I want to challenge the economists out there listening, students and faculty to think about what economics has to say about this. And I think the answer right now in this discipline is precisely nothing. We have these strange models where people get utility, which is a vague term to mean satisfaction or pleasure or delight or meaning out of stuff. It belongs in our utility function, but I don't think necessarily that's the right way to deal with it. But we're not a slave to our wiring, right? I mean, we have to understand that's a trait that was adaptive and useful. And we have to know when it must be overridden"
Journalist and author Sebastian Junger talks about his book Tribe with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Junger explores the human need to be needed and the challenges facing many individuals in modern society who struggle to connect with others. His studies of communal connection include soldiers in a small combat unit and American Indian society in the nineteenth century.