Loneliness vs Connection

The public intellectual David Brooks in his most recent book The Second Mountain analyzes a society assaulted by a crisis of moral directionlessness. Moral directionlessness is a sense of lack of purpose, preventing people from finding a place of meaningful and enduring happiness. Brooks says one of the manifestations of this crisis as rampant loneliness. 

Center for Disease Prevention announced that the lifespan of Americans has reduced for the third consecutive year as of 2018. The reason for this unprecedented dip is what is called "deaths of despair', suicide or drug overdose. Brooks in his book identifies this as being caused by isolation that people feel in the society. 

Emile Durkhiem, on of the founding fathers of sociology did some work on the raise of suicides in Europe at the turn of the 19th century. It was a time when Industrial revolution was in full swing. In theory, people's living standards were improving. But the rate of suicide was increasing. Durkhiem identified that suicide was on the raise among people who lived isolated lives. He coined the word "anomie," to describe these at risk isolated individuals. 

The movie A Star is Born (spoilers ahead) is the story of fame in the music industry, the consequent isolation and its exposure of human frailty. It is the story of two musicians, Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jack (Bradley Cooper), who fall in love and get married living famous lonely lives. Jack suffers from an addiction and, eventually, commits suicide. 

In a book about addictions, Out of the Shadows, David Carnes writes that the root cause of addictions is a sense of disconnection in one's personal life. Carnes states that many American Soldiers while in Vietnam were regularly taking drugs, but when they go back to their families back in America, they did not have any dependence on drugs at all. The loving connection with their families was a stabilizing force, preventing the soldiers from wanting to take drugs. 

In A Star is Born, though Ally and Jack love each other, at critical junctures they miss an authentic connection because Ally's manager creates a wedge between them. Jack sinks deeper into his addiction, ultimately taking his life away. Ally's manager's goal is to exploit Ally's gift, making more money. 

The manager's way of relating with Ally is what call an I-IT relationship (using the philosopher Martin Buber's terminology). It is a relationship where the human being in this case, Ally, is treated as an "IT," an object of money making. On the other hand, says Buber, there is the I-Thou way of relating with people. Relating in an I-Thou way means not using the other for the sake of one's own personal agenda. Lady Ally's manager wants to use her to make money for him. He treats both Ally and Jack in an I-IT relationship, causing a disconnection between them. Jack, following the manager's self-seeking admonition, keeps his struggles a secret from Ally which literally destroys him from within.

The problem with our society is that we are moving more and more into a society which is determined by I-IT relationships. Christopher Lash in his book the Culture of Narcissism says we are becoming a society of "happy hookers," where the goal is to sell oneself to people around us, where it a boss at work or a potential date at a coffee shop. This I-IT-happy-hooker way of life is causing more fragmentation and greater isolation. It is no wonder that the UK recently appointed a special cabinet minister post to address the problem of loneliness.

The sociologist Brene Brown, in one of her popular Ted Talks, says that human beings are created for connection. When we are living the happy-hooker way of life, always looking for ways to sell ourselves we miss opportunities to deeply connect because selling oneself often involves superficial posturing to be likable enough. When we don't have deep connections with people around us, a part of what it means to be human is lost. We become, in Durkiem's words, the anomie.

Why is seeking deep connections intrinsic to the human condition? 

From a theological stand point, the reason why being able to connect with people around is is important is that we are made in the image of the Trinitarian God. Trinity is one God in three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Trinity is a mystery centered in mutual indwelling love. In John 17:21, Jesus prays on behalf of he disciples saying, "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." Humanity is made in the image of God, sourced in Trinity. Just as there is a community of mutual indwelling love within Godhead, to be human is to be in a loving community. 

The community that reflects Trinity will be a community of self-giving love that loves one another in the model of Christ as Jesus says in John 13:35, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."  When a society lack a model for self-giving way of love, it becomes directionless moral morass as Brooks contends. Such societies are led by the imperious individualism of of the superficial "happy hookers", leading to anomies. As in A Star is Born, having all the money and the fame in the world may be a mere highway to addictions and negation of life, if one does not have deep connections with fellow human being. The way to be fully human is to be enmeshed in a "web of loving relationships", as David Brooks puts it in his book, reflecting the enmeshment of the Trinitarian community.