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30 minutes with a stranger

(pudding.cool)
1103 points MaxLeiter | 1 comments | 04 Sep 25 05:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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alex-moon ◴[04 Sep 25 08:22 UTC] No.45124947[source]▶
I'm increasingly convinced that social isolation is the single great social ill of our time. I am not one for "respecting others' opinions" at all, make no mistakes, if someone believes something incorrect - or worse - then they need to be corrected. But so much of the hate simmering away like a pot about to boil over is the result of loneliness. The evidence on this is startingly clear.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235215462...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362...

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/hate-lies-and-loneliness-f...

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energy123 ◴[04 Sep 25 10:11 UTC] No.45125546[source]▶
> loneliness is a perceptual phenomenon that represents a paradoxical component; it is not mitigated through proximity to others

It might be better described as alienation. Then we can fit it into Hannah Arendt's theory of fascism being caused by alienation.

In the modern world, that alienation is accelerated by social media and cost of living for those without assets, who pay the cost of inflation without benefiting from asset price inflation.

Everything is more hostile, more sectarian, and you also can't even afford anything, and also you are a bad person because you are a creepy 45 year old white man with a small dick, and you better stop looking at me like that.

Is it any surprise?

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1. cassepipe ◴[04 Sep 25 10:48 UTC] No.45125769[source]▶
To me, alienation is philosopher's toy and they like to put what they don't like behind that word. It's been mostly used by Marxist philosophers rediscovering the "young Marx" to deal with the fact that the workers actually didn't seem that interested in a socialist revolution anymore (they have false consciousness !)

I am not saying this to invalidate what you are saying but would you care to explain how you think the problem described by parent (richer societies allow for more alone time thus loneliness) is better described by Arendt's concept of alienation ?

> In the modern world [...] Is it any surprise?

To me you are just describing a poverty and ideological tribalism but that still doesn't tell me what Arendt can do for us here