Loneliness in Modern Society
Earlier this year, the US Surgeon General issued a public health advisory titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. (2023). This comes almost 40 years after Ray Oldenburg the growing problem and suggested a remedy (Great Third Places. 1989). “[I]n modern suburban societies time is primarily spent in isolated first (home) and second (work) places. In contrast, third places offer a neutral public space for a community to connect and establish bonds.” Such spots “host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals.” And that promotes “social equality by leveling the status of guests [to] provide a setting for grassroots politics, create habits of public association, and offer psychological support to individuals and communities.”
Coffee Shops as Social Hubs
The advisory also appears some 50 years after Starbucks piloted the coffee-connoisseur market few had suspected we’d develop a taste for. And then, starting from a single kiosk, paired coffee with the sit-down café, explicitly styled a third place, which it exported around the world. And meanwhile sparked local and regional variants nationwide. Since then, cafes have become their own market niche, part of America’s social infrastructure, drop-in, work, meet up. And the only rent is the price of a caffeinated beverage—and maybe a pastry.
The Profound Impact of Loneliness
Surprised the SG, on a nationwide listening tour, to discover the depth and extent of American’s dislocation. People “felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant. Even when they couldn’t put their finger on the word ‘lonely,’… all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from every corner of the country, would tell me, ‘I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself,’ or ‘if I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.’ Had he missed the news on how we can no longer seem to talk to each other?
Far more than “just a bad feeling,” our embedded “loneliness harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death….Given the profound consequences…we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to make the same investments in addressing social connection that we have made in addressing tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis…..If we fail to do so, we will pay an ever-increasing price in the form of our individual and collective health and well-being. And we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners—angry, sick, and alone.”
Unveiling Starbucks’ Social Mission
All about coffee and human connection, Starbucks mission statement says. So, have cafes become pockets of civility and sociability surrounded by general alienation, even hostility? Not quite. From where I often sit, they’re active in selling coffee, etc., which is, of course, the point. But the connecting part’s fuzzier, passive, “talking the talk but not walking the walk,” with a “build it [or open it] and they will come” assumption. Many of us do, but once inside, we’re on our own, unless we get rowdy. Not like the old TV show Cheers, “Where everybody knows your name.” If not already acquainted, we stick to separate bubbles, in parallel-play proximity. Perhaps Americans require something stronger than caffeine.
Community Challenges and Martin Buber’s Wisdom
Martin Buber, of I-Thou fame, had a more realistic, yet still mysterious, appreciation. “Can one really want community in the same way one makes plans, sets goals…?” No, he answered. But “[w]hen people really engage with each other and respond to the experience with their own lives, when people have a ‘living middle’ at their center, then community can arise among them….” (How Can Community Happen? (1930). from The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings. Edited by Asher D. Biemann. Palgrave MacMillan. 2002).
Shifting Perspectives on Social Issues
View the advisory as aspirational. Put the idea “out there.” Let it marinate. See if it gains traction. That’s the way public policy works. A decade from the initial attempt before the majority of Americans accepted tobacco’s health risks (Wikipedia). And loneliness and isolation are qualitatively different, far more complex, not something(s) we can touch, slap a warning label on. Declare a “war” on. The Overton Window is a political frame for looking at how attitudes and opinions change over time. “The range of acceptable ideas or window of actual possibilities is always in motion. This means that what was once unthinkable can, and often does, become acceptable, normalized, eventually standard policy.”
·Podcasts and Controversies on Loneliness
That process has already begun in small ways. Cite efforts like the Atlantic’s podcast series How To Talk to People, hosted by Julie Beck and Rebecca Rashid. The episode How Not Go It Alone (June 26, 2023) featured Mia Birdsong, author of How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community (Hachette Books. 2020). For Americans, ideas of self-reliance can work counter to making connections, asking for and offering help. But as Beck noted, we all share a universal longing for “the sense that you are part of a rich, interconnected community. That you have an extended network of support and love, full of many different kinds of relationships that serve many different purposes.” And expect controversy along the way. More pricey government, “nanny state,” silliness? Or even worse, a “deep state” bureaucratic conspiracy? If “mere” emotions can pose genuine threats, have we become a nation of wimpy cry-baby whiners? And even if there’s some truth, doesn’t that only prove science and progress narratives took a wrong turn and left us empty and stranded, uprooted from small “home” communities.
Small-Town Nostalgia vs. Modern Reality
Mayberry and “white picket fence” nostalgia remain enduring tropes. How many movies use plotlines of high-flying cosmopolites who return to discover what really matters? But I reflect on my own family, four generations and counting away from a tiny, “home” village. Everybody knew everybody else, and they told stories, gossiped, as easy as breathing. No need to think about connecting; they couldn’t get away from each other. I suspect my dad could hardly breathe there, had to leave. Women didn’t go on their own, but my mother hitched a ride and so did we. And we’re enduringly grateful. And never felt those “down home” revelatioms. And those who left became kind of legendary. My dad’s vehicle was baseball. A cousin once confided they saw our lives as glamorous. Really?! An uncle on Dad’s side, “a railroad man,” settled in Florida and supposedly had a town named after him. My brother once visited and found the place laid out in anticipation it would grow bigger than it actually had. Stories seldom match reality. And now, demographics show small places shrinking, losing their own “living middles.” Nowhere to go back to, even if we wanted to.
The Surgeon General’s Call to Action
The SG calls for a “movement to mend the social fabric.” And a start to “destigmatize loneliness and change our cultural and policy response…by reimagining the structures, policies, and programs that shape a community to best support the development of healthy relationships.” In a bottom-up commitment, “It will take all of us—individuals and families, schools and workplaces, health care and public health systems, technology companies, governments, faith organizations, and communities—working together.” Reminds of George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” slogan, leaning on community organizations to take the heavy lifting and costs off government. That was 1988, around the time Oldenburg was working up his ideas. They do tend to cluster, cross influence with ideological differences, come back around. Does that suggest this might become a bipartisan cause? Probably expecting too much in these polarized times.
Crafting an Advisory on Loneliness
Probably intentional the advisory implies but does not directly link loneliness and political polarization. Deep in national malaise, our only point of agreement, from different perspectives, is that the country’s in a bad way. And the issues seem fundamental, systemic, go clear back “to the writing of the Constitution — debates and compromises that resulted in representation in the House based on population and in the Senate based on equal standing for the states; the odd system by which we elect presidents; and lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices. In general, the founders often distrusted the masses and sought to create structural protections against them.” (Dan Balz and Clara Ence Morse. American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why. Washington Post. August 18, 2023).
Existential Risks and American Democracy
If we mean to rebuild community, start with more detail on the advisory-crafting process. First draft of a template for moving forward? Not naming names, but what kinds of folks contributed, shared their personal anguish? How large was the population? Let’s not call them a “sample.” Did they self-select in response to an announcement/invitation, were they identified by state and local agencies, were they picked at random in standard survey methods? Was contact made by phone, door-to-door, in public meetings? How many refused to talk, hung up, slammed the door? Did some regions show up lonelier than others? Were urban, suburban, or rural areas loneliest? And how, given levels of polarization, were interactions managed to reduce potential for angry confrontations a la school and library board meetings around efforts to censor curricula and ban books? Anger can feel so much more powerful than pain/hurt. But then, and most important of all, perhaps some among us have reached such states of desperation it can spill out in a kind of social Tourette’s Syndrome.
Active Citizenship in a Divided Nation
As the advisory notes, we face huge existential risks. Balz and Morse cite Jill Lepore, director of Harvard’s Amendments Project. “There is value to a written constitution, but only if it can be changed. The danger is that it becomes brittle and fixed — and then the only way to change your system of government or to reform a part of it is through an insurrection.” Distressing to think we may lack the imagination and good will to find a better, less destructive, way. Appalling to hear reckless and thoughtless talk of “a new Civil War.” Have those folks looked at ongoing death, destruction, trauma in Ukraine? Better heed the advisory’s message: “it will take all of us.” And that raises questions of who today merits trust. If current leaders can’t navigate out of gridlock, perhaps we can only trust ourselves. Become another, more active, kind of citizen, as we try to refashion a new “living middle.”
Starbucks’ Mission Evolution
And that will take talking together. And cafes, even though not as advertised, may be the very places. Starbucks’ current mission statement reads, “With every cup, with every conversation, with every community—we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.” But I read reports of shifts behind the scene, like a pivot back to kiosks for new locations. Bricks and mortar retail is expensive. Standing connections though seem like a contradiction. And there’s a sense of other reinventions, following image slippage, crying over spilled coffee(?). There was the push back when workers tried to unionize, and accusations of punitive action against organizers, which the company denies. (Alina Selyukh. REI fostered a progressive reputation. Then its workers began to unionize. NPR. July 6, 2023). The company did better handling a racial profiling crisis—apologized, closed a bunch of cafes, shut down for a day to conduct nationwide staff sensitivity training. The strategy’s been featured in case studies on how to properly handle controversy. But in a more cynical view, it was all an elaborate PR maneuver. Perhaps, the way narratives layer, it was all of the above.
Cafe Connections: DIY Possibilities
Can’t stop thinking of, even wax a bit visionary over, those “limitless possibilities”. Café connections have always has been DIY, without direct company intervention. And in a way, that can be an advantage, allows the spaces to be whatever we like. I’ve seen folks come in to wrap Christmas presents, talk over business deals, do job interviews, hash out insurance options. Not exactly eavesdropping, but can’t help hearing, unless you use earphones. So, why not, rather than shrinking spaces, another kind of reinvention hosting conversations? The business case would be a chance to sell more “product.” And perhaps the most useful part the SG and his minions could offer would be to develop DIY manuals or kits to help support and give these efforts some semi-official standing. And Starbucks and other café proprietors could become partners, simply agree, or just not object if folks took the initiative. Say asked to take over for a weekly hour or so to hold regular, informal, DIY talk sessions. And, as per Birdsong, the only rule would be mutual respect. And what if these small, but substantive, connections could help seed something gradually trending toward non-violent reunion?