Loneliness ignites our body and our policy
Medical research shows that social isolation is a serious chronic stress. You can say something similar on its impact on our political system
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Hannah Arendt I have been a lot in my mind lately. The 20th century German Jew political philosopher He escaped the Nazi holocaust and was considered one of the greatest public intellectuals in the world at a time when few women have been appointed to university faculties. She relied on history, literature and her own life to identify the terms under which open and liberal societies turn into authoritarian states. Seven decades ago, she made observations that still offer powerful information today.
In The origins of totalitarianismArentemphase a main factor in the rise of authoritarianism which has little obvious link with politics: solitude. While we usually think loneliness By not satisfying our social needs, Arendt defined the word as something deeper. Loneliness occurs when there are no shared objective facts and no potential collective action to resolve shared challenges. It is a state of being where you cannot trust others. Loneliness, in Arendt is toldignites the connective tissues of a company. It weakens the political body so that demagogues and despots can attack. “What prepares men for totalitarian domination”, it wrote“… is the fact that loneliness, once an experience is generally limited under certain marginal social conditions such as old age, has become a daily experience.”
Arendt – As much as I know – did not use the word “inflammation” to describe the effects of social isolation on a country or a culture. But it is the metaphor which, for me, comes to the essence of its warning.
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Inflammation is the Body response To a feeling of threat – a protective and contractional response which can extend even at the cellular level. This is an answer that can inhibit healing. A community or a company faced with a significant connectivity deficit is also in a state of perpetual threat; People are unable to listen to each other, to trust themselves, to Maintain confidence in common institutionsor to collectively overcome the divisions.
It may seem familiar.
From 2003 to 2022, face to face socialization among We men fell by 30%. For adolescentsIt was an amazing 45%. About 12% of Americans say they have No close friendsA quadruple increase since 1990. While social media was supposed to amplify human connection, the rise Culture of comparisonsocial sorting in Echo rooms And the rapid decline of social connection in person has rather coincided with unprecedented levels of Anxiety, depression And mistrust.
It is therefore not surprising that, in America, we see Democrat backsing As Hannah Arendt warned, including mass polarization, intentional disinformation and a policy of fear, remuneration and rage.
Solitude ignite societies.
It turns out that loneliness also ignites the body.
Two decades ago, researchers Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago demonstrated in a historical study This loneliness acts as A chronic stress factor This triggers response systems to innate body stress. Social isolation maintains the Hypothalamic axis-Eypophyso-surrenalis (HPA) In a state of constant excitement, leading the persistent release of cortisol. This hormonal imbalance Increase inflammation. And this can, in turn, weaken the immune system, compromise cardiovascular health and worsen vulnerability to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In short, the absence of significant social ties can literally Recalibrate the physiological mechanisms of the body Towards greater stress and illness.
In the past two decades, other studies have reinforced the link between loneliness and inflammatory ways. George Slavich of the University of California in Los Angeles, stresses that live a social disconnection Can imitate physical threats in the way our brains and immune systems react – aggravating the release of inflammatory agents. From an evolutionary point of view, sustained isolation disrupts our primordial need for social integration – the head of inflammation and a whole series of consequences downstream.
It is easy to minimize the problem of loneliness. When the former American surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned Among the dangers of social isolation and proposed solutions, no intervention by the significant government followed. Likewise, when the British government appointed Minister of Loneliness in 2018, many compared the move to a sketch of Monty Python rather than seeing it as a serious political intervention.
But the medical, social and even political costs of growing social isolation mean that we can no longer allow ourselves to ignore it.
Some solutions are simple. Medical innovators now approach social isolation through practices such as “social prescriptionยป- Where healthcare professionals Connect patients Who are alone with non-medical community services, volunteer programs, exercise groups and artistic activities to improve their well-being. Instead of writing prescriptions for pills, doctors can prescribe a free pass to a museum, an invitation to join a garden club or a support group for people faced with similar difficulties. A recent evaluation of several years of Social prescription focused on nature In the United Kingdom, programs have considerably helped participants reduce anxiety and improve happiness.
Other solutions are more systemic. When Pete Buttigieg presented himself to the presidency in 2020, he presented a program for “Membership and healing– Press new funding and policies concerning mental health and drug addiction as well as national service to rebuild community institutions and promote environmental catering. National service programs on the objective Like AmericanS and invest in local journalism through public subsidies or tax incentives to restore the sources of trust and restore important foundations of community life.
This should be a bipartite cause. The conservatives and the liberals have an opening to fight against the crisis by taking advantage of the groups of faith and the veterans, for example, by granting tax incentives or small federal matches which could help the churches, the synagogues and the groups of veterans to build mentoring initiatives, support for the recovery of the drug addict and the efforts to revitalize libraries and civic spaces. There is also growing up biparti acknowledgement of the role of social media in the crisis. To combat Big Tech’s impact on young people, leaders through the ideological spectrum should push for complete algorithmic transparency, restrictions on operating design functionalities and robust digital protection mandates for children.
Like inflammation in the body, social isolation weakens our civic “immune system”, fueling polarization and making us more sensitive to authoritarian impulses. But Hannah Arendt stressed that the condition is reversible. By investing in the foundations of shared membership, we can restore our adaptation to adapt to the challenges we face – from forest fires to pandemics to disinformation. It is time to become serious about our healing.
This is an article of opinion and analysis, and the points of view expressed by the author or the authors are not necessarily those of American scientist.