THE LONELY CENTURY

An economist and business adviser delves into “the ideological underpinnings of the twenty-first century’s loneliness crisis.”

As Hertz notes, we live in a predominantly lonely world, a condition exacerbated by ever increasing social and economic inequality. When people feel they have only themselves to fall back on—lacking support from employers, the government, or our communities—is it any wonder that loneliness is the result? The situation is so bad that in 2018, the U.K. appointed a Minister of Loneliness for the disconnected, and the elderly in Japan are known to commit petty crimes in order to go to jail, “a sanctuary that provides not only company but also support and care.” With plenty of anecdotes and scholarly referenced footnotes, the author meticulously picks apart our everyday world to reveal the many wellsprings of our loneliness, and she points to helpful first steps to deal with it. The trick, writes Hertz, is “to reconnect capitalism to the pursuit of the common good and put care, compassion and cooperation at its very heart.” Of course, that is quite the undertaking; some readers may even consider it impossible, but many will find some comfort in these pages. Hertz diligently scrolls through the many causes of our existential conundrum, including living alone, the bustle of big-city life (“when confronted with all those people our default is often to withdraw”), contactless commerce, smartphone addiction, openly aggressive urban planning, the surveillance workplace, and a government that fails to prioritize libraries, parks, playgrounds, and community centers. Hertz also touches on the alienation of artificial intelligence and the downsides of co-living spaces, and she offer curative suggestions along the way—e.g., redefining work to deliver not just a salary, but “meaning, purpose, camaraderie and support”; committing to public service; and transforming ourselves “from consumers to citizens, from takers to givers, from casual observers to active participants.”

An alternately dispiriting and bracing dissection of loneliness and how to build community from the ground up.