subject: The End Of Solitude Refocused [print this page] The End Of Solitude Refocused The End Of Solitude Refocused
The End of Solitude
Social networking sites have unveiled a purposeful communication range which has completely over hauled the existent sense and need for solitude. In the Chronicle, Deresiewicz delivers an eloquent masterpiece of writing, exploring how the concept of solitude has unveiled itself, its manifestation and its implications on the generation. Globalization, intertwined with technological advancements have overseen the much hyped rise of social networking sites and extremely elevated our desire to be recognized, connected and visible. He argues that this is the quality that validates us and defines how we become real to ourselves. In his words, "If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility." The avenue for the realization of a celebrity status and connectivity, which is what everyone wants, denies privacy and adversely affects concentration. Thus, solitude has come to lack abode in the lives of the persons of the current generation.
Traced in the historical arena, solitude embraced different perspectives. Though wary of mans' status as a social animal, solitude was a societal value, cultured in the spiritual dimension as a religious experience, renewing its relationship with divinity. Focusing the soul inward and leaving it to encounter God, created the modern self. Thus, solitude was democratized by reformation and secularized by Romanticism. With Romanticism, solitude achieved its greatest cultural salience pitting it against the environment of friends. It determined the validation of self by a congruity of public appearance and private essence leading to a stable relationship between self and others. Its emergence in modernism, solitude becomes, more than ever, the arena of heroic self-discovery, a voyage through interior realms made vast and terrifying by Nietzschean and Freudian insights. Deresiewicz argues that we no longer live in the modernist city but rather, "our great fear is not submersion by the mass but isolation from the herd." With transportation alienating the self further apart, communication technology has sought to draw us even more closer.
Varied communication technologies have served to bring people together. The internet is an incalculable blessing in this arena, coupled with the rise of computer and cell phone technology which enable texting keeping us in constant stream of mediated contact; virtual, notional, or simulated, which keeps us wired in to the electronic hive. This has elevated the personal goal to a transformed self, what he calls a miniature celebrity. The number of friends on Face book or the number of Google hits a name generates enhances visibility, which he defines as a source of secure self-esteem, eliminating chances of ever feeling lonely or being alone. This raises the urge for friendship rather than intimacy, tremendously lessening the chances for solitude. Nay, this does not indicate boredom or idleness. Boredom is related to idleness with the latter explained as a passive receptivity to the world. Loneliness can be inferred as the grief over the absence of company but not the absence itself.
Losing solitude has various implications. One is losing the propensity of introspection, the examination of the self in terms of wisdom and conduct. In the lose of solitude, the ability to read is lost. Reading can be defined by as the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude. The solitary mind has been lost and therefore decisions stand to be influenced by social contexts. It adversely affects the individual sense of communication; graphically rather than verbally, or perfomatively rather than narratively eventually rendering the process as lacking in individual depth. The next consequence is a fatal blow to the integrity of the self and dignity of individual spirituality. If one can maintain solitude, it is clear that the soul will tread with caution and dignity thus keeping our miraculous and mysterious self intact. The eventual outcome would be an adverse connectivity to the internal welfare of the individual and a feasible connectivity to the spirituality, a potent control agent for the conscious co-existence of the human mind.
Overview
The article explores the implications of the social networking sites which most Kenyans are privy to. The sites have led to the loss of one of the most valued individual values; solitude. Solitude offers a chance for self inspection, spiritual contact and it is also the way that reading manifests itself in the conceptual arena. The aim is not to challenge the use of these sites, but it is a critical article reflecting on the impacts on the individuality realms after continued use of the sites.
