Why Are We Lonely?

Isolation in our Western culture has always been a thing (but it really hasn't been debated much by conservatives until the 2020 lockdowns happened). So now that conservatives and some people from a movement known as MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) are freaking out about lockdowns happening because of the bird flu and measles coming back, I believe it's time to talk about how isolated we've become in the West.

Now before I jump into the post, I just want to indicate that a good number of subjects in the so-called "loneliness epidemic" that's been a thing since before 2020 doesn't get talked about enough. One of those ideas is that many people have intentionally chosen isolation because, while obviously not always great, it's still can be a better alternative than toxic individuals and "communities" that marginalized and religiously deconstructed folks tried so hard and failed to navigate through no fault of their own. That is for another blog post.

I also want to note that a lot of people blame our lonliness in society on the internet or the digital age (not just the pandemic lockdowns), but lonliness is actually something that started around a century ago, when the idea of the nuclear family as the ideal familial unit was invented by populists of the 20th century.

Any analysis surrounding the rise of loneliness, that doesn't put a heavy focus on how the system has degarded the health of our relationships and "community," is an analysis that's insufficient and not deeply looked into at all. It's no wonder people, especially on the right of the political spectrum who use children as a political football, go straight to children's mental health when bitching about opposition to Covid and the lockdowns.

With the nuclear family, a traditional straight white American couple will generally see the man take the leadership role. Even if leadership roles are shared between two people, there is still a power imbalance. The isolation is formed between the parents and children from each other by creating that power imbalance. The male leader in the household also manifests a mindset and feeling of ownership. That mindset and feeling starts with the house - my house my rules! Don't like it? GTFO! And yet, it inevitably trickles down into an unhealthy ownership of children or even a spouse. MY house. MY traditions. MY routine. MY family. MY children. MY rules.

Throughout history, the creation and promotion of the suburbs also creates isolation. I love cities, but my wife and I are starting to realize that cities do more to isolate as opposed to small towns. The first thing that suburbs do is isolate folks from communities based on shared ideals while also creating communities based on income level above all else. This created the "middle class", a phrase used to allow members of the working class to "classify" themselves better than those in the lower marginalized (income) class and look down on them as if they don't take personal responsibility or as if they're leeches and free-loaders.

The funny thing I learned, both growing up in Meadowood, Winnipeg, and as a creative person with an internet connection since 2001, is to be (or even feel) better than someone can be addictive. Feeding that manifest destiny fueled ego I had since I was seven years old caused me to overlook my own self-awareness as well as how privileged I actually was growing up in a middle class nuclear family ran childhood. I learned that I had to change the way I saw the world and the people around me so I could actually figure out how both more privileged but also how broken I was compared to other people.

If we live in our communities while looking down on those we consider lesser, we are stuck with the capitalist ideas of doing better, buying nicer things, and more. Sometimes we do it to survive or combat our own issues (or to distract ourselves from them). Other times, we do it because we're stuck in a system where all we can do is spend money just to survive. But for those who are privileged, you get a nicer car. You put in a hot tub. And also, if you have a credit card, you accumulate massive amounts of debt. Based on this idea, I eventually figured out that living in isolation requires owning or hoarding a ton of resources, while living in community is how everyone in it thrives since they share everything they have.

Of course, a big question is this: what happens if you stumble and fall? Nobody knows you when you're about to be homeless. Barely anyone knows what to do if you struggle with a neurological disability. No one knows why you can't get a job after sending out thousands of job applications (with a resume and cover letter) with your phone a day while only recieving one call for an interview a month. No one knows why you can't move forward after putting in so much hard work and following every conservative advice and self-improvement tip found online. You stumble to your lowest point, have a mental breakdown, and become the next sad story. You're the next person sleeping on a park bench with no shoes and a thin jacket stolen from a thrift store to be pitied and looked down upon. Because in a strange way, that is what your community is about in 2025. So even with a community, the isolation is still present, because the community is superficial instead of being about shared values. This is why so many people feel lonely, even in a mixer, even with the spotlight and camera facing them. This is why I myself feel lonely even though I'm in church or with a group of people that have shared interests.

This loneliness has been present even before the TV was invented.

And it's so hilarious that right-leaning and even moderate individuals go on empassionate rants about "the media" "the personal computer" "the giant pocket size existential crisis rectangle" (commonly known as a smartphone) and Covid lockdowns being a big source of the problem. They whine about all technology and martial law without considering the fact that the Cold War taught us to fear what other countries might do to the West. They keep forgetting that the system and yes "the media" did teach us to embrace fear and to see that the entire world could end in seconds. We were told it's not worth it to sieze the day, but to be wary, to be scared.

We saw crime rates escalate in the 70s and 80s and the system responded with "stranger danger" while sweeping incidents of parents molesting their kids under the rug, therefore continually isolating the children they were trying to "protect" with anti-abortion protests. As a result, everyone's individualism ramped up and every person had to form ulterior motives for survival, and we all naturally started to be suspicious of everyone.

The late 90s gave us video games, and even though they weren't the problem, the 90s also brought us Columbine and similar events, which added to the isolation problem by taking the already isolated folks and considering them potential threats. People think that 9/11 "united us as Americans", but it actually divided Islamic communities from the rest of the United States. There has always been subtle but intense division of the West into the sorting of the factions we see today that are no different from the 90s in high school where we had the jocks, the nerds, the rich kids, and the mean girls. And because we were seeing record attendance at protests and worldwide participation since the early 2000s, it reignited a lot of the anti-hippie/pro-war sentiments of the Vietnam era. We Westerners grew more isolated from each other, even as we tried to form "communities" that, largely, wouldn't last once the immediate concern was no longer immediate or even a concern at all.

And here we are with the internet and AI thinking tech will save us all. And, rather than isolate us further, Silicon Valley actually allowed us to form online "friendships" and "communities" based on shared activities. Even if you were housebound. Even if you were ugly. Even if you were a trans furry.

The problem is that community is a neutral word. While some people found uplifting communities, others found communities united in hate. Red pill groups, men's rights groups, hate groups, 4chans and 8chans, evangelical hate groups like the New Apostolic Reformation, support groups for parents who have "vaccine-injured" kids - all of these are communities, but they are communities that often serve to lean into nastiness and push for solutions that are hurtful to marginalized people who are just trying to wake up tomorrow.

Here we are, more isolated than every! While I disagree with a majority of the whining people who were against the lockdowns were going on about, they did have one point: a strong variety of online communities will never make up for a lack of real world relationships. We crave human touch, even if it's as brief and formal as a handshake and we will never be able to get that from the internet.

The point is that it wasn't the internet, or Covid, or lockdowns, or even the nuclear family that got us here. When I figured all this out earlier this week, isolation all comes down to what I already know two years ago. The revelation of this entire idea of lonliness goes completely full circle to the conclusion that the inherent nature of the industrial revolution leads to capitalism That capitalism serves to isolate us because the more isolated we are, the more money we spend trying to numb the pain it causes... or at worst, it makes ourselves feel better about it until we can't afford the basics we need to survive. And once the rich make the most money while keeping us seperated from each other, that's when they'll all get together, and do what they can to keep everyone making less than six figures from seeing another decade.

By the way, if you want a good laugh, check out The Jordan Peterson Edition.