A Wide-ranging Conversation about Social Isolation with Bill Walton and Mark Tapscott

September 2, 2023 | Books, Community, Conformity, Education, Family, Freedom of Association, Friendship, Language, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Religion, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

There continues to be substantial interest in the phenomenon I discuss in my book The Weaponization of Loneliness. (Even Hillary Clinton seems very interested!)

One of the most comprehensive interviews I’ve done on the book is the one below hosted by Bill Walton on his show with Epoch Times editor Mark Tapscott and me delving into the topic.

I love doing one-on-one interviews, but having someone else’s voice and perspective can really help with a deep dive into the material. Mark is an amazing thinker and observer who touches on a lot of great points in this interview. Bill Walton opens by correctly noting that the surgeon general’s advisory on loneliness is (as I’ve written) just another excuse for government intrusion into the private sphere of life. This interview lasts about an hour, but we cover a lot of ground, so if you’re interested in the topic, please give it a listen (and subscribe to the amazing Bill Walton Show while you’re at it!)

The Exploitation – and Weaponization – of Loneliness: Now the Feds say they plan to “solve” our Loneliness Epidemic

July 31, 2023 | Books, Brainwashing, Bureaucracy, Community, Conformity, Culture, Freedom of Association, Friendship, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Jan Jekielek for his Epoch Times program “American Thought Leaders.”  Epoch Times posted it on Twitter and here, along with a transcript: Stella Morabito: Technocratic Totalitarianism, the Impulse to Conform, and Astroturfed Mobs versus Organic Protest

You can view the preview here:

Jan and I talked at length about the subject of my book, The Weaponization of Loneliness.  We covered a lot of ground on the human fear of social rejection and how it causes people to shut up –and even lie — about what they believe. The consequences are massive because mass self-censorship always gives a lot of oxygen to destructive agendas.  What are the dynamics involved in that? We discussed them in the context of conformity impulse, political correctness, identity politics, public opinion polling, mob formation, and how power elites build the illusion of consensus, even when there is no consensus.

Ultimately, this is all ramping up to be a war on the private sphere of life: family, faith, true community, and friendship. Those are the only institutions that give us the strength to resist totalitarian designs.

This is evident now that Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) recently introduced legislation called “The National Strategy for Social Connection Act.”  The bill is a follow up to the surgeon general’s advisory on “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation.” It’s ironic because government policies–particularly those that promote family breakdown, addiction, urban blight, dependency, and more–are largely responsible for the loneliness epidemic in the first place! As I wrote in the Federalist, both the advisory and the legislation read like a blueprint for government takeover of the private sphere of life.  My latest article on that is here:  “Beware of Bureaucrats Wanting to be your BFF.”  

On the Never-Ending High-Tech Lynching of Justice Thomas

May 12, 2023 | Family, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Friendship, Isolation, Media, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

Over the past 32 years, the anti-freedom brigade in Congress and their allies in the propaganda media have waged a constant war against Justice Clarence Thomas. Clearly, he stands in the way of their agenda to un-do the Constitution, which is why their smears are all discredited and steeped in pure animus. In this post, I want to offer two resources for understanding what’s going on. The first is the phenomenal documentary “Created Equal: Justice Thomas in his Own Words.” Since the propaganda media won’t allow us to see the real man, I hope you will watch this spellbinding film. Here’s the trailer:

Indeed, as Justice Thomas, said, “We knew exactly what was going on: ‘This is the wrong black guy. He has to be destroyed.'”

The current Supreme Court is all that stands in the way of the Left’s quest for total control of every branch of government. They find Justice Thomas a threat because he is so honorable and so courageous a defender of the Constitution. And, of course, because he’s black. if people were allowed to see the man as he really is, he would be admired. So it shouldn’t surprise us that the demonization campaign against Justice Thomas has ramped up — along with an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, and other forms of harassment outside the homes of members of the Court who dare to defend the Constitution.

Secondly, there is a new and insidious aspect to the current attacks on Justice Thomas, which I wrote about at American Greatness. In my article titled “Targeting Thomas,” I discuss how the manufactured scandal against Justice Thomas and his family accepting hospitality from long-time friends reflects a growing war on friendship. This has never been an issue before, but as I’ll write in the future, the Mass State is preparing to invade private life as never before. I’ll have more on that later. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from my American Greatness article:

Ultimately, this is a much bigger war than we realize. Demonization of the Thomases is a high-profile battle, but it reflects a deeper conflict—a war against friendship and against independent thought. It is actually a prelude to atomizing all of us, and threatening us with social isolation if we don’t adopt the Left’s anti-thought and dehumanizing agendas. 

New Interview on The Weaponization of Loneliness — with Bill Walton

May 10, 2023 | Books, Conformity, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Friendship, History, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I love The Bill Walton Show. He and his wife Sarah are so insightful and interesting. They keep important conversations going, bringing light into the chaos of our times. I recommend you subscribe to Bill’s Youtube channel if you’re looking for in-depth discussions of the most critical issues of the day. Bill has interviewed many prominent thinkers, including George Gilder, Naomi Wolf, Arthur Laffer, James Lindsay, and Winsome Sears–to name a very few.

So I was honored to return to Bill’s show, this time for an in-depth conversation about my book The Weaponization of Loneliness. You can watch the discussion below:

We talked about the uses of isolation as a political weapon today, as well as throughout modern history. I’m actually amazed at the many points we covered in one short hour, though there was a lot more we could have said on this topic. My hope is that more Americans become conversant with the dynamics that lead to our self-censorship so that we can overcome that fear of ostracism and start speaking out. Because self-censorship gives a lot of oxygen to destructive agendas. Worse, it opens the door wide for far more punitive forms of top-down censorship.

Bill and I ended on a hopeful note. There is so much even one person can do to overcome the darkness and chaos that surrounds us today. Just one honest conversation with another person can open the door to new ideas and influences that that strengthen civil society. This causes the sort of ripple effect of freedom that tyrants always seek to squash through censorship. We talked about the revival of beauty in the public square. And the revival of comedy! We talked about my book club project on the topic of the Weaponization of Loneliness, and we discussed all of the parallel polises springing up. Please give our conversation a look and a listen! And please subscribe to Bill Walton’s wonderful podcast!

How the Metaverse Would Serve to Atomize and Dehumanize Us

February 1, 2023 | Books, Community, Culture, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, History, Isolation, Loneliness, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I was honored to speak to the great Laura Ingraham recently about my book The Weaponization of Loneliness. She focused on a chilling development at the World Economic Forum in Davos. One of the WEF speakers promoted everyone’s participation in the virtual reality of the “Metaverse.” The Metaverse offers a repertoire of such experiences in 3-D. It was promoted at Davos under the guise of “equity” since it allows us all access to the same experiences. Except for the fact that they aren’t real experiences.

In the Metaverse you can travel and meet others and buy and sell, no matter your location or status. The catch is that you’re basically all alone when you do it. You don’t have any real mobility, because your travel essentially takes place in your mind. Nothing there is tangible, though the sense of reality can be “augmented” through various accessories.

Ultimately, the WEF stands behind a future in which we are completely dependent upon a centralized globalist oligarchy for anything real. In the meantime, we can be subdued through the Metaverse which can act as an addiction. It is both dehumanizing and atomizing. You’ll find a clip of the interview above. But you need to subscribe to Laura Ingraham’s podcast on Quake media to hear it in full around the halfway mark at this link: https://quakemedia.com/episode/the-laura-ingraham-show-episode-194-featuring-stella-morabito/?type=show

Sebastian Gorka and I discuss The Weaponization of Loneliness

January 27, 2023 | Books, Conformity, Free Speech, History, Identity Politics, Isolation, Politics, Propaganda, Society

I recently sat down with Sebastian Gorka in-studio and had a great conversation about how–and why–so much insanity has taken root in this country. I believe the bottom line is decades of self-censorship. For too long Americans have been obedient to political correctness, fearful of ostracism they might experience if they simply speak their minds. This gives an enormous amount of oxygen to bad agendas and to institutional subversion. If we hope to revive civil society, we have to become more aware of these dynamics.

I really loved talking about my book with Sebastian Gorka. He is such a wonderful and engaging host. He brings the valuable perspective of an immigrant who truly appreciates America and the freedom endowed to us by the U.S. Constitution.

Let 2023 be a year of Boldness for Free Speech and Truth!

January 1, 2023 | Books, Culture, Free Speech, Isolation, Loneliness, Politics, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness
Burgundy Glitter Happy New Year Free Stock Photo - Public Domain Pictures

Resolution #1: Overcome any fear of speaking the Truth. (And thereby help build a cascade of Truth.)

You can start building awareness about doing so by getting the book: The Weaponization of Loneliness

Just click here: The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer

Interviews on my book, The Weaponization of Loneliness

December 31, 2022 | Books, Conformity, Cults, Education, Family, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Friendship, History, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society

I’ve probably done more than 50 interviews so far about my book The Weaponization of Loneliness, often on talk radio as well as on podcasts, and some TV. Each one has been gratifying and all so different. I will post more of them to this blog, though in no particular order. For example, even though the subject matter is so serious, this interview with Michael Savage posted on December 6 was so much fun. He’s very engaging and doesn’t mince words. It’s no wonder he’s been cancelled in the past and considered so controversial! He loves real conversation — and it shows. The intro begins at about 4:08 below, and the actual interview begins at about 7:50. Click on this link for more convenient, listenable audio — https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-the-savage-nation-podcast-31142973/episode/the-weaponization-of-loneliness-how-tyrants-105572802/

The Weaponization of Loneliness

October 12, 2022 | Community, Family, Freedom of Association, History, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Political Correctness, Politics, Religion, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

The full title of my new book, just released, is The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. Please click on the link to order your copy!

You may have asked this old question: Why does a majority of good people so often allow a small minority to push evil agendas? It all amounts to what I call a “machinery of loneliness,” fueled by conformity which is sparked by our fear. Maybe we instinctively know that our conformity usually boils down to the fear of being ostracized for speaking out. But we don’t consciously understand how that happens. Or why it happens. And how easily it is weaponized. We need to study these patterns and change our habits if we are to preserve freedom.

So often our primal fear of loneliness is exploited to extract the conformity and compliance necessary to push destructive policies forward. We comply in order to avoid the awful feeling of social rejection. But the great irony with this reaction is that our compliance only cements our isolation in the end. Worse, when we are isolated — atomized — we are even more easily controlled and terrorized.

The book is a deep dive that includes the history of totalitarian movements – all of which waged direct war against free speech and private life. It happened in the French Revolution, in Bolshevik Russia, in Nazi Germany, in Mao’s China and those patterns continue today. But today’s cyber-technologies and globalism exponentially worsen the threat.  I also delve into the research on social conformity, starting with the 1950s experiments of Solomon Asch who showed that people will often deny the evidence of their own eyes if they fear being socially isolated otherwise.

The book shows us the many ways that identity politics, political correctness, and mob agitation is tearing us all apart — causing a painful vivisection of America.  This has led to corruption that has subverted all of our institutions, including education, our intelligence services, the corporate world, the courts, legislatures, and the military. Last on the hit list of the institutions are the primordial ones in the private sphere of life: family, faith, and community. We must defend that sphere with all our strength. It’s the only escape hatch. Otherwise, we end up completely atomized, at the mercy of the mass state.

You Can’t Fight Disinformation without Fighting Censorship

April 18, 2022 | Free Speech, Isolation, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Society

Our Orwellian elitists have developed an ass-backwards argument as a propaganda ploy. They claim that disinformation is a threat to democracy, and therefore they should have total control over the public square to protect it. As we’ve seen time and again with the record of faceless “fact-checkers” in the media and Big Tech, the obvious goal is to censor any idea that doesn’t line up with their narrative. They even hosted an event at the University of Chicago, promoted by President Obama, to make the case.

This is nuts. No society can function in the grip of the such political censorship. In fact, it destroys democracy.

In my Federalist piece today, I explore the effects of suppressing free speech. It’s mentally isolating. It can even lead to mass delusion. There’s no shortage of historical examples. Take a look at this clip from North Korea to get an idea of what happens to a population that’s stuck in one narrative and totally cut off from any other ideas:

Indeed, the only solution to disinformation is free speech. Lots of it. And let’s not forget that political censorship causes disinformation.

You can read the whole essay here: The Only way to Fight Disinformation is to Fight Political Censorship