In an ideal society, would/should we let people isolate themselves as much as they want?

Great Debates
21

You didn’t imply that. If it’s what you meant, you should have stated it outright.
Here’s the question:

in an ideal world, should we let those people stay home and not interact face to face with people as much as they like?

Here’s your answer:

In an ideal society, none. Here in the real, messy, world, when the recluse starts sending out mail bombs, or comes out with guns and a list of names.

No part of that even suggested “otherwise it’s not a problem”.

Look, as a quiet, introverted person who likes being on my own, I’ve spent a lot of time brushing off jokes and comments that suggest that introverted=domestic terrorist. That gets really fucking old.

Did I say that? Did I even suggest that? No, no I didn’t. Take your strawman elsewhere.

Can you quote where you said any of that?

22

I’m an introvert and I have social anxiety. I would say that if society thinks it’s such a problem that we prefer low-key hangouts and solitude, the impetus is on society to incentivize leaving the house. More quiet spaces, perhaps event opportunities in nature, quiet hours in restaurants, I don’t really care how you do it, but everybody needs to stop downplaying the effects of crowded, loud public life as if it’s just a minor thing holding us back.

I live in periodic sensory hell because my husband’s extended family is large and loud. There are 60 just descended from his grandmother alone. Weddings are 400-500 people. Twelve children under six. Springtime is a neverending parade of children’s birthday parties at these hellacious establishments called play places.

My husband and I have been married almost twenty years and he didn’t understand until last year what this was like for me as a sensory experience. I would describe standing in a crowd like being pelted with rocks. He thought it was merely an energy drain. No, it’s physically affronting.

Anyway, stop pretending everything would be fixed if we’re just prodded out of our shells. Introversion isn’t a character flaw or a thing to fix, it’s a valid difference in how we relate to the world. If you think it’s so important that we socialize, make it easier on us. Otherwise leave us alone.

23

No. In the real world people are often killed by people they regularly interact with: spouses, lovers, kids, parents, friends, coworkers, neighbors. Those who regularly interact with no one neither kill nor are killed due to these interactions.

24

Let’s put it this way. Introverts are motivated by dopamine and pleasure as much as extroverts or anyone else. If going out socializing a lot and being chatty and extroverted were what gave us the most pleasure, it’s what we’d be doing. We’re introverted because it’s what gives us more pleasure, or, at least, carries less cost in terms of social fatigue or other fatigue.

25

We should be more concerned about those who wish not to be isolated.

Loneliness is a public health issue.

Loneliness has profound health implications. Over the last couple decades, a robust body of evidence has linked loneliness to a range of health conditions, from physical and cognitive decline during aging to cardiovascular health issues, and even an increased risk of death.

26

But in the absence of that perfect knowledge, the default has to be to leave them alone.

I don’t disagree, but I’m having all sorts of horrifying and absurd visions of government-mandated socializing and stuff like that. How would that be handled in this perfect society?

27

And not all terrorists isolate themselves. Some of them train in teams, or form compounds full of other people, or are just the person down the street who’s behaving reasonably normally until, one day, they aren’t.

Some people who come out with guns are really charismatic extroverts who collect followers.

Yes.

When people who don’t want to spend much time alone have to spend a lot of time alone, they’re miserable. They need help to not be isolated.

When people who do want to spend a lot of time alone are forced to spend that time interacting with others, this doesn’t help them. It makes them miserable. If they’re the kind of person who might lash out physically, it’s going to make them more likely to do so, not less.

The proper balance of time spent alone and with others varies from person to person. Being at a different point along that range than somebody else is not a pathology, and does not lead to wanting to shoot people.

28

The problem (as it always is with humans) is defining an ideal world.

I’ll repeat a specific line from the section I just quoted, with my emphasis:

Would it be “bad” for them? According to who?

Because this is perhaps the place where it gets most abstract. Who is deciding the ideal?

Because, in general (not putting words in any posters mouth) humans are by default considered social animals. And we put a value on it. But that’s the result of countless accidents of physical and social evolution for one single species. And it’s by no means universal in that. The American (USA) subculture puts a huge value on individuality (often to toxicity, but that’s another thread) or rebelling against the norm. What is that “ideal” society?

Or if we had gone an entirely different evolutionary path, or if some creature achieved sentience but without or specific path of tribalism, would it still be ideal? So again, who chooses?!

So yeah, assumptions must be baked into the debate from the first post. As for the sidebar on choosing to be alone vs. some sort of pathology, I think it’s yet another correlation vs. causation assumption - some people isolate themselves because of an existing pathology, which may be harmful by the majority. Others are just on a different side of the curve, where they don’t value a great deal of human interaction, but that is apparently considered “wrong” despite them doing no harm to others, unless depriving society of their insights/knowledge/money/etc. is decided by the majority to be harm.

My read is that if we were going to have an ideal society by the norms of the majority, then that majority would have had, at some point in its past actively or passively purged all dissenting elements. If the ideal was built around a unified cooperative social structure, then yes, by that societies ideal then those that chose to be socially isolated would have to be forced to conform, or, their isolation taken to an extreme (death, no right to breed, isolate to some form of Coventry, etc.) or they’d serve as a detrimental example to the rest of the human society.

A sufficiently creative society could possibly keep them around but as a negative example, especially if they didn’t get the same support as the rest of the community: “See how bad it is for those freaks?” sort of thing.

But back to my first point, an ideal/utopian world for any number of people is going to be a living hell/dystopia for others. At least for humans, and since we’re the only social and sentient species we can extrapolate from, that’s the way it tends to be.

For me, I could totally see an ideal world of evolved, sentient sessile beings that reproduce asexually and never interact. Perhaps immortal individual philosopher kings, not burdened by the need to act contrary to their own desires. Their Ideal world would therefore be one of perfect isolation! And those that did try to communicate and create a culture would be the ones that needed purging.

29

I grew up in close contact with my mother’s extended family.

She had 14 brothers and sisters.

12 survived to adulthood and gave birth to a number of their own children.

I had 50 first cousins.

We were all very connected during my early years.

For some reason our house was always the Grand Central Station of family gatherings, random and otherwise.

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s we had unannounced drop ins all the time day and night.

When I moved out @ 18 I couldn’t wait to “do a bit of isolation”.

I still prefer it that way although sometimes I miss the hustle and bustle of those years.

30

And that doesn’t necessarily happen. The relatively isolated person might be producing all sorts of useful stuff, which they get to other people during brief periods of interaction; or by mail or online.

They might, for that matter, be producing useful insights or excellent art which that particular person can only produce when left alone.

31

Fully agreed. Just makes the point that we’re likely unable to define an ideal society within even just the few people in the thread, the degree of “damaging” isolation that’s a risk for whatever society, and whether that risk rises to a level of harm, or is in fact a benefit such as in your example.

Looking at all of humanity’s failed utopian societies of the past, I don’t think we’ll ever get close enough to ideal to make the question of isolated individuals a concern, right now we are hard pressed to create ones that function well for a few centuries without war and massive social destruction or upheaval (note that sometimes this is in search of a better ideal itself!).

32

Case in point, my wife is a writer who has done six books with an editor she has never talked to on the phone, even. All non-fiction science books. She is not an introvert, but if she were it wouldn’t change much about work.

I don’t really see how our society is forcing people into public. Sure, someone might have family who does it, but that’s not society. Sure, jobs might do it, but there are a lot more solitary jobs now than there used to be. Introverts these days have it pretty good. And I’m on the introverted side.

33

The challenge is when you’re both of those people. I’m a genuinely introverted person who is frequently lonely, even though I live with two other people. I both yearn for solitude and I get sad when I don’t see people. I think the Internet almost always makes me feel more lonely and if I can get some time away from it, I usually can just relax into my solitude. But my solution isn’t to attend a bunch of parties, it’s to invite two of my friends to lunch when it’s not busy at the restaurant. Or to have a small gathering with my writers group. Or just make plans with one person. I just like talking to people in a quiet, comfortable place.

Sounds like she’s living the dream. Mine, anyway. I’ve often lamented that in these days you can’t be a reclusive Salingeresque writer who never talks to anyone and shoves a novel under your door for the editor to pick up. It’s become a much more public-facing job, particularly if you write fiction and are traditionally published. Which is why I’m procrastinating on querying agents.

34

My favorite example is Faulkner, of whom Jimmy Buffett famously said “time alone seemed to work well for Faulkner”.

35

During my time working at the Rhode Island School of Design, we would periodically get students who had been so thoroughly home-schooled that they had no concept of friends, or any practice at social skills. Sometimes they made powerful art, but it wasn’t coming from a place of joy or contentment.

36

Not for any of them?

I don’t think there’s any question that solitude doesn’t suit everyone. That doesn’t mean that varying degrees of it don’t suit anyone.

(I also wonder whether those particular students weren’t in a state of culture shock.)

I suspect that’s actually pretty common.

I can happily go days without seeing anyone in person. But not weeks. And during those days, I want to know that there are people I care about and who care about me, who I will be able to see in person from time to time.

And I really like doing the farmers’ market; which is a highly social activity. But it’s during a specific time, and then I can go home and be on my own.

I’ve lived with a number of people over the years. Some of them I really liked living with — but those were all people who respected alone time; and I was always happy when I got to be alone in the house for a while, however glad I was to see them come home.

37

I was the technical assistant to the Film/Video department, and as such interacted mostly with students who were having some kind of problem. A huge part of successful filmmaking is learning to work as a team, and sharing skills with your peers. I can only guess at the home life and mindset of impressionable youths raised by parents effectively isolated from society for whatever rationale, but it ill-prepared them for college life. Choosing as an adult to withdraw from society a little or a lot is a personal decision, which should not be made for you by your parents. That said, at age 70, I choose to spend most of my time with cats, and you folks here…

38

I love my husband and son like nothing else in the world, and I enjoy their company, but sometimes I just need alone time, and - I’m a little embarrassed to admit - sometimes I fantasize about living alone. The silence. Oh the blessed silence.

I only get that silence on Thursday and Friday but I have to work from home so I can’t exactly revel in it. Then I’m in a bind on Sunday. I want to go to Zen temple, but my husband and son are out of the house in the morning and it’s sooooo tempting to enjoy the alone time. That’s often the choice I make, but then I feel bad about missing Sangha.

39

I was assigned a new hire caseworker earlier this year.

In my countless years of training people for this social work position I have never seen someone so socially inept even in terms of coworker relationships.

Found out later that this person was home schooled.