Afterword: A Functional Analysis of the Crisis in American Society, 2020

In 2020, American society experienced a number of crises. They involved raced relations precipitated by the Black Lives Matter movement, the Covid 19 pandemic with its huge loss of life and rates of illness, the economic recession that accompanied the pandemic and efforts to control it, and the tensions of the national political campaign, followed by the refusal of President Trump to acknowledge his defeat. Each of these crises led to cleavages in the relationships of solidarity in the societal community subsystem of American society. The cleavages may prove to be the most enduring of the crises.