Disclaimer: Huw Davies is an editor for the APA Blog. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the American Philosophical Association or the Blog of the APA.
Over seventy years ago, Hannah Arendt sought to find the origins of the horrific totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR. She came to a disturbing conclusion; loneliness prepared people for totalitarian domination, and loneliness—which had once only been experienced at the margins—had “become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.” Loneliness was new as a mass phenomenon, and it was dangerous.
In the years that followed, however, loneliness more or less fell off the political agenda. There was an extraordinary revival in civic participation, connection, and political action throughout the 1950s and 60s. Eventually, however, the social capital that was so hard-won in these years eroded. By 2000, the decline of social capital was evident. Now, it has reached new heights. In 2003, the average American spent 60 minutes a day in social engagement with friends; now, they spend fewer than 20. The decline is most visible amongst those aged 16-24 who spent over 2.5 hours per day with friends in 2003 and now spend fewer than 50 minutes with them.
As we have heard repeatedly in this series, loneliness is not the same as being alone. Solitude, the simple fact of being alone, is clearly a useful, necessary, and natural part of life. For Schopenhauer, it even represented the greatest freedom. Loneliness, by contrast, is nearly universally condemned and most acute in the company of others. It is that feeling of existing in the same place as those around you but nonetheless feeling a gulf between yourself and them. In its most extreme form, it means being deserted by oneself.
It seems to me that loneliness is destructive on three levels. Firstly, it damages the individual—it is strongly associated with worse health and economic outcomes. Secondly, loneliness destroys our communities—clubs, sports teams, pubs, gyms, and cafes become hollowed out. Finally—as Arendt noticed—loneliness can destroy our politics. Without the spaces where we might come together to persuade, discuss, and form our opinions, we find that we have yielded not just specific issues of importance but the very battlefields upon which those issues might be fought. When we lose a world held in common—a world where we might act in concert, where our neighbors are trustworthy, and where we might consider others’ perspectives—we lose our ability for action. Arendt thinks that this frees dangerous ideologies from the rules of reality and common sense. The loss of our common sense—our sound judgment—comes hand-in-hand with the loss of our common sense—the feeling of a shared world.
Yet we have only just begun to reckon once again with the lonely world. The dominant ideologies of our time simply do not have an answer to our loneliness (and perhaps no ideology can). We have run headlong into our loneliness without stopping to consider the danger. I think this is more than just successive governments selling off our third places, cutting welfare, and failing to regulate our social media giants.
Liberalism, most certainly the dominant ideology of our age, prioritizes the individual. But it is also an ideology with an entirely negative conception of liberty that eschews duties. We expect all social responsibilities—care for the poor, the sick, the elderly—to be taken over by the state. Any obligations that remain (with the possible exception of those towards children) we expect to have willingly obtained, be free to leave, and not find too burdensome. We are almost incapable of conceiving of remedies to our problems without leaning on the state or trusting that the market will solve them. The idea of a duty or obligation—to friends, family, or communities—which was not willingly entered into is seen as an unjust restriction on the individual’s freedom. All this stands in stark contrast to the noblesse oblige and duties of feudalism that preceded the modern age.
Yet it is perhaps these very obligations that keep us and others from feeling lonely. In the pursuit of only that which we choose, we find ourselves alone. In shedding our responsibilities, we are accepting that those towards us also be shed. In doing so we remove the possibility of creating bonding with others. Of course, we still continue to rely on others, but these relationships become transactions, not bonds, and as soon as the relationship fails to serve one party, they are at liberty to withdraw. This leaves us feeling as though we have no real place in the world.
Few believe in this worldview to such an extreme extent. It is rare to find people who actually believe that they have no duties to their friends and family. Yet liberalism’s understanding of freedom, rights, and obligations continues to dominate our public discourse. Duties very rarely enter our public conversations. It seems clear to me that in as much as liberalism matches the caricature I have given it, its ultimate freedom consists of loneliness. When one is not expected to do anything for others and cannot expect anything in return, what else can we call it except loneliness?
Yet there is hope. Liberalism’s understanding of freedom is not the only one conceivable. Neither is it the only one for which we have historical precedent. And perhaps the lesson of the 1950s and 60s was that loneliness is not terminal. But we cannot rely on the state or markets to fix this problem which springs from the very fundamental questions of our lives.
This series was born out of a belief that loneliness has been off the agenda of philosophers for too long. It sought to ask, “What does your philosophy have to say about loneliness?” The fascinating contributions it elicited showed that there is indeed an interest and willingness to consider this problem. For us to be delivered from loneliness and its destructive tendencies, we require, first, to comprehend and confront it. Philosophy is a vital part of this. The health of ourselves, our communities, and our polities may depend on it.
Huw Davies holds an MA in History of Political Thought and Intellectual History from University College London, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. He currently works as a schoolteacher in London, having previously worked as a Police Officer in the Metropolitan Police Service. His areas of interest include the concepts of republican liberty and relational equality, as well as the works of Hannah Arendt.
