Socially Unmoored

How the decline of social scripting led to a rise in misogyny and fascism

Over the last half of the 20th century and into the 21st, the western world saw an erosion of social manners and norms. Suits were traded for trousers, then jeans, then basketball shorts, while skirts were replaced by pants, blazers by t-shirts. The strict rules of our grandparents -- thank-you notes, RSVPs in the mail, and the niceties of formal introductions (who goes first, your boss or the lady?) were lost in favor of laid back, hippie relaxation.

This period coincided with a generation of latch-key children, raised mostly by themselves and with little parental guidance. The next generations have been mostly raised by the internet. And we've seen how this has turned out for us: a rise in fascism world-wide.

Some would say this is due to the western ideals of heterosexual families being 'ruined', but I would like to suggest a simpler, more organic solution: we removed social scripting and replaced it with nothing.

Humans are social, pattern-seeking missiles. Human brains love to find patterns and make connections, and nothing speaks comfort to the human brain more than routine. Even the biggest adrenaline junkies will have a comfort food, usually considered 'comforting' by its familiarity. Humans will stay in abusive relationships for the comfort of predictability, even when it isn't wise.

So it shouldn't shock anyone that social scripts, commonly considered 'manners' or 'social etiquette' might be comforting to the human brain. "Small talk" like "How are you?" and it's response, "I'm doing well, how are you?" are in language after language: scripted, simple words you can say on rote, even when at your most tired and caffeine-deprived, even when your mother died yesterday, even when it's demonstrably not true, it's still something you can say, something you don't have to think about saying.

Much more of our lives used to be scripted. And plenty of conservatives are reaching for an age when they felt they had a grasp on socializing: when scripts made up a simple and predictable way to interact with strangers. Many of them have confused social scripts with social norms -- in other words, they think if they make women wear skirts again, they'll be back to a 'normal' they lost.

There is a difference between social scripting and social norms. Social norms, social roles, are enforced boxes one is forced to live within, at the risk of ostracism or arrest. Social scripting, on the other hand, is a result of active parenting roles, in which children are taught ways to interact with the world.

When the social revolution happened in the late 1900's, the previous social norms were dealt a blow -- a desperately needed, healthy one, that challenged racism and misogyny. However, with that blow, the social scripts of the time were eroded in favor of something more relaxed. Unfortunately, none of the new scripts were actively taught to that generation of latch-key kids, and since then, the idea that you might need to consciously teach a child how to relate to others has been nearly lost.

There are early videos -- funny, dated ones -- from the 1940's, when parents were busy with the war efforts, in which instructors explain how to ask a girl on a date, or why one should attend social functions, and the acceptable ways to act in each. Now, there is no such formalized education to such social events. The scripts have been lost and replaced with nothing.

This has led to two major events: a rise in noticeable neurodivergence, and a drastic increase in bigotry.

For the first: many neurotypical people struggle socially, but do remarkably well when handed a social script. An anxious person may write down what they want to say on the phone, self-scripting in the moment, for example, or an autistic person who normally struggles socially makes an excellent cashier, comfortable in the call-and-response script of "did you find everything okay?"

It makes sense, then, that these types of neurodivergence would stand out more once social scripting collapsed. It wouldn't have been noticed in a world that was pre-scripted, but as scripts fell apart, some people couldn't adapt as well as others, and stood out as 'different'. Thus, a rise in diagnoses: there were plenty of socially awkward autistic people in 1930, but most would probably simply be deemed 'eccentric'. But society changes, and the previous 'eccentric' is now a social outcast, and going to the clinic to figure out why.

In the case of bigotry, I will use the example of the incel. A boy grows up, not knowing how to speak to women, never having been taught, with no examples to confidently use (the movies and television being unrealistic at best and a setup for mockery if implemented). This leads to fear of rejection, a desperate, floundering sort of attempt to figure out what he is supposed to do, with each rejection compounding the confusion and stress. The internet sympathizes, it understands, and communities form with this boy, the internal frustration slowly growing external as they blame women for being horrible, inscrutable bitches.

Meanwhile, a boy of the same age a few generations ago would have been taught: this is how you ask a girl to a dance. This is a dance card. These are acceptable gifts for a party. This is what you wear to these events. The stress of "what do I do" is remarkably lessened: the nerves now come from actually facing the thing, not how to do it. Things like social dancing allowed for socially-accepted ways to test things like who led and who followed, how you got along, and allowed for space if it didn't work -- one dance and you could part.

This is not to say it was perfect in those old norms. Historically, there was little room for a woman to insist upon leading, or a man to wish to follow, for example. But when we dismantled these gender norms, we disabled social scripting with them, and replaced them with nothing. Our children were not taught anything new in place of the old, and an ever-widening social gap appeared in the lack of patterns, of scripts, of a foothold in the strange and vast tumult that is human society.

Fascism insists upon rule: rule of the in-group over the out-group. What makes the in-group acceptable? Predictability. The human mind is made for connections, community, and patterns, and fascism offers them all: act appropriately to the in-group, and you are guaranteed a place with people who follow these same predictable patterns.

Meanwhile, the left offers "just be a decent person" as its criteria for acceptance, but that criteria offers no script, no rules, no predictability. We are not offering a familiar comfort or even an unfamiliar pattern to learn and grow with -- instead, the modern age offers confusion and tumult.

We have to do better. I am not saying we should revert to the patterns of our grandparents, but I do think that finding social scripts for the modern age should be a priority, and socially-scripted events, in which all parties are informed of how the event will be run, are vital to a healthy community. There are ways to script without cruelty inherent, and we are smart enough to find them, if we recognize that it should be a priority.

I believe that until we take social scripting, and the teaching of it to our children, as a conscious concern to address, we will constantly struggle to reach out to people. Our brains aren't wired for the constant tumult of a non-scripted society. We must find common ground, or we will always threaten ourselves with the familiarity of an abusive relationship with the past and its prejudices.