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Video Description
The most connected generation in history is also among the loneliest — and this lecture from Academy of Ideas explains why the obvious answer is wrong. Loneliness, it argues, is not caused by screens replacing real contact, but by an inner emptiness — a self that was never fully built. Social media then becomes a mask over that void, offering endless validation that never fills it. The real cure is the hero’s journey: step into your own aloneness, cultivate the unrealized self within, and stop needing the crowd’s applause. Nietzsche’s warning frames it all: if you would be a star, you must not shine less for them.
Full Video Transcript
All man’s history, wrote Norman Cousins, is an endeavor to shatter his loneliness.
In today’s world, with all the technologies built to connect us, loneliness one would think would be easily shattered.
But the more we get drawn into the virtual worlds of social media, the worse we tend to feel.
To account for this, it is suggested that the medium is the problem.
We have become over-reliant on connecting through our devices at the expense of more traditional ways of social interaction.
But while there is likely some truth to this assertion, in this video we are going to put forth the argument that it is an inner emptiness or the lack of a well-defined and effectual sense of self that is the root cause of the loneliness experienced by so many in our day.
One sense of self can be seen as existing on a spectrum. On the one side of the spectrum are those with a strong sense of self.
Such people feel they have a place in the world. They know what they want with their lives and they take the necessary actions to move in the direction of their goals.
On the other side of the spectrum are those with a weak sense of self. These are the empty men and women.
Such individuals lack a clear conception of what they want with their life,
they have no long-term goals around which to structure their days, and so they feel powerless to positively influence their situation.
These people tend to drift through life in a passive manner.
They follow the path of least resistance and are often crippled by existential doubts.
This problem of emptiness, which now afflicts so many in the West, is a symptom of a society in a period of flux.
For one’s selfhood, or lack thereof, is influenced by the social structures of one’s day.
In the West, many of the institutions which in the past helped people find their place in the world have fallen to the wayside.
The decline of Christianity, for example, has left the West lacking a religious or cultural myth to which people can turn to in order to find a place in this world and a meaning to their life.
The growth of the state has also been a force which has contributed to this pathology of emptiness.
For the rise of the state has led to the destruction of smaller communities and the degradation of the family unit,
which for millennia have been integral forces in the development of one’s selfhood.
But what has really exacerbated this problem for the younger generations are unfavorable economic conditions.
For even if one struggled to find a deeper meaning to their life in the mid to late 20th century,
at least one could fall back on the so-called American dream.
And by establishing a stable career purchasing a home and raising a family one could develop a more or less adequate sense of self
but for the most part this dream is dead and the confluence of all these forces has created a society full of hollow men and women a
Society inflicted by a pathology of emptiness is also a society full of anxiety ridden individuals
For if we feel ourselves to be powerless to exert control over our life and uncertain of our ability to face up to the challenges
of our environment, then anxiety is a natural response.
And for the hollow man, this anxiety is most strongly felt during periods of solitude.
If we have no other people around to lean on, or to distract us, then our thoughts turn
inward and this leads the hollow among us to become aware of their inner void.
Therefore, unlike an individual with a strong and individuated sense of self, for whom periods
of solitude can be rejuvenating, solitude for the hollow man is experienced as a painful
loneliness and something he must flee from.
In generations past, the hollow man would turn to the comfort and security of friends
and family or take part in social events to avoid the anxiety that was triggered in times
of solitude.
But in the present day, we don’t even need to leave the comfort of our home to find the
social connections necessary to block out awareness of our emptiness.
Instead, we merely need to turn to the comforting glow of our phones and immerse ourselves in
the virtual worlds of social media.
We can even go as far as to construct a pseudo-self to mask over our empty nature.
By selectively posting bits of information about our life online, we can pretend to be
someone we are not and feed off the social validation offered by the others who participate
in this game.
This defensive mechanism, used by the hollow man or woman, whereby they flee to the comfort
of the crowd to avoid the anxiety triggered in times of solitude, is also utilized by
pre-psychotic individuals in the attempt to avoid a psychotic break.
In his book Interpretation of Schizophrenia, Silvano Arietti describes how this process
unfolds in the case of schizophrenics.
In some cases, writes Arietti, schizophrenia starts with a period of confusion, excitement
and agitation.
The patient seems to be eager to make contacts, to reach all the people he knows, to reconnect
himself with what seems to be an escaping world.
He searches for something that he cannot find.
What the schizophrenic is searching for is also what the hollow man lacks, a secure sense
of self. In its extreme form, writes the psychologist Rollo May, this fear of losing
oneself is the fear of psychosis. The outward turn to the security of the social world usually
fails to protect one on the cusp of a psychotic break, and so too does the outward turn to the
world of social media ultimately fail to protect the hollow man from his anxiety and loneliness.
This solution is like placing a band-aid on a gunshot wound, as the social validation that
is gained through social media use is as empty as the people who grant it.
For as Rollo May noted in his book Man’s Search for Himself,
The hollow among us are bound to become more lonely no matter how much they lean together.
For hollow people do not have a base from which to learn to love.
But what makes this defense against emptiness particularly harmful is that it prevents people
from taking the necessary steps to address their lack of a self.
The human being, wrote May, cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long.
If he is not growing towards something, he does not merely stagnate.
The pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive
activities.
The true antidote to an inner emptiness is to discover what we truly want with our life
and to take the actions necessary to bring that self and life into existence.
To accomplish this, we must be willing to face up to our loneliness and the anxiety
which accompanies it, for loneliness, as Edward Edinger put it in his book Ego and the Archetype,
is a precursor to the positive experience of aloneness.
And it is in periods of aloneness that we can begin to learn who we are and what we want with our life.
This process is epitomized by the archetype of the hero’s journey, or as Joseph Campbell explains,
The call is to leave a certain social situation, move into your own loneliness and find the jewel,
the center that’s impossible to find when you’re socially engaged.
This is the departure when the hero feels something has been lost and goes to find it.
The first step, detachment or withdrawal, consists in a radical transfer of emphasis
from the external to the internal world, a retreat from the desperations of the wasteland
to the peace of the everlasting realm that is within.
But this realm, as we know from psychoanalysis, is precisely the infantile unconscious.
It is the realm that we enter in sleep.
We carry it within ourselves forever.
All the life potentialities that we never manage to bring to adult realization, those
other portions of our self, are there.
For such golden seeds do not die.
Facing up to our aloneness and cultivating the golden seeds of our being is no easy task
as it requires that we take the bold step of diminishing our need for social validation.
For to develop a strong sense of self we must distinguish ourselves psychologically from
our peers.
Each of us is unique, we have different innate talents, likes and dislikes, and so as we
strengthen our sense of self it is inevitable that we will become less like those around
us.
We must not think that this process will turn us into outsiders who reject the social world.
Rather those who cultivate a strong sense of self only improve their social skills and
enrich their relationships.
For a person who possesses the inner strength associated with a well-defined self will not
be held back in their social interactions by anxiety or the need for validation.
Instead, a strong sense of self will free us to behave with spontaneity, which is one
of the most attractive of human characteristics.
And as the etymology of the word implies, acting spontaneously means acting in accordance
with our will, something that is only possible after we have developed a strong sense of
self.
If we dare to take this journey, not everyone will approve and some of the people who we
considered friends may even treat us with disdain.
For to see a man move beyond the chains of his emptiness only makes the hollow man more
aware of his barren nature.
Or as Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
In justice and filth, they throw after the lonely one.
But, my brother, if you would be a star, you must not shine less for them because of that.
And beware of the good and the just.
They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue for themselves.
They hate the lonely one.
Source: Academy of Ideas