It is normal to be lonely, when compared to human history. For a long time humans were living in farms and meeting your neighbors was a rare event.
The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
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Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#102While 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…
The old Cowboy was based on a fiction. It's an obsolete kind of farming job, not being a badass outlaw as a profession that fiction turned it into. A real cowboy was just a guy whose job was managing cattle and moving it around as needed, not an adventurer.
a guy who's spending a lot of time alone subjected to harsh climate, dangerous animals who is forced to be self-reliant when it comes to mental or physical ailments or crime will either break or become an adventurer.
i think it might be argued that your idea of what an adventurer has to look like is coined by hollywood such that it has to be a guy who does all sorts of crazy things - which a simple historic cowboy didn't do of course - while otoh this mundane life of a cowboy was by all means pretty adventurous at least by today's standards and that on a daily basis.
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#103The American cowboy-hero isn't about the hero being lonely. It as about heroes leaving . Wandering strangers, be them cowboys or Superman, sweep in to fix problems and then go away. They do not integrate into the societies they help. They do not take anything from the people they help. They are therefore not a sociological threat to those they help. American society is very segmented, particularly in the mythic world…
I would blame that motif mostly on the nature of episodic storytelling - books, comics, radio plays, television,etc, than something fundamental about American culture. It's necessary to move the character from one place to the next to tell fully encapsulated stories that can easily be serialized out of order. And thematically, it doesn't even apply to Superman or many superhero stories (maybe the Hulk.) Superman live…
> I would blame that motif mostly on the nature of episodic storytelling - books, comics, radio plays, television,etc, than something fundamental about American culture
I'd argue that American culture (and culture worldwide) is actually for almost a hundred years mostly formed by movies and movie tropes.
> These heroes are all part of their specific communities.
None of those heroes are a part of those communities you mention. Only their public personas are. Then they disguise and become those heroes.
That concept of staying at the end of the movie would in this regard translate to a hero unveiling his identity and still be the hero. Never happens.
Also OP is specifically writing about the _cowboy_-hero. Which is anyway a different category than the super hero. What they have in common though is the loneliness that OP also talks about. Superheros also always complain about that and their urges to reveal who they "really" are.
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#104The American cowboy-hero isn't about the hero being lonely. It as about heroes leaving . Wandering strangers, be them cowboys or Superman, sweep in to fix problems and then go away. They do not integrate into the societies they help. They do not take anything from the people they help. They are therefore not a sociological threat to those they help. American society is very segmented, particularly in the mythic world…
> Outsiders are welcome, just not welcome to stay.
Very insightful.
> They need to leave at the end of the story.
If the hero would stay he would no longer be a hero. Movies are about dreams. Men watch cowboy movies because they want to be like cowboys. They don't want to watch a heroic cowboy turning into a devoted husband.
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wi…
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…
Interesting, I can see how interconnectedness could make everything feel deeper. Experiences would be a shorter distance for everyone in the community. It echos something I've discussed with my therapist I think as well.
I feel similarly though. Social anxiety (though I understand it more now) and hanging out exclusively 1:1. Part of it is maybe I don't put a lot of time towards friends (my best friend I see once a month, the most I will see someone is maybe twice a week) and code a lot instead. Part of it is my friends just end up pretty far flung (one online, the others in person but in a 2 hour radius). I do feel like I know most of my friends well though, even when I don't talk for months. Catching up is fun.
Sometimes I'm happy with it, other times I wish to make more friends but realize it would end up destabilizing what I already have to some extent. Communities feel nice because the don't feel like a particularly "sticky" investment, and the ratio of people to time is greater, but I get less satisfaction from it initially and it takes time to build (I think, hypothesis not well tested).
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#106It is normal to be lonely, when compared to human history. For a long time humans were living in farms and meeting your neighbors was a rare event.
Most humans throughout history lived in close-knit farming communities where they shared their home with a large family and met their neighbours every single day. What sort of secluded farms are you imagining?
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree; I do think the "old cowboy" trope is closely related to today's loneliness epidemic and disagree with the notion that modern loneliness is rooted on the "lack of concrete agency on one's life". Source: me. The trope of the hero, the power of will and life as a personal and individual journey is widespread in American culture and its cultural exports (Hollywood, music, etc). Also very widespread, the idea…
> I'd call this the opposite to "lacking agency on one's life". It's not though, is it? Given that we in the United States need to earn money for everything rather than have meaningful social welfare programs means that our agency is simply "earn the most amount of money so maybe you can have a few years of peace in your 80s." which I think is the opposite of meaningful agency of one's own life.
What is the alternative offering more meaningful agency?
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#108The American cowboy-hero isn't about the hero being lonely. It as about heroes leaving . Wandering strangers, be them cowboys or Superman, sweep in to fix problems and then go away. They do not integrate into the societies they help. They do not take anything from the people they help. They are therefore not a sociological threat to those they help. American society is very segmented, particularly in the mythic world…
> Outsiders are welcome, just not welcome to stay. Very insightful. > They need to leave at the end of the story. If the hero would stay he would no longer be a hero. Movies are about dreams. Men watch cowboy movies because they want to be like cowboys. They don't want to watch a heroic cowboy turning into a devoted husband.
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Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#109Actual source: https://apnews.com/article/loneliness-lonely-alone-surgeon-g... Actual author: https://www.google.com/search?q=TED+ANTHONY - This is a strange article. It reads like propaganda designed to demoralize and denigrate. "“Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it ... throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitud…
I don't think the AP has gone fascist, I think they've gone leftist. This author appears to hate this fictional America they've invented in their mind, something lots of leftists do because they can't stand capitalism having a longevity beyond what their desired system of economic governance could ever achieve. So now it's the next best thing to take it down anyway they can, or steal the resources of America in the h…
The right doesn't do those things at all.
> in the hopes of getting enough people to listen to them that they'll "revolt" as they claim.
Like, ever. Not even in January.
Re: The American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal
#110It’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…
This. It feels like there's so little positive, upbeat music (my favorite kind) compared to mushy or depressive music. ~_~