What’s it about?

There is no doubt that Loneliness has reached critical proportions in the current century. Successive lockdowns and social distancing has only amplified its impact, with society fracturing and facing disastrous consequences.

From examining ‘Renting a friend’ in Manhattan, to robot caregivers in Japan, as well as the continuing impact of neo liberal policies on communities, ‘the lonely century: a call to reconnect’ incorporates statistics and anecdotes to allow Noreena Hertz to chart its impact, and how society is coping. And more importantly, what can be done.

My Thoughts

I moved after the first lockdown, from a small place with a strong sense of community to a larger town where I didn’t know anyone. Gone was the small talk with the lads in the corner shop, to self check outs in the big supermarket.

Our bookclub was online. The theatres and cinema were closed, and in that most Irish of institutions and cornerstone of many communities, the pub, you had to sit away from the bar. Sport was cancelled to spectators. Of course, I’m not describing anything different to what a lot of people experienced.

I could go weekends without speaking to anyone. Getting used to my own space, to begin with, was fine. But it soon became my biggest challenge. I was in a new place, away from my community and I was feeling it. I tried to use the phone a bit more, but I still felt rootless.

I thought I knew loneliness was but I realised how wrong I was. It has a different flavour to depression but is hard to describe. All I can say is that I felt constantly stressed and felt my spirits dropping to a worrying level.

The book

I thought about this a lot as I was listening to ‘the lonely century.’ The statistics in the opening section about loneliness didn’t make me feel any better.

….The Damage to Physical Health is Equivalent to 15 cigarettes a day, 

….Worse than not exercising,

…..as harmful being an alcoholic,

………twice as bad as being obese etc etc

To begin with, I wasn’t sure if I needed to read more books about loneliness. But I persevered because it is well researched and written, and I hoped it could help my understanding. It’s a wide ranging book, from looking at the Hasidic people, which supports research that suggests people live longer when they are connected to community, ‘rent a friend’ in Manhattan and something called ‘Mukbang’, which is where you watch other people eat. (I watched video of this on YouTube just to see what the craic was. Not for me.)

Disturbingly, there’s a lot of evidence that loneliness is contributing to extremism. The author talks to a lone Parisian about how he found a sense of community by joining the extreme right, and this is something we are seeing right across the world right now. But the flip side of this was found in Germany, where strangers organise to meet face to face in beer gardens to discuss their differing political outlooks.

Mice and Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher

Some of it was disturbing too, such as the studies on mice. Keep a mouse alone for long enough, and when you introduce another to the cage, what happens? The lonely mouse attacks it. There seems to be no doubt that when people have been deprived of company, it leads to mental instability. How many times have we read about the damage done to prisoners due to isolation? To deprive people of company often brutalises them.

I was reading this book as part of the 2022 Nonfiction reader challenge, as my economics pick, of which there was a lot in this book. Neo liberalism has done a lot of damage to our communities - it was none other than one of the leading exponents of this form of capitalism, Maggie thatcher, who pronounced that ‘there was no such thing as society.’

As Noreen Hertz points out, neo liberalism is not the only form of capitalism. Adam Smith recognised that the state had a role to play in providing the infrastructure of community, and that the governments needed to reign in the markets to protect society. 

The 20th century workplace is a lonely place, and it’s only going to get worse. There are fewer communal spaces and the pandemic has shown that working remotely is going to increase. 

Recommendation

Is there hope? There is increased union membership in some industries in the states, despite their continued erosion by those in power. There is a need to contribute and strengthen our communities, to empower us and fight loneliness. The author suggests we will have to develop a more co-operative form of capitalism, that delivers in not just economic terms, but societal as well. 

I found ‘the lonely century’ a fascinating book, incredibly well researched and full of interesting anecdotes, interviews and statistics. The author Noreena Hertz reads the audiobook herself and does a fine job, and engages well with the material. As a subject it could have been very staid but the author has made it extremely readable. I certainly feel that it’s allowed me to think more deeply about loneliness, not just as to how it affects me but the impact it’s having on society.

And me? Now that things are returning to normal again, I hope to involve myself more in the local community and join some clubs and societies, maybe attend some classes. I strongly feel that this is the only way on an individual level to fight loneliness and to empower our communities in the fight against rampant neo liberalism. Ultimately we are citizens, not consumers. This is one of the best books about loneliness I have read.

Book review - The lonely century: How to restore human connection in a world that’s pulling apart by Noreena Hertz
Published by Sceptre: Release date: 10-09-20

11 hours 40 minutes
416 pages

Amazon US Amazon UK