One of the three phenomena that predominates in mass-democratic thought: atomization of society. Traditional collective units and social bonds, namely, the extended family, the clan and the village, lose socio-economic significance and are hence broken down. The nuclear family supersedes the extended one, fulfilling reduced social functions and becoming increasingly dispensable in relation to the reproduction of the species and child-rearing. At work here is the mass-democratic logic of displacing historically rooted, hierarchical bonds in favour of equivalent, autonomous units.