Irrelevant problems of virtue signaling displace action required to address real but wicked problems

From Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic? by Eric Klinnenberg. Remembering Betteridge's law of headlines, we know the answer is No!

The opinion piece originates from well-meaning but dangerous developments in Britain.

Last month, Britain appointed its first “minister for loneliness,” who is charged with tackling what Prime Minister Theresa May called the “sad reality of modern life.”

Public-health leaders immediately praised the idea — and for good reason. In recent decades, researchers have discovered that loneliness left untreated is not just psychically painful; it also can have serious medical consequences. Rigorous epidemiological studies have linked loneliness and social isolation to heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes and suicide. Vivek Murthy, the former United States surgeon general, has written that loneliness and social isolation are “associated with a reduction in life span similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity.”

This sort of weak minded drivel drives me crazy.

I had hopes for Theresa May - perhaps a Maggie Thatcher of modern times. But she washed out quickly. Just another political jellyfish drifting with the current. In the absence of real achievement on the things that matter the most, she puts on a display of virtue; caring about things which aren't real or cannot be easily changed. Or, in this case, aren't even the business of government.

Which is the real source of well-intended evil in this proposal. It slyly displaces the individual's responsibility for their own well-being and makes it the responsibility of the State. Mussolini anyone? "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." George Orwell must be turning in his grave.

While chasing the chimera of alleviating loneliness, Britain's deficit rises, negotiations on Brexit collapse, the immigration crisis boils over, and the state defenses crumble.

But is loneliness, as many political officials and pundits are warning, a growing “health epidemic”?

I don’t believe so, nor do I believe it helps anyone to describe it that way. Social disconnection is a serious matter, yet if we whip up a panic over its prevalence and impact, we’re less likely to deal with it properly.

Klinnenberg goes on to outline why it is improbable that increasing loneliness and isolation is a real crisis. Good for him.

When government gets too large, when the problems become too intractable, it becomes tempting to focus on non-essential, indeed, even irrelevant, issues in order to bolster an appearance of being responsible, morally upstanding and dynamic. The triple tragedy is that the policies are likely to make matters worse rather than better, the continuing encroachment of the State into the realm of the individual undermines the system, and the most dangerous issues get put on the back burner.

And as bad, every advocate is encouraged to shout ever louder about the cuddliest problems to get financing attention from the government while wicked problems, the elimination of which would be most beneficial to the most people, languish because they are too hard.