Loneliness across cultures

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread made me think about how endemic to the US is the problem of loneliness.

i.e. do other cultures have as many lonely people as the US?

First, since I assume a majority of Americans are descended from Nothern Europeans, how is loneliness in those countries?

  • If it is at a similar level as the US, then maybe the status quo in the US is just due to the genetic and/or cultural heritage from the Northern European countries.

  • If not at a similar level with the US, then is there something about US society which increases the number of lonely individuals?
    Second, how is loneliness around the world? Canada, Latin America, Middle East, China, India, etc.

It would be nice to draw on the collective experience and world travels of Dopers to see how this plays out around the world.

One small item I have though about is the song “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles. They were songing about loneliness (“All the lonely people, Where do they all come from?”) so it was a problem in England at least since then. Any other pop-culture evidence of widespread loneliness in other countries?

2

Well, first of all, the U.S. is a really big country. If Europeans considered themselves all one country, and were inclined to move away from their families as they grew up, got married to someone they met in college, or took new job opportunities, etc., in the same way that we do, and if they spread out as far as we do, I’m sure they’d have a similar experience. Canada is bigger, but most of the population is concentrated toward its southern parts, rather than spread around evenly, so they probably have it a bit less.

I’m not so sure about your presumption that “the majority of Americans” are descended from Northern Europeans. I think that Americans of Northern European descent are on their way to being a minority, if not there already.

I think the rapid growth of technology has a hand in the increase in loneliness - people just don’t directly need each other for basic survival the way they once did.

3

Wikipedia says “The majority of the 298 million people currently living in the United States descend from European immigrants”, and a look at their chart shows that people from Northern European countries account for about 48.7% of the population.

Well, first we’d have to hear from people living in Europe to tell us if loneliness is such a problem there.

If it is not, then, you are suggesting that loneliness is an endemic problem to the US and is a direct consequence of the life choices that Americans are willing to make, which means that Americans must be doing something wrong.

This I agree with. In theory, this should affect all industrialized nations equally.

4

You seem to be confusing loneliness with being alone. If people are deliberately choosing to be alone, how can they be lonely?

5

Not to be petty, but that’s not a majority. And I count 45.7% (German, Irish, English, Polish, Scottish, Dutch, Norwegian, Scotch-Irish, Swedish). What’s more, I don’t think these countries really constitute enough cultural uniformity that it makes sense to group them together (at least while excluding other European countries).

Sorry if this comes across as pedantic. I know it’s somewhat beside the point.

6

I believe it is possible to choose to be alone, and hence lonely, if the alternatives are worse, e.g., if you are frightened of going out to meet people and make friends.

7

I agree. I considered the wikipedia quote as a correction to my statement about ‘majority’.

8

I think American urban design is unique in promoting lonliness. We are farther away from each othe and spend a lot less time in public space.

9

The fly in the ointment of that theory lies in a peculiarity to the American outlook: emphasis on the individual more than the family/village/society. Japan is very technilogically advanced, but they do not have the “American” attitude of valuing individuality so highly. The same is true of many other countries, I’m sure.

Most Americans (IMHO) believe that their first duty is to themselves; maybe including spouse & minor children on an equal level, at best. I’m under the impression that other cultures instill a believe in their members that one’s first duty is to the group as a whole, in one form or another. If true, that would go a long way toward explaining a higher level of loneliness in the U.S. than elsewhere. If such a thing does exist.

But, these are just theories based on observations. I don’t claim any expertise.

10

While it doesn’t measure loneliness exactly, this Harris poll conducted in 2005 found that Americans are more “Satisfied” with their lives and expect their lives to improve in the next few years more than Europeans. This might mean that, lonely or not, Americans are (as a group) OK with it.

11

Sometimes I wonder if the “rugged individual” ethos embedded in our culture has a role to play in our tendency for loneliness. Adults who live with their parents are looked down upon. People who live where they grew up, in communities they are familiar with, are considered provincial. Young adults think “finding yourself” is an important rite of passage which will lead to happiness and success. Our form of economy is inherently self-serving. While many of us are generous in the form of charity, we look down on individuals who are dependent on us. We are brought up believe in the virtue of independence and self-reliance.

People, even some Dopers, have even denied that Americans share a culture. Some of us don’t think of ourselves as a member of a community–whether it be drawn along geographic, cultural, or political lines. In fact, if you dare to say you belong to a community, people may look at you askance. “Popular culture” is routinely villified, even by those who bask in its spotlight. Everyone conforms to not conform.

Now, a lot of lip service is given to “team work” and “cooperation”. But if you score a million dollar contract at the job, your office isn’t going to get a raise and promotion–you will. Folks like to watch team sports, but the super stars on those teams quickly get all the adulation and attention. Kids don’t want to join the Army to serve their country. They want to “Be All You Can Be” and romance in that image of the lone Rambo.

Individualism, at least to the degree practiced in Western culture, isn’t universal. Smaller, less industrialized societies are more collective and communal, and members are less likely to be exposed to ideas and mores counter to what they were raised to believe. The benefits of cooperation are also more apparent. Your membership to a particular family defines you–family is at the heart of your identity, not self. So you are less likely to strike off on your own or do anything that would estrange you from the family. Here, teenagers shout “I HATE YOU MOM!” and actually live to see another day.

I also wonder if angst in general is more common in industralized societies because we have it too good. If we worked 12 hour days, doing back-breaking labor to just survive, we wouldn’t have the energy to ponder over the emptiness in our lives. Just like coal miners from the 1920 weren’t crying about being “burnt out”, maybe folks from other cultures are too busy surviving to worry about loneliness. Maybe loneliness is symptomatic of having too much time on our hands (a notion I don’t fully agree with, by the way).

I just wrote all of the above and believe most of it, but then when I imagine myself in a communal society, I see myself being even lonelier than I am now. In a communal society, where the pressures to conform (I assume) are huge, what happens to the eccentrics and the people who try to fit in and can’t? I’m sure they feel lonely–probably more so than their counterparts in the US since they risk being shunned or persecuted by the whole community. I know when I go to a church and see all the congregants hugging and talking about “fellowship”, I feel a distinct sense of alienation (as well as a sense that people are being fake). My aloneness never becomes more apparent to me than when I’m around family members. So maybe loneliness is universal, it’s just that some cultures are more comfortable talking about it than others.

12

What a thoughtful post, monstro! Thank you.

13

I think monstro speaks much wisdom (and YaWanna’s post nailed it pretty well too, in fewer words).

Although, monstro, regarding what you said about possibly being lonelier in a communal society if you’re a little eccentric: In that type of society, wouldn’t a greater obligation to the community translate into more emphasis on your peers helping you to find a place for your unique talents, assuming you wanted to do so? And wouldn’t an eccentric person be more likely to find a comfortable place in such a society if he didn’t feel like it was “him against the world”? (Of course, I’m talking eccentric, not antisocial. Antisocial people can do pretty well in a highly individual-oriented society, it seems.)

14

I haven’t read it, but it looks as though the book Bowling Alone might provide some insight.

15

Or if you just like it. Some of us are weird that way…

I can’t recall having ever felt lonely. Been alone, yes, many times. To me, “lonely” is when you need human touch and can’t find anybody who’s willing to provide it: can’t recall that ever being the case.
I once moved 5000km away. And I ran into my father’s long-lost cousin :stuck_out_tongue:

Many Americans don’t even know where their grandfather was born, much less their grandmothers’ maiden names. Me, I know that about my great-grandparents; the ancestral manse (a “strong house”, not quite a castle but definitely built more for brawn than beauty) is 6 miles from the hospital where I was born. My mother owns a Universal History and several other books inherited from the Dad of the Dad of the Dad of my Dad. I own the trunk that my great-grand-grandfather bought to send his only son away to medical school.

I’ve run into people in Mexico whose ancestors used to work for mine.

I’ve met people in Kentucky who knew my cousin. And people in Vermont who knew another cousin (brother to the previous one).

I’ve met a first-cousin of my maternal grandmother in a taxicab.

I’ve run into an old high school classmate in a NYC subway. Not only were we from 5000 km away, but a different continent.

So long as the freaking world is full of my relatives, I may fight tooth and nail to be alone… but lonely? Maybe when I’m dying. So far, 38 years when I’ve never felt lonely.

16

Hard to translate… there is a Spanish saying, “tell me what you flaunt and I’ll tell you where you’re lacking” (meaning it’s often the same thing).

Americans as a people are the most likely to talk about the importance of teamwork and the worst team workers I’ve ever seen. Yes, there are exceptions. But those exceptions I have met (can’t talk about the ones I haven’t, can I?) were either way beyond 40 or somewhat “alien”: Americans born abroad; mixed ancestry; “colors other than white” (as a 7th generation Chinese-American friend once told me, "my ancestors have been here longer than theirs and they come and tell me to get back on the boat :rolleyes: ").

I know I’ve mentioned this before: a lot of Americans who, by American standards, are “living on their own”, would not be living on their own by Spanish standards. Say, that bf I had who’d left home at 17 but whose mother still did his shopping and laundry when he was 32 :dubious:

I have a lot of “American individuality/loneliness/notions about community” classified under “stuff that’s weird in America”. Sue me, but I live abroad.

17

Hmm, I could see that happening. Maybe an eccentric can more easily carve him/herself out a respectable niche in a smaller society because their uniqueness makes them stand out, whereas in a larger society, all oddballs are lumped together, their specialness canceled out.

18

Many people who would be shunned in the US find niches quite easily in Spain. Again that falls into my bag of “strange things about the US”… but that’s quite a big bag…

I don’t want to write too much because I’m sure people would be offended when I actually mean no offense, just trying to point out reality as I perceive it, but well, the whole concept of “how you relate to your environment” is so different in Spain and the US that it sometimes feels like different planets.

19

Well having grown up in Colorado and Wyoming, areas very much into the ‘rugged individualism’ thing. I have always had a really hard time envisioning the communal culture. I personally would have felt myself and absolute failure if I had lived at home after 19, or moved anywhere near my parents. I was just not brought up to view it as an option where you can retain any self respect.

When I went to college and met people who planned on living in their parents house until the got married, then buying a house next door, it just amazed me, it seemed so wierd. And it very much seemed that they were people who strongly identified with a country/culture and kept a fair amount of the tradition in their lives. Lebanese, Greek, Chinese, Polish, Mexican, whatever. I always kind of wondered if it was an element of old culture they were keeping, or if it was more of the identifyable group in the middle of the ‘melting pot’ banding together out of instinct. ALso I’m not sure exactly why, but most of my friends seemed to be the somewhat black sheep trying to break away from the family group and fighting the guilt of wanting to be independant while the family wants them to return to the fold.

20

Loneliness is more of a personal choice rather than a cultural thing IMO unless of course you are stranded on a remote island with nothing but coconuts and birds to keep you company.

BUt with the advent of online everything, you really don’t need to see people to do anything, so we are all doing it to ourselves…