Exceptionalism and Community
A discussion
There’s been a lot written lately about community: how people are missing it, how to find it, how to create one. But maybe the problem’s not a lack of community, it’s us and our sense of exceptionalism.
Studies have shown that social isolation can account for a 26% increase in early death. Allison Abrams wrote in Psychology Today that “since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who report being lonely has doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent.” As Corey McComb wrote in “The Trouble with Loneliness and How It’s Slowly Killing You,”
It is easier than ever to isolate ourselves today. Being an active member of a community has never been more optional. And in a world where we put chasing our passion above all else, it is socially acceptable to put work above quality time with others.
Books like Belong: Find Your People, Create Community and Live a More Connected Life by Radha Agrawal and The Art of Community by Charles Vogl — and there are so many more — illustrate methods for lonely people to find or create groups.
But when you think about it, groups aren’t particularly hard to find. There are clubs for virtually any interest and activity: birdwatching, addiction, reading, crafting, sports, trivia, photography, writing, religion. A cursory search of the Internet will find myriad social groups in almost any geographic area. Are you a birdwatcher in Nebraska? There’s an Audubon society near you. Reader in Toronto? Meetup lists 100 book groups in the greater Toronto area.
I personally know a couple of people who say they feel isolated, but when I pull up a list of clubs in their area with matching interests, they come up with excuses such as “I’m a beginner, they won’t want me” or “I don’t have the right equipment.”
A large part of this reticence is the fear of walking alone into a room of people. There’s not much that can be done about that, other than steeling yourself and putting a smile on your face. Most importantly, remember that all those people did the same thing once. They know how you feel and will strive to make you feel welcome.
But a more insidious part is a sense of exceptionalism, any preconceived notion that sets you apart in some way from the rest of that group. “I’m a beginner” or “I’m a professional, they’re amateurs.” “They’re all too old” or “They’re all too young.” While similarity certainly fosters compatibility, it’s presumptuous to assume that you couldn’t learn from a group or enjoy their company just because its members don’t match your age or your experience level. No group will be exactly what you want it to be.
In the same article in Psychology Today, Abrams said
Sociologist Philip Slater, author of The Pursuit of Loneliness, writes that the root of disconnection in America is “the collective obsession with the success of the individual.” Though written more than 40 years ago, it appears not much has changed since. Money and status are increasingly prioritized, sometimes at the expense of the quality of our relationships.
Being special in some way is a status symbol today. That “collective obsession with the success of the individual” creates a status to being set apart from others: exceptionally wealthy, smarter, more attractive, busier. Not only are these individuals an exception due to their success but also they have created that success by isolating themselves from friends and family. “I don’t have any friends,” one of my actual friends says, because he likes to think of everyone as a potential client.
We’re all told from childhood that we can become President. We all want to believe we have an extraordinary future of greatness and fame. If everyone has that same future, then greatness and fame would just be ordinary life, and no one wants to be ordinary. Everyone wants to be different from the rest.
The status of exceptionalism extends beyond success to what would, two hundred years ago, have been considered flaws. There are certainly people who have genuine food and chemical sensitivities; there are many more who have assumed them. But seeing oneself as exceptionally fragile, being unable to eat or breathe the same substances as the rest of society, is inherently isolating.
It’s simplistic to think that there’s one reason for loneliness. There are many: health and travel constraints, depression, divorce, poverty and unemployment to name a few. If isolation were an easy problem to solve, we would have solved it by now.
I don’t have all the answers, and I subtitled this piece “a discussion” in the hopes it would start a productive one. But I know that community exists, and it’s not hard to find. We’ve put up walls between ourselves and other people. Until we can force ourselves to reach out and create connection by finding some common ground, even if it’s just a hobby, we’ll be as isolated as ever.
