The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.
This is an underrated idea. The 40+ hour work has really sandblasted our ability to form consistent habits outside the home. Everyone's schedule it utterly borked for reasons outside their control. They cant create those meaningful social bonds without being able to consistently show up to things.
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I once griped to my parents and their friends about how the majority of our waking hours revolve around enriching somebody else's private company, about how most of our lifespan is spent forgoing our own ambitions for the sake of shareholders - and the Boomers just went wide-eyed in horror and said I'm too young to be talking like that.
I was 28 at the time.
They didn't deny anything I was saying. They just said I shouldn't think about it for a few decades.
My parents and their friends - their best nearly lifelong friends whom they love like family - are lucky if they can find the time off to see each other once a year.