Young people today seem to have no desire for solitude, have never heard of it, can't imagine why it would be worth having. In fact, their use of technology — or to be fair, our use of technology — seems to involve a constant effort to stave off the possibility of solitude, a continuous attempt, as we sit alone at our computers, to maintain the imaginative presence of others. As long ago as 1952, Trilling wrote about "the modern fear of being cut off from the social group even for a moment." Now we have equipped ourselves with the means to prevent that fear from ever being realized. Which does not mean that we have put it to rest. Quite the contrary. ... The more we keep aloneness at bay, the less are we able to deal with it and the more terrifying it gets.
My own formative decade, the '50s, is routinely portrayed as a time of conformism, but I see more groupthink today than I ever did in the '50s.
As far as I'm concerned, it's always been 'the more I keep social groups at bay, the less I am able to deal with them and the more terrifying they get'.
ReplyDeletePerhaps someone of my lonely calibre is needed to teach the youth a thing or two about the beauty of solitude (ah, but to do that I've have to meet them, wouldn't I?)
There's certainly a good deal of groupthink, but I don't believe that technology is the linchpin. In groups, whether in-person or online, we decide what we reveal about ourselves to others. And that goes for young people too. I agree that there are substantial problems with privacy and individualism in our present age, and I worry tremendously about the ability of people to be who they are. (Speaking personally, I eject myself from the Internet for many hours everyday, because I require talking with people, an intake of the world around me, and solitude to maintain my grounding.) The tragedy of our age is how so few lack the bravery to express an iconoclastic opinion or a behavior, or to do something crazy. They risk being ostracized, when, in fact, accepting eccentricity and civil disagreement can be practiced, is more accepted than not, and is probably better for everybody. The more diverse that things are, the more interesting the world. You just have to have the natural curiosity to find the recherche and sometimes listen to the "raving loons."
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