There are three main components of the machinery of loneliness:

• identity politics,
• political correctness, and
• mob agitation.

Identity politics strips us of our individuality, and divides us into camps sorted by various identities of “oppressor” or “victim.”

Political correctness controls our speech by inducing us to self-censor under threat of ostracism.

Mobs take different forms, but they serve to enforce all of the above while cultivating conformity, compliance, and social distrust.

The machinery is further fueled in other ways to threaten people with isolation if they don’t conform. These include propaganda, censorship, the criminalization of comedy, and snitch culture. New technologies play a role too.

If we can’t speak openly to one another, we cannot organically develop bonds of trust. And if we can’t develop trusting relationships—whether as family, as children of God, or as friends and cheerful neighbors—then we’ve gone a long way towards a Stockholm Syndrome-like dependence upon our government captors.