Why I care about loneliness (a story about Autism, authoritarianism, and aunts)

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Yesterday I read The postliberal crackup: The GOP’s post-midterm civil war starts with the New Right via Jane Coaston.

It’s quite long and worth reading. Here’s a good quote:

Overall, Ganz views the postliberal movement as a "boutique intellectual project," a "tiny sect arguing with other intellectuals." But the possible inroads it might make with a disillusioned "post-left" were worrisome, he told Salon: "There's this broader thing going on where disenchanted leftists, who view their leftism as cultural revolt against liberalism, are becoming actually, substantially conservative. And they're crystallizing into a kind of quasi-fascist politics." 

Reading it, I was reminded of a piece in Tablet which claimed that left versus right is no longer the main, most important political divide in this country right now. Which, yeah. I believe the main, most important political divide in this country right now is authoritarian versus liberal.

I apologize for taking myself too seriously, but then again it makes me merely tiresome. That I have any kind of platform means doing the opposite would make me at least a little bit dangerous.

I think one of the main responsibilities for any public intellectual is to decide what is worth thinking about. What a task!

It’s funny to think about the fact that I have for many years been at least passively interested in liberalism, loneliness, and masculinity. Purposefully focusing in on these three topics over the past few months, along with my passive awareness of *waves hands* everything happening in the world, has done a lot to illuminate their mutual interdependence. Masculinity and liberalism fuel loneliness. Loneliness fuels support for authoritarianism. Liberalism erodes masculinity by limiting unfair, disproportionate advantages to it. Authoritarians appeal to men who feel emasculated, isolated, and have lost their roles under liberalism. Liberalism fuels atomization through reduced interdependence through prosperity, secularization, and a reduction in tribalism which fuels loneliness. I could go on.

I think I started caring about loneliness years ago because I struggled with it and because so many things about it are counterintuitive to me. I would have never imagined it could be worse for you than smoking, for example. Or that it would be self-reinforcing. Or that lonely people and non-lonely people have equally good social skills. I think anytime I learn that something is way more important than I realized and my understanding of it is worse than I realized something goes off in my brain that’s like, “Hey. Probably other people are in the same boat on this topic.”

It was interesting over Thanksgiving break to see these two impulses within me, and within my dad, battle it out. On the one hand, I want to be snuggled tightly into warm, interdependent community. On the other hand, I really want everyone to leave me the hell alone.

I was exceedingly grateful to be invited to ride down to Niceville, Florida with my sister, dad, and stepmom to stay with my aunt and see my dad’s parents. My aunt has a beautiful home, two adorable dogs, and sweet husband, and was the most… vigorously gracious hostess.

Ruby

Lulu

She cooked us a different breakfast casserole every morning, plus bacon, biscuits, and eggs. She baked blueberry muffins. Thanksgiving dinner was LIT. Sister made the turkey (amazing). Auntie went all out on like ten different sides. Woman even had like one of those food warmers you see at breakfast buffets at hotels with three buckets for sides that I guess absolutely could not get cold.

I got more evidence that I come by my OCD honestly. Both my grandmothers kept absolutely immaculate homes and so does Auntie. I noticed smudges on the microwave buttons at one point. They were gone within hours. Mad respect. It was really nice as well to discuss the trials and tribulations of having a long torso and short limbs with someone who knows your pain.

At the same time, my sister and uncle were driving me up a wall. I love them both dearly. It’s funny, my sister told me my stepmom had noticed that although I’m constantly missing social cues from other people, I notice when my sister is uncomfortable without her having to say anything and step in. I thought back to the time she and I were at a meetup and someone was telling a story I could tell was triggering her. I noticed before anyone else did and tried my best to change the topic. This is just one way my relationship with this sister is radically different from any other relationship in my life, past or present.

What was irritating the fire out of me is that my sister and uncle both loooove to talk. And my sister is also really, really loud. My Autistic, ADHD ass really doesn’t like loud noises of any kind and has trouble ignoring extraneous conversation. Like if I’m trying to concentrate and can clearly hear another person talking it’s really hard for me to just tune them out. It’s also really hard for me to stay focused if the person I’m talking to belabors their point with repetition or extraneous information. In these circumstances I drop in and out of the conversation/book/TV show into my own head or the conversation I can overhear and end up not fully following any of it, the worst of all worlds.

So over the weekend I was both super grateful to be with family and also extremely desperate to be alone.

At one point I was talking to my dad about land he wants to buy and I told him he and my stepmom really should get rid of 90% of their stuff and buy a condo downtown. “Yes, but then I’d have to be around other people,” he said, adding that he literally has a recurring nightmare about having to live in an apartment. At another point I asked my Aunt (his sister) about making friends in Niceville. She said something along the lines of she really doesn’t need or want very many. She mentioned a best friend who lives in Houston, and a few others. But she really likes being alone.

At various times I’d go into my aunt’s sunroom, close the doors, and read. It was a running joke in my family growing up that I, unlike my stepmom or stepsisters, needed regular bouts of “Cathy time.” This was only funny at my dad’s house. Wanting time to one’s self and feeling irritable when denied it wasn’t something that needed to be explained or was particularly funny to my mom and other sister.

Anecdotal though all this may be, it seems to comport with the idea in Loneliness that people’s levels of social need differ and are at least somewhat genetically determined. Imagine desire for social connection being on a ten-point scale. People who are ones need very little social connection to avoid feeling lonely and feel very little pain when their need for social connection isn’t met. People who are tens need near-constant, extremely close social connection to avoid feeling lonely and feel tremendous, almost unendurable pain when their need for social connection isn’t met. It seems to me like that’s true and my bio family is nearer the one side and my step-family is nearer the ten side.

So loneliness is interesting to me because its importance and many of its mechanisms are counterintuitive. It’s importance is probably counterintuitive to me partly because I’m on the low end of social need and its mechanisms are probably counterintuitive to me because I’m probably Autistic.

I think more recently I’ve been so interested in loneliness in part because more people are getting interested in it and because I see it implicated in the whole growing fascism situation. So, in a way, I seem to care about loneliness at least in part because I want people (particularly fascists) to leave me the hell alone. Whatever works, amirite?

Interestingly, while I might have come to care most recently about loneliness mostly out of a desire to beat back growing fascism, I find I’m starting to care more and more about it for its own sake. Early in my political life I cared a lot about freedom. Then I started to think, freedom to do what? I started to grapple with the reality that the absence of tyranny hardly guaranteed a good life. I used to justify my support for small government and free enterprise with the fact that they tend to be the most effective, efficient way to distribute scarce goods and services. Then at some point I realized helping people live their best lives is the actual goal. If shrinking the size and scope of the state gets us there faster, great. But it’s not the end in and of itself. Even freedom isn’t the end goal. It’s a tool.

I guess what I’m saying is that I started caring about flourishing because it justified my support for everyone leaving me the hell alone. But the older I get, the more I care about the flourishing itself.

And I started caring about loneliness because it seemed to be supporting authoritarianism, which is getting in the way of people leaving me the hell alone. But the more I read and learn, the more it seems like loneliness (and its progeny, like authoritarianism) might be the biggest, and most underrated threat to that flourishing.