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“know” are often deceptive and unidimensional.
As a result, the people we learn to fear seem closer
and scarier than they used to, and a sense of immi
nent threat makes our world feel less safe and hos
pitable. It erodes our sense that we all belong here.
This anxiety may not initially feel like the lone
liness we associate with isolation. It can feel like
passionate—if negative—engagement. But the
natural response to protect ourselves in the face of
threat is to close down and prejudge others. Much
of this, according to a 2014 series of studies pub
lished in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, is fueled by a cognitive bias known as
“motive attribution asymmetry.” It’s the assump
tion that our beliefs are grounded in love, while our
opponents’ are based on hatred.SociologiSt and author Parker J. Palmer, who
founded the Center for Courage and Renewal to
facilitate fellowship across divisions and differ
ences, recalls Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations
in Democracy in America: “He said that Ameri
can democracy could not thrive without the pre
political layer of voluntary associations in which
people gather in various forms of community: fam
ily, friendship groups, classrooms, workplaces,religious communities and civic spaces.” What hap
pens in these gatherings, Palmer explains, is that
people “remind themselves of their connectedness
with one another and create a million microdemoc
racies upon which the macro democracy depends.”
By “macrodemocracy,” he meant more than just
voting. He meant civic engagement and participation.
If I’m connected to the children in my neighborhood,
I may be motivated to go to a schoolboard meeting,
even if I don’t have kids. If I have friends who can’t
drive, I’m more likely to engage in a campaign for bet
ter public transportation. Being connected to others
gives us a stake in more than our own interests and
increases our motivation to work together.
Our politicians used to understand this. Until
fairly recently, members of all parties in Congress
would meet at school functions because their kids
went to the same schools. They played softball
or met at the gym. They attended the same par
ties. Now Representatives travel back to their dis
tricts on weekends, their families often stay in their
home state, and socializing across ideological lines is
viewed as betrayal. As a result, Palmer’s “pre political
layers of association” have frayed and increasingly
are being replaced by “post political” connections
that require agreement before connection. This
makes it ever more difficult for politicians to work
with one another. Meanwhile, the entire country is
stuck in gridlock.
Yet of all the issues I worked on as surgeon gen
eral, loneliness elicited more interest than almost
any other topic from both very conservative and very liberal members of
Congress, from young and old people, and from urban and rural residents
alike. After my presentations to mayors, medical societies and business
leaders f rom around the world, it was what everyone seemed t o want to
talk a bout. I t hink t his i s b ecause s o many people have known loneliness
themselves or have seen it in the people around them. It’s a universal con
dition that affects all of us directly or through the people we love.
The irony is that the antidote to loneliness, human connection, is also
a universal condition. In fact, we are hardwired for connection—as we
demonstrate every time we come together around a common purpose
or c risis. Such was the collective action of the students in Parkland, Fla.,
after the 2018 mass shooting at their school claimed 17 lives. We also see
this instinct in the outpouring of aid and assistance by volunteers that
follows major hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes around the globe.
And even now, as we face the global COVID19 pandemic and resort to
physical distancing to reduce the spread of the virus, we are recognizing
that we cannot make it through the fear, danger and uncertainty of the
current moment without supporting one another. Despite the polarized
time in which we live, our community instincts remain alive and well.
When we share a common purpose, when we feel a common urgency,
when we hear a call for help that we are able to answer, most of us will
step up and come together.Murthy, a former surgeon general of the U.S., is the author of the
upcoming book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in
a Sometimes Lonely World, from which this piece was adaptedUWR.Murthy.indd 61 3/24/20 10:42 PM