Loneliness Slater, Phillip. The Pursuit

Loneliness

Slater, Phillip. The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point.

Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.

According to Phillip Slater when he wrote his classic the Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point during the early 1970s, the American counter-culture had exercised a positive social force upon American society as a whole. Yes, there were arguable negative aspects of the 'sex, drugs, and rock n' roll' ethos the 'hippies' espoused. But the collectivism and communal sprit of the 1960s and 70s was a powerful and important antidote to the destructive individualism of the dominant America ideology, that had existed since the early days of colonialism, where the credo of 'Don't tread on me' was extended not simply to America's neighbors and enemies abroad, but even to the American government itself, to the point where any efforts to improve the lives of ordinary Americans were looked down upon. Instead, it was 'every man for himself,' in the dog-eat-dog world of American individualistic, capitalist culture, and the Wild, Wild West was replaced with the man in the grey flannel suit, repressing his humane and charitable impulses in the service of his corporation's success.

Slater's thesis that American culture is fundamentally individualistic, and that the counterculture was fundamentally communal in its core impulses, seems somewhat surprising at first, given that in today's popular conception of the 60's counterculture, individualism seems to run rampant. Sexual freedom and doing whatever 'feels good' as opposed to what social conventions or even the law dictated, seemed to be the watchword of the day. It is easy to forget that communal living, and communal 'be-ins' were a crucial part of the hippie movement. Sexual repression, Slater believed, was the reason for antisocial individualism and focusing on personal achievements to such a degree that they subsumed all pleasure in life, all sense of connection with others. The counterculture's emphasis on pleasure freed Americans from their shared sense of duty to be the best. Sexual repression, in Slater's view, had become "a stunning cultural invention, more important than the acquisition of fire. In it man found a source of energy which was limitless and unflagging -- one which enabled him to build his empires on earth," but the counterculture's answer to empires and repression was to make love, not war (Slater 84).

During the 1960s, social activism, embodied first in the Civil Rights movement, then the women's movement, and the other fights for social justice mobilized not simply core constituencies of self-interested activists but young idealists from all over the entire country. The Civil Rights movement in particular fought against the supposed individualism of state's rights. Civil Rights activists argued that state's rights could not supersede the dictates of the federal government. The federal government held that individual liberty could not override the rights of a minority group to be educated and to become fully productive members of society, with all of the opportunities accorded to other citizens. Without collective activism, and the philosophy of collective group activism and legal enforcement, the Civil Rights movement would never have been successful.

Slater wrote that in his era, there were two separate cultures in American society, the older or 'square' culture, and the counterculture. The older culture embodied the values of what we might think as quintessentially 1950s today, the ideal that technology could solve all the world's ills, in everything from the war for space with the Russians, to the creation of TV dinners to provide nutrition without cooking. Technology provided the comforts of standardization at the expense of individualism, and suppressed human passions with discipline and the need for achievement. This older culture had also given birth to suburbia, a system of standardized homes and fenced-in properties enclosing nuclear families that competed to have the nicest lawns and the nicest material possessions. Even more darkly, this old culture denied the positive aspects of sexuality and replaced sexuality with violence and war. It saw competition as healthy and necessary to 'stay ahead' of the Joneses. It denied the value of sensual pleasure, especially pleasure that was discursive, unquantifiable, and had no clear profit margin. Similarly, looking out for others and showing an interest in the lives of others outside of the family was antithetical to this older culture. Thus family over human community and the desire to feel social responsibility to people of all creeds was also emphasized by this old culture. The new, younger liberalism stressed sexual freedom, love, and the equality of all people and value systems, and strove to dissolve familial and national bonds. We all shared a common humanity, the counterculture claimed, in words that would later be immortalized in John Lennon's "Imagine." Imagine a world with no religions or countries, only sky.

Slater's critique of American society touches upon seemingly every level, from childhood onward. He writes that: "in upper-middle-class America...parents...feed on the child's accomplishments, sucking sustenance...from vicarious enjoyment of his or her development," and gleefully compare their children's achievements to the achievements of other children (Slater 59). Slater blames overeducated mothers, denied the social outlet of work. But given that more women work outside the home than ever before, the reason for this seems unlikely, given that childhood competition has if anything increased since Slater's day.

Rather, individualistic competition in childhood may have something to do with the dog-eat-dog nature of American society as a whole -- parents are afraid if they do not pressure their children to succeed the coveted admission to an Ivy League school the children may fall by the wayside, and lose a prosperous future of material and intellectual enjoyment. Competition thus is at the root of American society, even in elementary school -- one shudders to think what Slater would think of today's soccer moms, and SAT prep courses for junior high school students to 'get an edge' on the competition, much less the cutthroat competition in Manhattan for the best nursery schools, almost before children leave the womb. Fun and play for the sake of play is 'out,' multitasking and educational children's software is 'in.'

Perhaps the most prescient of Slater's observations is that Americans love machines "more than life itself" (Slater 49). The extent to which technology such as the Internet and cell phones define of our human interactions today would astound even Slater. These forms of technology also enable communication to be even further individualized -- they are easily cut off without hurting someone's feelings as in a face-to-face encounter, IM-ing a stranger requires no commitment, and cell phones enable people to be constantly connected, but without having to have a meaningful emotional relationship. A person on a cell phone can easily hang up as soon as another interesting bit of personal business comes up, like checking out of a supermarket or driving on a highway, provides an excuse.

Slater associated technology with competition and the denial of pleasure, but technology has made pleasure even more individualized than before. An iPod means that a user can create a personalized playlist, rather than having to listen to an album in the order determined by the musician; in the order other listeners experience the album. DVRs and TiVo enables people to watch programs when they want to watch them, taking the collective experience of television watching out of the experience, and cable TV means that fewer people watch the same programs than ever before.