[HN Gopher] The American Dream convinces people loneliness is no...
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The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
Author : elorant
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-05-18 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (english.elpais.com)
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| dhbradshaw wrote:
| Interestingly, cowboys didn't work alone.
|
| They had teams of real people that they had to work with and
| trust along with their horses and the cows themselves.
|
| Even homesteaders would typically pull together for building,
| digging, playing, dancing, harvesting and more. The west was
| colonized by people with active social lives working together and
| depending on each other.
| tokyolights2 wrote:
| I spend so much of my time intentionally trying to cultivate
| community. In some respects, it is the over-arching theme of my
| adult life. I find community is very hard to come by so if I have
| to be the one to make it, so be it. I pay a pretty penny to be a
| member of a coworking space so I don't spend my workday alone.
| Three times per week I go to regularly-scheduled events (a game
| night, running club, and roller-skating night). I'm every week I
| try to coordinate events between friends that I have made through
| these groups. I've learned to be an even planner, match maker,
| (second rate) therapist, baby sitter, and referee. I definitely
| spend more mental cycles on my friends than I do on work.
|
| The amount of work that I needed to put in was enormous. It was
| hard and scary at first. I was a wall-flower. Inviting people I
| don't know well to do something fun is not a skill that I was
| born with (quite the opposite). But with all this effort put in,
| I am finding that after multiple years of effort the value is
| starting to really pay dividends.
|
| I guess the over-all point that I am making is that the American
| Dream is that you can live how you want, so if you want
| community, make that your Dream and go do it. Looking back, I
| really feel like I am an entrepreneur of friendship, and I think
| that at the end of my life I am not going to regret it.
| EGreg wrote:
| https://qbix.com/investors/articles
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| "Entrepreneur of friendship"... love that.
| 121watts wrote:
| logged in to say the exact same thing!
| theaussiestew wrote:
| You sound like you live such a rich life, I love it!
| cobertos wrote:
| Do you ever struggle with giving more time to specific
| friendships/relationships you want to cultivate more, at the
| expense of others?
|
| I find when I focus on a group, usually it also comes at the
| expense of focus on the individuals, and the people feel less
| close. Unless I put a lot of focus on the group over time, then
| I usually get to know the individuals depthful enough, but not
| as deep if I had spent that time with just two or three of them
| instead.
| tokyolights2 wrote:
| The best part about introducing your friends to each other is
| that then they can hang out with each other without you
| having to do anything at all! I definitely have some close
| friends I expect to see multiple times per week. Others I'm
| perfectly happy to see once per month. Others who have moved
| away and I won't see until I visit their city.
|
| Friends and community are not a zero-sum game. The more
| interconnected and inter-dependent people are, the more
| likely that everyone is going to have deep and meaningful
| relationships.
|
| I used to feel much more like you when I was regularly
| hanging out with friends almost exclusively 1:1. I thought I
| was doing that because I was introverted, but realistically I
| was doing it because I had social anxiety. Looking back,
| hanging mostly 1:1 made me feel like my friends were more
| distant because there were so many people I didn't see for
| months that I always felt like I didn't really know my
| friends.
| valianteffort wrote:
| Greatest decision I ever made was getting a remote gig, leaving
| the big city, and moving to a small town. There is enough going
| on here to keep busy, and everyone knows eachother.
|
| Would never dream of raising my kids somewhere like SF. If you
| want community, go somewhere it's valued. Everyone in the big
| city is a transient, only there to make money and find love
| before it's time to head for the suburbs.
| graedus wrote:
| > Everyone in the big city is a transient, only there to make
| money and find love before it's time to head for the suburbs.
|
| I might be taking this bit of hyperbole(?) too literally, but
| while this might be a common trajectory for young
| professionals, it obviously doesn't cover everyone.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Wow - I moved to SF, found love, and moved to the suburbs...
| but I'm still working on that money part :)
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| You're not alone so hang in there cause I feel like there's a
| wave of others coming!
|
| We need a way to coordinate local mutual aid groups that isn't
| just some backwater forum but doesnt just default to a
| corporate slack or something. I guess Mastodon would be good
| here?
| labrador wrote:
| _It's a classic example of a fundamental American tall tale --
| that of a nation built on notions of individualism, a male-
| dominated story filled with loners and "rugged individualists"
| who suck it up, do what needs to be done, ride off into the
| sunset and like it that way._
|
| I don't know where they got the idea that Americans "like it that
| way". American music is full of heart breaking tales of
| lonesomeness, "so lonesome you could die". Google "lyrics
| lonesome" turns up "about 7,470,000 results"
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| No it doesn't.
|
| The American dream has always been about bringing the family unit
| up with you as you ascend, because for most of this nation's
| history, it was impossible to achieve any real success without
| the help of family members around the home.
| munk-a wrote:
| That was correct once - but now living with your family is an
| extremely rare decision. The "cool" thing to do is to move out
| when you're 18 and occasionally visit your family before moving
| them into a snazzy retirement home. Co-living is hardly ever
| portrayed in pop-culture outside of immigrant families where
| it's usually played up for laughs.
| tokyolights2 wrote:
| As a gay person that will probably not end up having a
| traditional 'family unit' in my lifetime, I question whether or
| not the family is enough to stave off lonliness. I see a lot of
| nuclear families that spend what I think is a toxic amount of
| time with each other. To be able to thrive we need to be a part
| of a larger community, not just codependent on a spouse. Even
| worse is when I see people hanging all of their hopes and
| happiness on a child. When a mother says that their child is
| their best friend, I don't know if I should worry more for the
| mother or the child.
| munk-a wrote:
| The modern version of the American dream is an extremely toxic
| ideology. It promotes such an extreme version of individualism
| that it's threatening to tear apart all the social safety nets
| still existent in the US while also glorifying excessive wealth
| hoarding.
|
| It is absolutely bonkers that we've gotten to the point where
| cheating on your taxes can be viewed as a virtue.
| christophilus wrote:
| The US got its start at least partially due to a tax revolt, so
| that last bit isn't terribly surprising.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| [flagged]
| stemlord wrote:
| Stealing from the rich is a social necessity
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| It appears that way when the richest people in the country
| are able to avoid them and bribe politicians to use the
| working class tax dollars to bail them out every time their
| risky behavior causes problems. When it's actually used to
| properly find public services we spend less money for better
| services at the end of the day.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| It probably started with shareholder value when companies they
| declared that their only responsibility is to make as much
| money as possible. This ideology is very appealing to
| sociopaths so now they dominate.
| jasmer wrote:
| I suggest that the 'modern toxic version of the American Dream'
| is defined mostly by people who want to define it as toxic. So
| you could say that maybe Zuckerburg represents that, which
| would make it kind of toxic, but I don't think most Americans
| would ever think he represents the dream. Though I suppose
| there are fewer visible local community members who are
| representative of it as role models.
| Eumenes wrote:
| This has more to do with how vast and rural America is (Europe is
| 3.5x more densely populated, more homogeneous), in addition to
| multiculturalism, which isn't inherently bad, but we're seeing
| discrete populations work themselves into enclaves. Add in the
| average American spending 5 hours and 24 minutes on their mobile
| device each day (article says Americans spend 20 mins daily with
| friends on average ... I think its very safe to say the phone
| took some of that time away), coupled with divisive media and
| rampant hedonism, we're gonna get alot more of this. Yes -
| Americans have an independent streak, but this American
| Dream/cowboy take is naive at best.
| wutheringh wrote:
| [dead]
| elzbardico wrote:
| While I am not a fan of American Exceptionalism, I think this
| article is more informed by the usual European prejudiced tropes
| about America than by reality, at least in the parallels between
| the traditions of rugged individualism from the Old West and the
| present epidemics of loneliness.
|
| The old Cowboy was based on self-reliance, he was not a loner
| because he couldn't connect with people, but because his
| adventures lead him far beyond the spacial confines of society.
| He was a master of his element but felt at peace and integrated
| with nature.
|
| The modern loneliness is born out of o alienation, learned
| hopelessness, lack of concrete agency on one's life, and extreme
| subjection of the individual to an all-encompassing (some could
| say even totalitarian) social-economic-cultural system that gives
| him no other choice than being a loner. Where the cowboy choose
| to be left alone when he wanted, the modern loner just can't find
| a place to be him/herself in modern society. It is the tragedy of
| utter powerlessness.
|
| And it is kind of ironic that this comes from El Pais, because
| for all the external appearance of happiness and permanent joy
| that seems to characterize spain for a tourist, Spanish society
| is also extremely atomized, and behind the facade of an easy
| life, most upper and middle-class Spaniards I've met there seemed
| to live a very artificial lifes devoid of any long term meaning
| or sense of transcendence.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "the contours of American society -- that emphasis on
| individualism, that spreading out with impunity over a vast,
| sometimes outsized landscape"
|
| I hate to be boring enough to ask for citations, but this is a
| case where we really need them. It reads like something written
| by a non-American.
|
| In most of American history, people lived close to their
| families. Certainly in smaller towns, they did. Once there were
| big cities, it became more common for someone to move away from
| the family and go to one, but that certainly had nothing whatever
| to do with "spreading out with impunity over a vast, sometimes
| outsized landscape." People who "spread out" to the frontier
| nearly always brought a spouse with them, and often kids as well.
|
| Recently, there certainly has been an increase in one-person
| households:
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2019/comm/one-...
|
| but even in 1969, it was only 16.9%. I would bet that in the time
| of _The Searchers_ it was way, way less.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I am not an American and I don't see things about the American
| Ethos the same way the author does. Most foreigners who have
| lived in the USA are far more forgiving of the American
| society. No, it takes an east coast intelectual born in america
| to be so critical of American Society.
|
| And mind you, if you look at my history here you'll see lots of
| comments critical of American and especially its foreign
| policy. But this kind of stereotyping is basically wrong.
| elzbardico wrote:
| As someone who was born in Latin America, I always find those
| stereotypes about America funny. If anything, Americans can't
| fucking leave you alone for God's sake. They need to smile at you
| in the street, give you good morning, invite you to their
| churches, and bring you a pie after you move to the neighborhood.
| Ok, this is more of a suburban experience. But this is also
| quintessential America.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Please engage with the article. This is a serious issue that
| you're making a mockery of.
| jasmer wrote:
| The 'American Dream' was that you could have a property/house
| (small!), maybe a one car, maybe some 'fancy' things like a
| diswhasher, and probably do that while only one parent was
| working, and your rights would be protected, you'd have political
| stability and participatory democracy, rule of law, a sense of
| national identity, and probably an 'ok retirement' - and you'd be
| able to do that in your 'community'.
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(page generated 2023-05-18 23:00 UTC)