As a country, does the U.S. love her children?
This is the question that Scott Galloway asks in his TED Talk delivered to an audience in Vancouver BC, April 2024. There is a YouTube recording of this presentation viewed, at last count, by over 6.3 million people.[1] Galloway has entitled his talk How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future. Galloway, by his own admission, is a self-made multimillionaire, entrepreneur, and professor of marketing at NYU. At the 12:48 mark in his presentation, Galloway puts up a slide that contains six charts all with trend lines going up and to the right. Here’s what these charts show:
- U.S. Self-Harm Rates Ages 10–14 (rates are increasing at a higher rate for girls vs boys)
- Teens With Depression (again, rates are increasing at a higher rate for girls vs boys)
- Men & Women: No Sex Within the Last Year Ages 18–30 (rates are increasing at a higher rate for men vs women)
- Cumulative Gun Death (rates are increasing at a higher rate for 0–4 year olds vs police officers)
- Obesity Ages 2–19 (a growing trend that Galloway attributes to the Industrial Food Complex)
- Overdose Deaths Ages 15–24 (rates going up over time)
Taken together these data suggest that, no, the U.S. does not love her children and young adults. OK, the term “love” is too vitalistic and defies being operationalized by the scientific community. Let’s try this: The U.S. is not “attaching” to her children and young adults. Now, attachment and attachment trends can be studied scientifically. In this post series I will argue that one way we can gain an understanding of how scientists view attachment trends is to read Louis Cozolino’s 2013 book entitled The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment Learning in the Classroom. Even though Cozolino delivers a lot of neurobiological information concerning attachment, he always bringing his discussion back to his main audience, namely, teachers. In truth, Cozolino makes the argument that teachers should act as good parents to their students. As such, Cozolino’s main audience consists of parents of all stripes: mothers, fathers, family members, coaches, mentors, religious leaders, therapists, as well as teachers and professors. In essence, Cozolino teaches us how to attach to our children, to love our children. However, given the data that Galloway presents, I ask the question Why is it that the attachment relationships Cozolino talks about not happening?
TED Talk describes Galloway’s presentation as “scorching.” It is. Galloway is pissed. And he has good reason to be pissed. Young people without a future is cause for concern. Young people killing themselves at alarming rates is cause for concern. Galloway pulls no punches. Galloway opens his talk by simply announcing, “I have 44 slides and 720 seconds … let’s light this candle.” Galloway’s presentation style has just the right combination of gut-punch reality (see the chart descriptions above), humor (to keep his audience from becoming overwhelmed), and vulgarity (this is a very F-ed up situation people). Galloway’s presentation style sends a clear message that this is a crisis we cannot ignore. Addressing this crisis will require getting into the nitty gritty while maintaining our sense of humor so as to not go insane.
I’m a big Cozolino fan. I saw him speak in Santa Fe in 2007.[2] I’ve read two of his other books.[3] He’s a logical and linear and well-tempered researcher with a fair amount of heart. Scientists are supposed to be logical and linear and well-tempered. That’s the nature of science. I think the main reason Galloway’s presentation resonated with me (and millions of others) is because he’s direct, not politically correct (he slams both liberals and conservatives), conveys a sense of urgency, swears a lot (because the situation demands it), and has a number of clear solutions, many of which not palatable to the so-called establishment like the Industrial Food Complex or the Industrial Diabetes Complex. We’ll look at Galloway’s solutions in the final installment.
I know this might be a stretch but Galloway’s presentation style reminds me of John Bowlby, arguably the father of attachment theory. Bowlby saw a crisis around him. Orphans were roaming the streets of London following the close of WWII. UK policy during WWII forced thousands of children to the countryside and into the arms of adults many of whom were strangers at best and abusers at worst. Bowlby was understandably concerned with the future of Britain’s youth. And Bowlby was a staunch advocate for attachment relationships often publicly speaking out against Britain’s child evacuation policies.[4] If Bowlby were around today, I imagine he would give a TED Talk not unlike the one Galloway gave, probably without the vulgarity though. (Bowlby exuded British prim and proper.)
In this series I will argue that as a result of the move from “classic” Bowlbian attachment theory to “modern” attachment theory with its focus on neurobiology, a bunch of Bowlby’s “fight for the future of youth” was left on the cutting room floor. In essence, the piss, vim, and vigor was left on the cutting room floor. As Galloway’s presentation clearly points out, it’s time to bring back piss, vim, and vigor, and maybe a bit of vulgarity. In the posts to follow, I will selectively step through Cozolino’s book The Social Neuroscience of Education all the while bringing back the insights we can find in Bowlby’s work (and the work of other classic Bowlbian theorists) that might help us understand what the F is going on and what we need to do about it. To get you fired up I would highly recommend that you watch Galloway’s scorching presentation. It may well be one of the most profound presentations I have seen in quite some time with huge attachment implications in my opinion.
Notes:
[1] – Here’s the link to Galloway’s TED talk over at YouTube:
[2] – Cozolino delivered a talk entitled The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain, 15th Annual Symposia for Mental Health Professionals, Santa Fe, NM.
[3] – I read Cozolino’s book The Neuroscience of Human Relationships as well as his book The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy.
[4] – Back in 2010 our Foundation commissioned an article written by Dr. Gary Metcalf who served as president of the International Federation for Systems Research 2010–2014. The article is entitled John Bowlby: Rediscovering a Systems Scientist. For his article, Metcalf interviewed Sir Richard Bowlby, John’s son. He also traveled to and accessed the archives at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London where John Bowlby served as Head of the Children’s Department. Yes, Metcalf was able to bring to light many of the systems theory influences we can find in Bowlby’s writings. However, what really impressed Metcalf was Bowlby’s advocacy work, especially concerning child evacuation policies of WWII. For more information on Bowlby’s advocacy work, I would suggest Metcalf’s article. You can read a copy at this web address (sign-in required):
https://www.academia.edu/21964325/John_Bowlby_Rediscovering_a_systems_scientist
