Strangers in a Strange Land

Thoughtful post by blogger Ally at Who Moved My Truth about the lack of personal contact in our society today.

Have you noticed how many neighbors with which you have a "come for dinner" relationship? If you had an emergency, how many people could you call to help you? How many of them have friends that would come and help you as well? I read an article in the USA Today (see here) that addresses this issue regarding today's civic organizations and how they have paying members, but few warm bodies to advance their causes. However, I think it only scrapes the surface of a much larger issue: we are a society of strangers.

How often are you surprised when someone goes out of their way to hold the door for you at the convenience store or a department store? When was the last time you spent hours at the dinner table, telling stories or playing board games? Do you know the name of the guy who trims your meat at the grocery? Do you ever have your milk or ice cream delivered to your front door? I know, it is a crazy concept, but some people still do these things - they are just few and far between. Being someone who does not come from a large family, I often feel very alone despite existing in a crowded town. I barely know the neighbors in the townhouses next to me, and I haven't a clue about the others who all share the same "common area" with me.

Ally chalks much of this up to our shrinking need to have contact with others:

One reason for our distance is that we no longer need to know people. We have computers on which to buy things, talk to people, be entertained. We have daycares, bonded baby sitters, and automated cash machines. Many of us spend a good portion of our days staring at a computer screen. There is little interaction with people throughout the day. When we call a business we get an automated greeting with menus - for some of them there is no way to even reach a human being.

She adds that the media's penchant for "all the bad news, all the time" exacerbates a preference for solitude. And I agree with her.

I might add, however, that I think a third factor enters into it. While humans have always worked for more wealth, more possessions .... I personally think that this phenomenon has grown strength in the past twenty years or so.

When I was a kid, I enjoyed playing outside with my friends, running in the wind, making up stories and the like. I didn't give a rip about what anyone wore, what sort of house they lived in, what cars their parents drove.

Today, it seems that five year olds want to know what label is inside your sweater, what people's net worth is. Of course - who can blame them? How many of us know parents where both work, not because one salary wouldn't be sufficient to provide for the family, but because it wouldn't serve up trips to Europe and Naples every year and a BMW and SUV in the garage?

I think part of our detachment from others comes from an unhealthy relationship with materialism. Every waking hour must be spent in the pursuit of more money, more assets, more "stuff."

Who has time to get to know the neighbors? To sit for a few hours over a cup of tea, or take long walks and discuss age old issues?

I suppose I sound like an old fogey when I wish that kids could go back to playing "Red Roaver" and "Mother May I?" instead of war games on the computer.

Just call me "The Geezer."

Comments

[Joe2]

It doesn't make you a geezer.
It means that you're one of those people who can actually be loved.

[Dar]

Well, if you're a Geezer, then I must be one, too. I miss those days; I think many of us do. It seems everyone's too busy (earning money to pay for their goodies, perhaps?) to take time out to be neighborly. Thanks for some great writing -- and for presenting the different issues to ponder.

[Sean]

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, or a civic add campaign... but... come to Portland.

I know my local bank teller, pharmacist, and meatman. I know both my neighbors. And nearly every restruant and hotel manager at the major venues in town. If it sounds like this is unique... well, Portland is.

Although a single man from Manhattan or San Francisco might go nuts here... representatives have complained that we Portlanders are all "married with children". And in fact, I found that wealth of social connections opened with the birth of my son.

And it goes both ways... I can hardly keep in touch with Mike, my friend of 20 plus years, because he is always traveling and hanging with a younger, less entangled crowd.

So it seems that some of us might be alientated just so long as we remain "strangers in a strange land" by choice.

All that being said... I still agree with the notion that we are an increasingly socially isolated nation. But I dont know what this means, per se.

I mean, 200 years ago if you were living on the frontier you were also pretty cut off... this lasted until just the 75 years ago.

And while it might seem that we must have been better connected when we moved into the cities at the turn of the century... maybe this isnt exactly true? Consider the subway or appartment phenomena in NY City, people work hard to invent privacy in cramped conditions.

Then after WWII we all fled for the burbs... if for what other reason that to get away from our neighbors? Isnt the best selling point of a new subdivision its remoteness and lack of neighbors?

Today there is a certain yearning and nostalgia for a perceived "golden age" of civil society... picket fences and "granny flats" and houses built close together. Althought I approve of the movement it is based on an ideal, rather than on history.

Wanna get to know your neighbors? Go out and meet them! Our block still has barbeques, the kids play on eachother's lawns, and people bring you baby and maternity hand me downs. But we had to take the first step and introduce ourselves...

Although the guy directly behind us still lives like a hermit, with security cameras and all, and he is probably beyond reach (I once shocked him by knocking on his door and inquiring about him after I spotted ambulences at his house).

To paraphrase Saturday Night Live... "Get to know eachother!"