Reading book on resisting dictatorships and hit this in the introduction.

"The population has often been
atomized (turned into a mass of isolated individuals) unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other, or even to do much of anything at their own initiative."

Somehow sounds very familiar.

https://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FDTD.pdf page 3