lot of people. In fact, I think there are a fair number of folks who wouldn't much like any of them.
• Being social is good even if you never find a partner. Marriage is a good side effect of a healthy society, but it's not the only one. 

Argument: A new social etiquette is needed, but one that makes getting together easier, more legible, not harder. 

Rules can be great. Rules can make it easier to have a good time. I think the trouble with the old social rules is that they just had too much technical debt. The question now is: How do we go about writing new, helpful social rules? The kind that signal the elevation of different events and communicate to people what the events are for?

• Because it's true there has to be a reason. Even if it's implicit.

Argument: Society should be an obligation

This is the hardest one, but people should feel to some degree like they have to mix it up with their neighbors to some extent, like if they don't show their face on occassion there will be bad consequences. I don't know how to get there, but it would be a better world if we did. 

—Brady Dale
V.3: October 19, 2026 — just a few more grafs. V.2: October 13, 2026. V.1: October 1, 2026