Interpersonal trust might be decreasing: https://www.pewresearch.org/2025/05/08/americans-trust-in-on...
But dwarfed by the trust decrease in institutions: https://www.pew.org/en/trend/archive/fall-2024/americans-dee...
But maybe it's overstated, because trust seems sort of stable according to this group: https://www.edelman.com/trust/25years
>We no longer are capable of coordinated, collective action that benefits society.
I think this might be too doomer for people, but I think it raises the concern often called two-tier policing or 'anarchotyranny', where such collective action to reform a society is viewed as a threat by the ruling organization and systematically attacked and dismantled. In contrast, petty crimes or even serious interpersonal crimes pose no threat to the ruling organization and receive disproportionately low effort relative to the collective action movements.
Violent crime in most western countries seems to me to be the opposite of downplayed - it’s up-played to whip up fear and support for populists, using emotive language and pointing to the worst examples rather than overall figures.
The figures generally show we’re all so much safer from violent crime than we were in previous decades in western nations. We’re also just more exposed to stories about it.
Side rant… every time I’ve heard "We're all in it together" it’s been from someone who believes the opposite. That phrase just grates now.
What distinction are you making between a community and a tribe or family? What is it about a community that makes it more worthy of individuals organizing around it than their families or tribes?