The politics of loneliness
+ the loneliness of politics
Hi, Friends!
Politics in the USA, can I get an OMG? Don’t worry, this letter will not do upsetting things to your nervous system. I’m hoping to provide a bit of calm in the storm. To that end, I just have two points to hold onto, one stabilizing practice + a reflection for us. Overall, I just want us to see how loneliness affects and is affected by every area of our individual and shared lives. Politics included. I’d love for loneliness and belonging to be a central lens through which we evaluate leaders + experience politics this election season.
The politics of loneliness: Loneliness + non-belonging are a deeply political matter.
This isn’t talked about nearly enough in the public loneliness conversation, as it fixates on physical and mental health. But civic health, as Plato noted, is a reflection of the individual’s soul + vice versa. So what happens to our republic’s health when too many people experience deep loneliness, often activated by politics itself? Here are just three of many things.
Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s most influential political theorists, linked loneliness to being the tool of totalitarian regimes, as it isolates people from their own ability to think and from each other. Loneliness, for Hannah, is ‘among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.’ When we are desperate, we are susceptible to being radicalized.
Men, more specifically single men, are in a “friendship recession” with 1/5 saying they have zero close friends. Dr. Niobe Way studies boys’ crisis of connection due to our warped cultural views + values around masculinity. In her most recent book, Rebels with a Cause, she pleads for us to reimagine boys, ourselves and our culture to end the cycle of violence and blame that are the natural outgrowths of not building up boys with the social-emotional conditions they need to thrive. She links the recent assassination attempt to this root of social stuntedness and non-belonging.
Sense of community is shown to be correlated to political participation, so when 60% of the US population is feeling lonely and disconnected, how does that mess with representation at the polls? This isn’t something I ever thought about when I was building community in my local Starbucks 7 years ago. But it is precisely why Jim Burklo, a rockstar civic mobilizer, visited our cafe community to see a model of local community engagement that could nurture political engagement.
The loneliness of politics: Engaging politics is often a lonely experience. Feeling alienated is a hard place to think clearly and act confidently from. I would love to know where you experience a sense of isolation around politics— here are four places I hear about often:
You have differing beliefs from friends, family, or your community.
You have no supportive spaces to “think aloud,” change your mind, ask honest questions.
Elected reps or whole systems don’t rep you, + you can’t relocate/change them.
You care deeply but are overwhelmed + can’t engage at your ideal level.
A practice for election cycle calm
Last November I did a workshop on staying grounded during the election cycle with USC’s Center for the Political Future and its incredible leader, Kamy Akhavan. Creating space to slow down + share the main feelings we have during election season generated so much insight and empathy in the room, creating a common ground beyond everything else that divides us. Here’s the “emotion wheel” and prompt we used (may have to zoom in):
3 Reflections for Election Season:
If politics is one of your varieties of loneliness right now, you are in good company. If it’s not, YAY!, and know that so many people are out there feeling alone, and you can be of so much help.
Take Care,
Cat