Margaret Mead Japan China Religie en seks Moral panics Seks en robots Seksuele ontwikkeling Seksualisering Leeftijdverschillen Geweld en misbruik Consent Sexting Prostitutie Pornografie"Philosophers have often emphasized solitude as something positive, as a privileged space of reflection where one can get especially close to truth." Lars SVENDSEN - A Philosophy of Loneliness, p.166
Lars SVENDSEN"Never have I worked with a subject that overturned to such an extent all the assumptions I brought to the table. And these preconceptions are quite widespread. Indeed, they can be considered the standard picture given to us by the mass media, where expressions such as ‘loneliness epidemic’ are common..." [mijn nadruk] (4)
"Nonetheless, there is one assumption that rings true: loneliness can be a serious problem for those whom it affects. For many people, it significantly impacts their quality of life, not to mention their physical and mental health."(5)
"This book is the result of my attempts to discover what exactly loneliness is, whom it affects, why the emotion of loneliness occurs, lingers and disappears, and how we can relate to loneliness as individuals and as a society."(5)
[De auteur komt weer met allerlei bronnen aanzetten, zoals filosofen zo vaak doen. Ook weer verwijzingen naar de bijbel, ten teken dat veel filosofen gemankeerde theologen zijn. Er is ook weinig structuur in de tekst, het is een vloed van woorden zonder houvast, ook iets waar filosofen zo goed in zijn.]
"The English language distinguishes between loneliness and solitude. It seems that earlier, these expressions were used more interchangeably; eventually, however, they crystallized in a clearer evaluative difference, where loneliness more often indicates a negative emotional state, and solitude a positive one."(14)
"Longing is a necessary component of loneliness. Longing implies a wish to overcome the physical or mental distance between yourself and someone you care about. It is the desire for someone’s presence, for a departed family member or friend, for a child who has moved away, an absent parent, a girlfriend or boyfriend who has ended the relationship. It can also be a yearning for a greater closeness to someone who is actually present, such as in a marriage where the two parties have grown apart." [mijn nadruk] (15)
"As previously mentioned, loneliness is an emotional response to the fact that a person’s need for connection to others is not satisfied. It is important to keep in mind that loneliness is an emotion, because it is often confused with other phenomena – with aloneness especially. However, being alone and being lonely are two distinct phenomena." [mijn nadruk] (16)
"An adequate philosophical exploration of loneliness must also take into account the empirical findings made by other disciplines in recent years – and which on several key points correct earlier perceptions of loneliness. As a result, this book will be characterized as much by various empirical findings as it is by the kind of conceptual analysis that many associate with philosophical works." [mijn nadruk] (18)
"For the most part, ‘lonely’ is used to express a negative state. On the other hand, one can also talk about ‘enjoying being alone’. That is to say, ‘lonely’ contains an emotional dimension that ‘alone’ does not necessarily possess."(25)
"As such, the actual number of people by whom a person is surrounded is uncorrelated to the emotion of loneliness. There are certain indications, however, that the strongest experiences of loneliness occur in situations where the lonely individual is, in fact, surrounded by others. Being alone and being lonely are logically and empirically independent from each other." [mijn nadruk] (27)
"Loneliness as such cannot be predicted by the number of people that surround an individual, but by whether the social interactions that individual has satisfy his or her desire for connection; that is, by whether they interpret those social interactions as meaningful. Loneliness is a subjective phenomenon. It is experienced as a lack of satisfying relationships to others, whether because the subject has too few relationships or because their existing relationships do not provide the desired form of closeness." [mijn nadruk] (27)
"The four people closest to an individual in their social network provide the strongest protection against loneliness, and additional relationships yield only marginally better protection."(29)
"Banishment from society has long been regarded as one of the harshest punishments a person can suffer, and in antiquity it was considered almost as severe as the death penalty. In today’s prisons, isolation is seen by many as a gruesome form of punishment."(32)
[Ja, maar dat heeft ook alles te maken met dat je daar zelf niet voor kiest natuurlijk. Het wordt je opgelegd.]
"Through a biological lens we can always say that it is ‘natural’ for humans to seek a social community, but it does not therefore follow that it is ‘unnatural’ to desire solitude or that spending a lot of time alone is necessarily negative for a person. It depends on how the individual relates to that condition."(35)
[Ook een filosoof die meteen struikelt over de uitdrukking "van nature". Dat doet me deugd. ]
"Situational loneliness, we find, is due to external causes. Chronic loneliness, in contrast, seems to be rooted in the self, because external changes in circumstance make so little impact on it. Therefore, we can perhaps distinguish between endogenous and exogenous loneliness, depending on whether the loneliness emotion has its main cause in the subject or in his or her surroundings. Of course, it will often be difficult to determine to what extent the loneliness emotion is endogenous or exogenous, simply because it is a relational phenomenon whose subject experiences an unfulfilled need for attachment to others. Nonetheless, the distinction does have a certain plausibility." [mijn nadruk] (38)
"However, loneliness can also develop such that it dramatically increases the risk of both mental and somatic disorders. Lonely individuals consume health services at a higher rate than do non-lonely individuals."(41)
"Loneliness affects blood pressure and the immune system, and causes an increase of stress hormones in the body."(42)
"Nevertheless, an adequate understanding of the phenomenon requires both dimensions to be incorporated. However, it is the affective component, the actual emotion of loneliness, that is correlated to increased incidences of somatic and psychological disorders, and this is the component that makes loneliness what it is – something more than simply being alone."(46)
"Indeed, our capacity for self-deception is so well-developed that a person’s perception of their own emotional states is anything but infallible."(54)
[Uiteindelijk is er geen antwoord op de vraag wat een emotie is en of je eenzaam voelen een emotie is. Wat al die bronnen ook zeggen. Teveel geleuter dus.]
"Who are the lonely and how many of them are there? There is no straightforward way to answer this question. Since loneliness, in contrast to being alone, is a subjective phenomenon, it cannot be quantified on the basis of objective criteria. Therefore, one must use subjective criteria, and the number one ends up with clearly depends on which criteria one puts in place. The most obvious approach is to ask people if they feel or have ever felt lonely. And yet, when we distinguish between ‘lonely’ and ‘non-lonely’, it is anything but obvious where the boundary should be drawn. In a certain sense we are all lonely, but if we embrace such a broad conception of loneliness, we will not be able to separate out the most severely affected. On the other hand, if we establish a strict conception of loneliness, there will be very few people who meet our criteria, and that could lead to us underestimating the problem’s extent."(67)
[Met andere woorden: je kunt het er net zo goed niet over hebben.]
"Studies have demonstrated a clear inverse correlation between loneliness and generalized trust: the more trusting you are, the less lonely; and the less trusting you are, the more lonely.1 It is difficult to determine the nature of the causal relation here, or if a causal relation even exists, but there seems to be more evidence that a lower degree of trust leads to loneliness than there is for the reverse.2 The connection between loneliness and trust appears to be strong both on an individual level and when we examine countries as a whole."(89)
"It is not difficult to see why trust plays such a decisive role in the loneliness problematic. Lack of trust produces a caution that undermines the immediacy that is so important in our attachment to others."(99)
"Only a person who can exhibit friendship and love can feel lonely. On the other hand, it is also reasonable to say that only a being with the capacity for loneliness can love or be someone’s friend."(105)
[Lekker vaag, nietwaar? ]
"Both friendship and love have their own, at times complicated, histories, to which I cannot do justice here.1 Instead, I must be content with highlighting some central conceptions of the nature of friendship and love, and attempt to say something about the implications these have for loneliness. Furthermore, until the 1800s, friendship was commonly regarded as the closest personal connection a person could have, but thereafter marriage assumed that role."(106)
[Volgt weer eens een eindeloze bespreking van wat allerlei auteurs erover zeggen die me niets interesseert. ]
"The image contained of our contemporary society in this quotation from Robert D. Putnam in 2000 is more or less a standard narrative in newer social science: we are succumbing to a fateful undermining of community, where individualism triumphs over all, thereby transforming us into lonely hedonists and egoists. Is this narrative correct? Does loneliness particularly haunt the modern and late modern individual?"(137)
"The liberal individual is a historical reality. Yet why do I use the phrase liberal individual? Simply because that individual is concerned with or takes for granted liberal rights such as freedom of expression, right to property, privacy and so on. This basic thought is well-formulated in John Stuart Mill’s Romantic liberalism, in which he imagines an inviolable circle drawn around every individual."(138)
"As such, the individual craves a sphere of non-interference, and his choice alternatives should only be limited by another’s right to the same amount of freedom. The liberal individual, furthermore, is not at all antisocial but wishes to choose with whom to socialize. The liberal individual regards him- or herself as unique, independent and self-determining, and the liberal democracy contains an immense variety of lifestyles and possibilities for autonomous choice. The liberal individual does not only desire negative liberty, but also positive liberty, which is synonymous with autonomy. Positive liberty consists in living in accordance with one’s own values. This extends beyond non-interference and involves taking control over and shaping one’s own life."(139)
[Mooi verhaal, maar hoeveel mensen leven in de praktijk zo? ]
"Most people would immediately assume that an increase in the number of solo-dwellers would be accompanied by an equal increase in the number of people who feel lonely, but that is not what empirical studies on loneliness’s scope tell us. Loneliness figures appear to have changed astonishingly little during this dramatic shift in way of life."(148)
"Much contemporary literature, especially of the more popular sort, gives the impression that the modern liberal individual is a tortured soul, haunted by loneliness, alienation, anxiety and depression. As an article in The Atlantic puts it: ‘We suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier.’ There is no shortage of books that claim we are becoming increasingly isolated and lonely, and they are often widely read." [mijn nadruk] (150)
"A typical claim in social studies literature on loneliness is that loneliness is largely a result of modern individualism."(151)
"In reality, there is little reason for accepting Putnam’s conclusion. As Claude S. Fischer has demonstrated in detail, neither the quantity nor the quality of personal relationships has changed much in the USA since 1970. Of course, there have been plenty of transformations, such that people to greater extent live alone, marry later, have fewer relatives and so forth, but essentially people are just as socially active as before. The number of people who claim to be socially isolated remains practically unchanged. However, Fischer does point to one significant change: even though Americans are members of just as many organizations as they typically were before, they are less active in these organizations." [mijn nadruk] (153)
"Additionally, it tends to be that lack of relationship to one’s family proves more significant for loneliness in collectivistic societies than in individualistic ones, whereas the relationship to friends is more important in individualistic than in collectivistic societies.(...) Despite its frequency, the assertion that modern individualism creates greater loneliness finds little empirical support."(155)
"Countless books and articles have warned of the serious consequences inherent in our use of social media.(...) On the contrary, it emerged that higher levels of Internet usage were correlated with higher levels of subjective well-being and social interaction. This finding has also been corroborated by other studies. (...) Empirical studies of Internet usage show that people mainly use it to maintain contact with friends and family, whom they also meet face-to-face, as well as to widen their social networks."(157)
"Indeed, this has led some people to complain that we have become too social – that loneliness is no longer accessible to us and that we are forced to live our lives in chronic social contact with others."(159)
"Until now this book has largely been devoted to loneliness, which we would prefer to avoid because it is painful, but there is also another form of loneliness, a positive form, that we willingly seek out because it adds value to our lives. Most descriptions of loneliness are laments, but we also find praises to the phenomenon among a host of poets and philosophers. Of course, it is solitude, not loneliness, they are praising." [mijn nadruk] (159)
"In early puberty a need for more alone time arises, and the condition is willingly sought out. Indeed, those that have access to stretches of such self-chosen alone time at that age consistently prove to be better socially adapted than those who did not receive such time."(162)
"Philosophers have often emphasized solitude as something positive, as a privileged space of reflection where one can get especially close to truth."(166)
[Verder weer een eindeloze opsomming van wat allerlei filosofen over de kwestie hadden te melden. Wat heeft wie dan ook aan zo'n reeks meningen?]
"Why is loneliness so painful? Loneliness tells us something about ourselves, about our place in the world. The emotion tells us how insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things. We feel relegated to a universe where we make no difference, where our being or non-being is devoid of relevance for our surroundings. Loneliness is particularly tied to shame."(194)
"To be lonely is to fail at an essential part of human life, because it means failing to form the needed relationships to one or more people. The lonely do not receive acknowledgment of their human worth from others, at least not to the extent they require. Therefore loneliness appears to be imposed on the individual from without. The lonely person is someone who desires, but lacks, a relationship to other people. There is a difference, however, between being socially withdrawn and socially excluded."(196)
"The pain of loneliness is the pain of insufficient acknowledgement. Complaints of loneliness are complaints of the pain caused by a basic human need going unfulfilled. That need, however, is partially a product of one’s own expectations. Therefore, perhaps one should not be too quick to conclude that there is something wrong with the social support that others provide. Perhaps the problem is rather the expectations one brings to these relationships. Perhaps today we generally expect too much warmth in the social sphere."(201)