Loneliness a threat to freedom
I was struck by Star columnist Bob Hepburn’s recent assertion that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is being punished by sexist and misogynistic voters, as are so many female politicians.
To that, Hepburn got a foghorn blare of response. “The vast majority of comments came from males,” he wrote. “Virtually all of them were negative.” It very much resembles what the premier gets herself. “Criticism of Wynne, especially from right-wing partisans, is often sickeningly personal. Wynne’s staffers say many of the emails they receive daily are hateful, often misogynistic and homophobic.”
Ah, I thought, Hepburn has finally met the Angry Pajamas, a tribe I know well. They are fairly appalling men (and some women), blind to reason, and so ashamed of their own failures that they scan the landscape looking for someone to blame. They blame women, among others.
There are standard political tribes. In Canada, we basically have three federal parties. The U.S. has two. Britain has a pile including Conservative, Labour, splittist Labour, LibDems, the Scottish National Party and the Northern Ireland DUP who demand £1 billion with menaces. And then there are tribelets: Remainers; Brexiters; and Brexit Corbynistas playing a long game. But there may be a common thread. The British government has just put a cabinet minister in charge of loneliness, an issue raised by Jo Cox, the MP stabbed and shot to death in 2016 by a white power loner inspired by the racist far right. Loneliness is common. It is grievous and needs alleviation.
Simon Kuper of the Financial Times has written an acute analysis of modern political polarization and the question of identity. He too agrees that the modern age fractures us with loneliness. Although he is not the first to say this, it’s true that people used to gather more and found identity “through their family, church, neighbourhood, their job and trade union.”
But now families split up, with millennials leaving their neighbourhood or city for an affordable home, their province or nation for a higher-paying job. And modern jobs are short-term, meaning they form no permanent friendships with colleagues.
And as Kuper points out, automation means they won’t have colleagues at all. Unions vanish. One is bonded to nothing. The airless floating sensation is nightmarish. You are a mote in a boss’s eye.
I can see this happening in Canada. As technology advances, humans, a sociable group, “lose their tribes,” Kuper says.
Thanks to Donald Trump building a crevasse in the U.S., Trump voters and normal people do not care to know each other. Trump’s base will dwindle as government aid shrinks, and it will become just an eversmaller disaffected tribe.
Culturally, even movies are tribal now. There are comic book franchises and Star Wars for toddlers with beards — but no intelligent films with mass appeal. Those people hived off long ago to Netflix.
In Britain as political tribes dove into internal squabbling, social tribes expanded and intensified. Everyone in Britain appears to detest everyone else — they always have — aristocrats vs. aspiring middle classes vs. chavs (“council house and violent”) plus traditionally stroppy millennials, and all the gradations between. There are tribes of skin colour, and boroughs, and then London vs. the Rest of the Nation tribe.
Meanwhile in Canada, normal healthy political tribalism continues. The Liberals remain Liberal, the Conservatives are happy with the unprepossessing Andrew Scheer and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh has welcomed a remarkable base of new Canadians, though his platform remains unwritten. There is room for all.
But we are building creepy outposts that would rather be called “communities” than “tribes.” House prices create Vancouver and Toronto tribes with vicious castes: you are one of us/you are house-rich and cash-poor/get thee to Orillia. There’s an anti-dairy protectionism tribe. They’re worse than stamp collectors.
Toronto cyclists in Lycra and helmets built for racing are the most aggressive city tribe, not having visited Copenhagen to see how it’s done gracefully (with a different kind of bike for one thing).
Pet people are the saddest tribe of all, wearing matching outfits with their pets and going walkies with pets in baby strollers. “It’s a rescue dog,” they reassure you when you recoil in shock, assuming, incorrectly, that you care.
I assume there is a transgender tribe because they are in physical danger, but I never thought they would plant their flag in opposition to a silly provocateur like Jordan Peterson.
Social justice advocates are a tribe, most of them doing immense social good, but with a fringe element that annoys the hell out of people. When the social justice fringe appeared as a trio at Wilfrid Laurier University to brutally harangue a smart young female student about her WrongSpeak, it dealt a hard blow to wellmeaning advocates elsewhere.
To counteract this, we have white extremists, you know, Proud Boys, Freemen of the Land, Rebel campaigners, Doug Forders to the end. It’s a grab bag of lonely men seeking to belong to something, anything. Both sides forage on Twitter, looking for bloody severed fingers to latch onto.
Oh, consider all the lonely people watching TV, Fox in the morning, Fox in the daytime, Fox all night long, but really just hoping to make friends in the CBC comment section.
If Canadians don’t hold together on an agreed set of civilized values and a goal of economic equality, we too will fracture into hostile tribes who never speak to each other. We will be “bowling alone,” as Kuper said, quoting sociologist Robert Putnam.
Loneliness builds. It eats into peaceful society like winter salt on our roads and bridges. This is the coming danger. hmallick@thestar.ca