How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

[JonLP24]

When people have a hole in their life, they often fill it with angry politics.

Arthur C. Brooks
By Arthur C. Brooks
Mr. Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute.

America is suffering an epidemic of loneliness.

According to a recent large-scale survey from the health care provider Cigna, most Americans suffer from strong feelings of loneliness and a lack of significance in their relationships. Nearly half say they sometimes or always feel alone or “left out.” Thirteen percent of Americans say that zero people know them well. The survey, which charts social isolation using a common measure known as the U.C.L.A. Loneliness Scale, shows that loneliness is worse in each successive generation.

This problem is at the heart of the new book “Them: Why We Hate Each Other — and How to Heal,” by Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska. Mr. Sasse argues that “loneliness is killing us,” citing, among other things, the skyrocketing rates of suicide and overdose deaths in America. This year, 45,000 Americans will take their lives, and more than 70,000 will die from drug overdoses.

Mr. Sasse’s assertion that loneliness is killing us takes on even darker significance in the wake of the mail-bomb campaign against critics of President Trump and the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, both of which were perpetrated by isolated — and apparently very lonely — men. Mr. Sasse’s book was published before these events, but he presciently described what he believes lonely people increasingly do to fill the hole of belonging in their lives: They turn to angry politics.

In the “siloed,” or isolated, worlds of cable television, ideological punditry, campus politics and social media, people find a sense of community in the polarized tribes forming on the left and the right in America. Essentially, people locate their sense of “us” through the contempt peddled about “them” on the other side of the political spectrum.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/opinion/loneliness-political-polarization.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[PoliticAverse]

1. When people have the Internet, they often fill it with angry politics. n/t

[llmart]

8. When people have the Internet...

they often spend more time interacting with people they don't really know personally, but think they know because they communicate with them on the Internet. These Internet (aka Facebook/Instagram, Twitter) "friends" can never take the place of actually talking with real, live people. This may be the reason for why each successive generation reports more and more loneliness.

We already know the statistics that have been compiled about how much time people are spending on their phones/computers/tablets, etc. How can that not impact personal relationships?

I am on DU and have been for years, but I do not fool myself into thinking I really know any of you personally. We share the same politics of course, but I have thought many times that there are probably quite a few people on this site that if I met them in person I wouldn't really want to have a relationship with.

[democratisphere]

2. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

Yep. America the beautiful. *****cough-cough*****.

[DFW]

3. It's rare that I find common ground with anything from the AEI except when Norm writes it

But this seems well thought-out. Of course, the AEI being the AEI, Brooks can't help himself when looking for his first major quote by a Republican Senator. Still, it is not an idiotic biased diatribe. Most adult mass shooters live alone. Many (if not most) of the most violent men live alone. It's a one-way downward spiral. No woman in her right mind wants to live with a violent man who is angry all the time, and if such a man gets no affectionate companionship to dampen his rage, it grows instead.

My wife is a retired social worker, and she has seen the full run. Some can be helped, some can't. Luckily, here in Germany, it is not easy to acquire a handgun, so we don't have incidents here with anything like the frequency with which they occur in the USA. We also do not have a Fox "News" to fan the flames (Nazi propaganda, or anything that too closely resembles it, is still forbidden here).

[TwistOneUp]

4. Loneliness is a factor, but ...

The reason is more of a rejection one. The New GOP Government doesn't care about you if you're LGBT or anything other than a white christian.

Rejection. Whst we should do to the GOP!

[madaboutharry]

5. The extreme on both sides, left and right,

have become cults. It draws people in who are seeking a purpose and sense of belonging. It is sad what has happened to our culture. And it isn’t only Americans who are suffering.

Although he wrote about a deep problem in our country that I also observe , I find it difficult to take Sasse at his word. It was upsetting to me when I witnessed him on television taking the effort to approach Dr. Blasey Ford at her hearing in order to shake her hand and then he went ahead and voted to put the man who sexually assaulted her on The Supreme Court.

[JonLP24]

6. I'm far left myself

Though I don't think anyone is near Mao as far as the US goes but I can be non-partisan in my thinking not so much a cheerleader or hypocritical (bash the other side for what my own side is doing). Some things go beyond politics for me like the Kavanaugh nomination. I wasn't happy with Gorsuch but I can live it, not like Kavanaugh who I really didn't want confirmed due to ethical standards.

[madaboutharry]

7. I am talking about people who can't be reasoned with.

They do exist on both sides. I know people like this. They allow politics to interfere with their everyday life. Everything is processed through the prism of their political views.

I am talking about something different than “far left.” There is a place beyond that. Just like there is on the right.

[JonLP24]

10. I understand

Got confused by what you mean extremes on both sides.

[Scarsdale]

13. Can Sasse explain why

many of the mass killers with guns are right wingers? Why most own tRump posters or red hats? Maybe a study should be done on tRump supporters and mental health.

[JonLP24]

14. I agree

Sasse is not a good choice. I thought the headline was interesting perhaps because I'm lonely and into politics

I dont want anyone to die unlike who you mention. I'd like to see TrumpCo indicted but that's about it.

[stuffmatters]

17. Yes, and Sasse should explain why mass killers are all violent misogynists

Instead of preaching that people should adopt Nebraska values (which seemed to be Sasse's condescending hayseed pitch on late night) perhaps he should examine the roots of toxic masculinity beginning with his Party's President who exemplifies it and their RW
religious base that preaches the reification, birth slavery of one half of the American population.

[bronxiteforever]

9. Remember when Arthur Brooks said this about Cheeto

“Like him or hate him, learn from him. Learn from him that there should be nobody who’s left behind. And that everybody should be treated with a sense of their own dignity.”

Individual dignity has been a longtime focus of inquiry and study for Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute. And the loss of said dignity among Americans gave him insight into what made Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States. “Donald Trump was talking to people in the parts of America that have been truly forgotten and left behind now for generations in a way that was inherent,” Brooks told me in the latest episode of “Cape Up.” “It helped people understand that he understood that they should have a sense of their dignity, too.”

“Dignity is to be worthy of respect. That’s what dignity really means. And people can be stripped of their sense of their dignity in a lot of ways,” Brooks allowed, “but the number one way that people are stripped of their sense of dignity is when they feel superfluous to society, when they feel that they are not needed.” Enter Trump, who “taught people their own dignity or spoke to people about their dignity,” said Brooks, who is more dignified in person, thought and manner than the president has exhibited in the entirety of his public life...everyone (should be) “be as helpful as we possibly can” to the new president, “to give him a chance.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/24/arthur-brooks-the-word-dignity-explains-why-trump-is-president/?utm_term=.ff2823601cf2

When Arthur Brooks talks of political opportunists on “both sides”, I ain’t buying because I have seen and heard and read the executive branch demean humans on a regular basis. Anyone who touted Trump as speaking for people’s dignity was high on their own bull crap. The truth is that the AEI and con groups have unleashed and enabled the Trump virus to spread. Want to end opportunism Arthur? Look in the direction of President Obama working in a soup kitchen or Jimmy Carter building houses for habitat for humanity.

[SWBTATTReg]

11. I think that this sense of 'loneliness' comes a lot from the fact that the internet and other...

means of communications make it seem like we all have lost our voices in the billions of emails and tweets that today populate the airwaves, and thus tend to isolate people even more, when their voices seem to be drowned out.

A lot of people have seemed to crave attention and you can see it on the internet constantly, as well as in personal conversations w/ friends and family. rump certainly is a primary example of this.

I get quite a bit of insight in that my profound hearing loss causes me to concentrate far more of my one-on-one interactions w/ people by simply listening versus talking (I have to, so I can 'catch' enough of the conversation to 'interpret' it/fill in the gaps that my hearing loss didn't pick up (this is the way that they taught the hearing impaired back then in the early 1960s, stay silent, and pick up those tidbits of the conversation that I've missed)).

I think people seem to not be able to handle silence or gaps in conversations with people and thus, get uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable, they fill in the conversation w/ endless chatter, and before you know it, they've monopolized the entire conversation. Craving constant attention and relevance in what they say, they end up making things worse for themselves. The personal one-on-one communications have seemed to disappear when in fact, it's even more important than ever before.

[hatrack]

12. Some dude from AEI pimping Senator Reasonable T. Cornpone's book . . . .

Last edited Sun Nov 25, 2018, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Nah, don't think so.

[dalton99a]

15. Adopt A Deplorable

Put yourselves in the shoes of very fine people

[apcalc]

16. That's his two cent theory.

While terror /assault/Nazi types may be lonely and therefore find commonality , there is a whole lot more going on with these people than just loneliness.

Being angry politically has little to do with loneliness imo. Misogyny, racism , white male privelege pisses me off and has my lifetime.

[Blue_Tires]

18. While this is a worthy discussion to have...

Seriously, AEI??

The only reason why they're interested in loneliness is because they figured out a way to scam a few bucks off of it somehow...