lonliness

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ernst Barlach , Der Einsame, 1911, oak sculpture, Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg

The term loneliness in present-day language primarily describes a perceived discrepancy between the desired and actually existing social relationships of a person. It is the subjective feeling that the existing social relationships and contacts do not have the desired quality.

The term social isolation is usually distinguished from the term loneliness , by which one understands the objective state of being alone. Loneliness and social isolation are correlated, but not the same thing: Many people like to be alone without suffering from it. Conversely, there are also people who feel lonely, even though viewed from the outside they are part of a large social network.

The term loneliness usually has a negative connotation (in the sense of a deviation from the norm or a deficiency), but sometimes it also has a positive connotation (and more so than the English-language term loneliness ), for example in the sense of a mental recovery strategy that organizes thoughts or develops creativity. can promote.

The proverbial lonely place called Solitüde in winter time. It was named after the French word for loneliness.

Loneliness is also a collective term for particularly sparsely populated and mostly remote areas.

Concept history

According to Odo Marquard , the term "loneliness" originated in the Middle Ages. Originally it was a translation of the Latin term unio in the sense of unio mystica . Master Eckhardt (approx. 1260–1328) used this to describe the mystical union of man with God: "Their loneliness was their being one as the most intense form of their communication."

Marquard's view is confirmed by the fact that Christian mystics often describe Jesus Christ (difficult to understand for people of the 21st century) as a lonely person. For example, Maria Valtorta (1897–1961) wrote about him: “The deep and loving teachings and conversations of Christ, His solitary pourings, His prayers to the Father and His becoming one with him in the silence of the nights or the depths of the groves into which Christ himself withdrew to seek the comfort of union with His Father - He, the Great Lonely, the Great Unknown and Misunderstood. "

Leo Tolstoy argued similarly :

  • "The more lonely someone is, the more clearly they hear the voice of God."
  • "A temporary withdrawal from all things of life and reflection on the divine is as necessary nourishment for your soul as it is material nourishment for your body."
  • “At the highest level of consciousness man is alone. Such loneliness can seem strange, unusual, even difficult. Foolish people try to avoid them by various distractions in order to escape from this lofty to a lower place. On the other hand, wise people remain at this peak with the help of prayer.

According to Marquard, the original meaning of the word loneliness was lost by the 18th century. “'Solitude' quickly became the name for that 'isolation' from others that is part of the mystical experience of God. Where God later got out of the game, man was then only separated, only alone with himself: in today's literal sense 'lonely' ”. In the sense of the mentality, according to which “loneliness” must only be rated negatively, (according to Marquard) the lonely person is someone who cannot or does not want to meet “today's obligation to be totally sociable”.

However, according to the Kassel sociologist Janosch Schobin, the term loneliness had more positive connotations than the term being alone in the 18th and 19th centuries . This is exemplified by the word all alone . Since the 20th century, however, the term being alone has had significantly more positive connotations than the term loneliness .

Matthias Horx and Oona Horx-Stratern confirm that God used to fill a "void" with believers (and still do this for believers today). God be the “one who is always there”, even when other people are absent, “as a comforter and constant presence”. In the modern world, God disappears as a perceiving authority. As a result, the non-believer becomes lonely in the current understanding of the term when he is involuntarily alone.

It is often criticized that the German language is less precise than the English. In English, for example, a distinction is made between loneliness , lonesomeness and solitude . The German translation "loneliness" is used for all three terms. In English, solitude denotes a positively assessed loneliness, which is characterized by experiences of freedom and autonomy, especially in and with nature. The negative aspects of loneliness, on the other hand, are referred to as loneliness or lonesomeness . Of loneliness in the case is the absence of family members and friends talk while lonesomeness is the sadness of the lonely.

Kinds of loneliness

Maike Luhmann and Susanne Brücker differentiate between

  • the emotional loneliness (even intimate solitude specified), a very close to the defect relates intimate relationship as can be found for example in intimate relationships;
  • the social loneliness (also relational loneliness is called) called as a lack of friendships and other personal relationships, and
  • the collective loneliness , which refers to the feeling of lack of belonging to a larger community or to society.

According to Janosch Schobin, all three types of loneliness rarely occur in one individual at the same time; this is most likely to happen with prisoners.

Richard Sennett distinguishes three types of loneliness in terms of their significance for the state and society:

  • The solitude of isolation, of anomie, is imposed by the state. This type of loneliness is particularly common in prisoners, residents in pandemic times with rigorous visiting restrictions for months , those in quarantine , etc.
  • The loneliness of the dreamer, the rebellion . According to Sennett, powerful people fear the rebelliousness of the non-conformist .
  • The third solitude does not affect the interests of the powerful. It is “the feeling of being one among many, of having an inner life that is more than a reflection of the lives of others. It is the loneliness of difference . "

Loneliness as a problem

Mostly loneliness is described as an uncomfortable feeling that arises especially in people who feel involuntarily alone and misunderstood. Matthias Horx and Oona Horx-Stratern, however, contradict this view: “Loneliness is [...] an experience of disinterest. A state that just prevents feelings. "

Since the first half of the 20th century, loneliness has been described primarily as “ depressive and neurotic behavior”, as an expression of a “ crisis of meaning and inner emptiness”, a “progressive dissolution of values ” and the “indolence of the individual within an anonymous one Goods and consumer society "interpreted.

Jürgen Margraf regards the reduction of social contacts of a person up to his isolation as problematic in general: “[W] ir are social beings. As humans, we have historically developed in small groups with a few dozen individuals. This environment was relevant for our survival, evolutionarily we are not loners. We need these contacts. People who are isolated quickly feel cut off and lonely and therefore also anxious and depressed. "

Social psychology

By David Riesman's 1950 published book The Lonely Crowd loneliness was the people in the modern mass societies to the fixed topos .

According to Riesman, loneliness mainly arises in societies where the majority of the members are of the "outside character". In his actions, he or she is based on conventions, on what is "usual" in his environment, regardless of the question of whether the "usual" corresponds to his actual needs. "Loneliness" arises from the difference between the actual needs that an individual has on the one hand and the needs that the individual in question allegedly has according to his social environment and that he is allowed to have on the other.

Ulrich Schneider explains the increase in lonely people in contemporary society as follows: “We are experiencing a wave of individualization , there are more and more single households. Family planning stands [in the way] of one's career, moving to another city for a job is now almost mandatory. Family and neighborhood no longer play a major role and often fall by the wayside. Many notice the consequences when it is too late. "

In his work, Wichard Puls (see literature) traces the causal process of a social isolation that is not intended by the state and / or society. He understands loneliness as the subjective perception of social isolation. For him, feelings of loneliness represent the preliminary stage to depression and negative coping strategies such as alcoholism ; In addition, in a feedback relationship, they have a reinforcing effect on factors that further solidify social isolation (as a preliminary stage to loneliness).

In his work Das Unbehagen im Kultur (Uneasiness in Culture) in 1930 , Sigmund Freud showed understanding for people's retreat into “deliberate isolation”: “Deliberate isolation, keeping away from others is the closest protection against the suffering that can arise from human relationships. One understands: the happiness that can be achieved on this path is that of calm. There is no other way to defend yourself against the dreaded outside world than by some kind of turning away if you want to solve this task for yourself. "

Effect of power-based contact prohibitions

The negative effects of forced isolation of prisoners (“ solitary confinement ”) have been known for a long time . In his chess novella , written from 1938 to 1941, Stefan Zweig describes the attempt at a completely cut off from the outside world “Dr. B ”, to evade the effects of the isolation torture of the National Socialists , through which he is supposed to be forced to divulge secret information to the Gestapo . The isolation with no foreseeable end traumatizes “Dr. B “sustainable.

The question of which social groups and personality types there is a connection between the strategy of spatial distancing in pandemics , often incorrectly referred to as social distancing , and the increase in the number of people feeling lonely is the subject of recent research.

When transferring knowledge gained from observing detainees to people who are subject to a ban on contact due to pandemics, however, it must be taken into account that spatial distance requirements do not imply a ban on any contact. If there is a minimum distance requirement, there is the possibility of conversations across the street or the garden fence. Even people in an officially mandated quarantine have the opportunity to keep in touch with the outside world by phone or the Internet.

Self-isolation and exclusion by society as a mass phenomenon

To be fully encapsulate voluntarily by the Company or involuntarily excluded has become in recent years in Japan to a widespread phenomenon, especially among young people from the rigorous school system (competition), the enormous peer pressure overwhelmed and thus partly associated bullying feel. → Hikikomori .

medicine

Classification according to ICD-10
Z60.2 Person living alone
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

According to ICD-10 , living alone is generally one of the possible factors that can influence the state of health and lead to the use of the health care system; more specifically, people living alone are classified under the code Z60.2 as people with potential health risks due to socio-economic or psychosocial circumstances.

In geriatric basic assessment , geriatric medicine asks about the social relationships of a person, because there has not yet been a clearly demonstrable cause-effect relationship between loneliness and individual disease processes, but knowledge of this can at least be important for therapy planning. Whether or not there is a close relationship between feeling lonely and Alzheimer's dementia is not clear. From 2002 onwards, American researchers observed 823 elderly people from retirement homes in Chicago and the surrounding area over a period of four years. Initially, none of the people involved had Alzheimer's disease. In the course of observation , those who felt lonely suffered mental degradation much more quickly than those who were more socially active.

The Deutsches Ärzteblatt rates loneliness as dangerous: loneliness is “synonymous with permanent stress. Compared to non-lonely people, lonely people sleep worse and are less able to recover. They also eat less healthily, consume more alcohol and cigarettes, and exercise less. In addition, they suffer more frequently from cardiovascular diseases and depression, complain of reduced well-being and a poor quality of life, have a weakened immune system, more suicidal thoughts and die earlier. "

politics

In the UK, a government post (a cross-government group ) was set up in 2018 under the auspices of the Ministry for Sport and Civil Society to combat loneliness. In response to this, the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach in Germany called for "more commitment in the fight against being alone." The loneliness in the life phase over 60 increases mortality as much as heavy smoking. Lonely people die earlier and are more likely to develop dementia than the average of their peers. According to Lauterbach, there must be someone responsible for the issue of loneliness, preferably in the Federal Ministry of Health, who coordinates the fight against loneliness.

However, in March 2018 in Germany only supporters of the left and the AfD were of the majority of the opinion that politics should deal with the issue of "loneliness".

In the coalition agreement between the CDU , CSU and SPD for the 19th legislative period of the German Bundestag (2017–2021), the German government undertakes to develop strategies and concepts to prevent and combat loneliness: “Society and democracy thrive on community. Family ties and a stable network with diverse social contacts promote individual well-being and prevent loneliness. In view of an increasingly individualized, mobile and digital society, we will develop strategies and concepts that prevent loneliness in all age groups and combat loneliness. "

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany , the “fight against loneliness” came into conflict with the endeavor to protect the elderly and those with previous illnesses from getting seriously ill with COVID-19, and possibly even dying. For this purpose, there were strict contact blocks between senior citizens and people with disabilities who live in homes, on the one hand, and people who wanted to visit them, on the other. On June 3, 2020, the "Federal Working Group of Senior Generations (BAGSO)" took a position on the regulations of the federal states regarding the permissibility of contacts between home residents and relatives and other visitors. The background to the BAGSO criticism was that several federal states left it at the discretion of the home operators in May 2020 whether they wanted to allow visits at all. The BAGSO demanded that "residents can be visited again daily by their relatives or other people close to them" to prevent loneliness. According to BAGSO, bans on contact between close family members represent "by far the most severe encroachments on fundamental rights in the entire Corona period".

The neglect of local public transport and communication infrastructure by the competent regional authorities, which hinder the mobility and maintaining contacts of large parts of the population, can be rated as an unintended promotion of loneliness .

Alone and loneliness as an opportunity

Johann Heinrich Füssli  - Loneliness at Daybreak (1794–1796), Kunsthaus Zürich

By observing Israeli youths who grew up in a kibbutz, Bruno Bettelheim found out that group pressure, which cannot be avoided by the constant presence of other group members, has an inhibiting effect on the youth's creativity: “I believe that it is [ growing up in a kibbutz] is almost impossible to have personal beliefs that differ from those of the group, or to express oneself creatively in writing - not just because personal feelings are suppressed, but because the ego would break. If the ego is basically a group ego, then the opposition between the private ego and the group ego is a self-destructive experience. And the personal ego feels too weak to survive when its strongest aspect, the group ego, is lost. "

The anthropological phenomenon of loneliness has preoccupied philosophers since ancient times. Epicurus already praised the seclusion in the garden. Seneca and other Stoics prefer the reciprocal relationship between idle solitude and sociability (de otio et solitudine) . In this tradition, the ancient thinkers Francesco Petrarca and Michel de Montaigne ( Essays , De la solitude ) follow .

Representatives of the Enlightenment propagated the ideal of self-thinking . According to Immanuel Kant , so that the individual as “responsible citizen ” is in a position to be able to oppose the views common in society with his own convictions, he must be encouraged to think for himself and given the opportunity to be repeatedly withdrawn from others thoroughly to be able to think. In fact, Kant was only able to write his extensive philosophical work because he spent a relatively large amount of time alone with his studies (without, however, becoming "lonely").

Ambivalence of loneliness

Representatives of sensitivity and romanticism emphasized the importance of a satisfying emotional life more than the Enlightenmentists. Sensitive people with a tendency to melancholy withdrew into their own inwardness and tried to evade claims from their outside world, which they perceived as "rough impositions of uncomprehending and superficial fellow men". Precisely through this retreat, however, in the tradition of pietism, the possibility of attentive, differentiated listening to oneself in the service of an examination of one's conscience and self -assurance about one's own ego opened up.

literature

The diary turned out to be the ideal form of communication for fixing “unheard of” thoughts and feelings. A typical product of the age of sensitivity is Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .

Romantics found the forest an ideal retreat. Goethe had already sought "peace" in it. The motif of loneliness in the forest plays a central role in romanticism. When talking about “lonely walks in the forest”, the attribute “lonely” still has a positive connotation.

Well-known representatives of solitude poetry are

They describe loneliness, loneliness and extreme melancholy . In his Zarathustra poem, Nietzsche often exposed the motif of loneliness. According to Nietzsche, a new people should emerge from the lonely people of his time and ultimately the “ superman ”.

Also in Hermann Hesse's works (for example Demian , Siddhartha or Der Steppenwolf ) it is often a question of highlighting the problem of the contradiction between loneliness and community.

While in the 19th century loneliness in its function to develop the individual was celebrated as an important upgrading of the individual compared to the fixed role integration that prevailed in the older class society , this initial euphoria was put into perspective in the 20th century, when the downsides of increasing individualization became more and more visible. The decreasing cohesiveness a while constricting the individual, but at the same time protecting and relieving community is increasingly seen as a problem. Important representatives of this growing skepticism are works by Heinrich Böll or Wolfgang Borchert , in which war returnees are the focus, for whom it is difficult to decide whether the "communal experience" of war or the experience of loneliness and emptiness when returning home has the more devastating effect on the people People has. In Doctor Faustus (1947), Thomas Mann describes the life of a musician who, through his devotion to his art, becomes increasingly distant from his surroundings and finally falls into madness. In the United States has Paul Bowles with Sheltering Sky submitted a relevant topic for this work (1949).

In 2014, John Boyne describes lonely priestly figures in The Story of Loneliness , each of which unfolds a different life story: one of them becomes a child molester at altar boys in Ireland at the end of the 20th century. His friend, who actually only knows him from his education, takes refuge in a ritualized, unspiritual life as a teacher and librarian in order to close his eyes to reality. The ecclesiastical hierarchy jokes him, but he puts everything away. The repression leads to the fact that he himself cannot see the crimes of the friend. Only the late realization that religion has led him into solitude instead of community prompted him to change his life.

painting

Caspar David Friedrich  - The Wanderer Above the Sea of ​​Fog (around 1817)

In 19th century painting, Caspar David Friedrich and Vincent van Gogh addressed the forms of loneliness. In the painting of the 20th century, the work of Edward Hopper in particular occupies an outstanding position in relation to the depiction of loneliness. The dominant motif are always lonely, distant, exhausted people, deserted architecture, often in an oppressively hot, paralyzing summer atmosphere, and almost lifeless night scenes. Hopper's representations are characterized by the complete absence of a critical or even accusatory gesture; it can be seen as a factual, laconic description that shows how people have lost touch with one another.

music

In music, besides Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  , it is above all Franz Schubert (Winterreise, based on Wilhelm Müller), Robert Schumann and Jean Sibelius who turn to the topic of loneliness-melancholy.

Eleanor Rigby sculpture in Liverpool

In the English-speaking popular culture of the second half of the 20th century, the misery of lonely people is described in many works, especially in mass-sold songs, which were popular with the public. So z. As the many gecoverte song Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles (formed 1966) "all the lonely people" ( all the lonely people ) who live a pathetic life. In 1968 the blues rock band Canned Heat brought out the hit On the Road Again , in which the lyrical self laments its loneliness ( I ain't going down / That long old lonesome road / All by myself ).

Ways out of loneliness felt as suffering

Health psychologists have identified three risk groups who are particularly threatened by loneliness and can therefore claim attention for themselves:

  • In their early 20s, many young adults have to change their place of residence, for example to study or get a job.
  • In their mid-40s, their own children have left the house and family and partnership structures are changing.
  • The last potential "phase of loneliness" begins in senior age. However, those aged 66 to 75 are the age group with the lowest percentage of people who feel lonely.

The Deutsches Ärzteblatt recommends therapy goals and measures to combat loneliness in patients

  • Exercises that promote self-awareness, supplemented by training to strengthen self-esteem and measures that increase the feeling of belonging and connectedness with others;
  • Assistance for reinterpreting being alone: ​​This can be seen, for example, as an opportunity and opportunity for development or relaxation and not as a misfortune. On the other hand, the perspective of social relationships is being worked on. Dysfunctional cognitions are checked against reality and changed in such a way that an unbiased, positive interaction with other people is possible;
  • Propagation of new, not lonely role models;
  • Training of social skills, the reduction of social deficits and the increase of social contacts;
  • Overcoming unwanted isolation through the use of modern technologies.

In many western industrialized countries there is a public debate about loneliness in old age. The results of the German Aging Survey (DEAS) 2017 indicate that the risks of social isolation and loneliness in the second half of life develop differently and are differently high with increasing age.

The German Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) sees very old people as a risk group that needs to be acted upon. People over 80 years of age suffered more from strokes of fate, illnesses, decreased physical mobility, lack of mobility, increasing old-age poverty or a migration background. Those affected therefore need political support to find their way out of their loneliness and social isolation.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Solitude  - collection of pictures, videos, and audio files
Wiktionary: loneliness  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Audio

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephanie Kern: Does poverty lead to social isolation? An empirical analysis using data from the Socio-Economic Panel. Dissertation . University of Trier. June 2002, p. 146 (152), accessed on June 23, 2020
  2. ↑ http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Einsamkeit
  3. ↑ Quoted from Martin Tamcke: Tolstojs Religion. A spiritual biography. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2010, p. 61 (without proof)
  4. ↑ Quoted from Martin Tamcke: Tolstojs Religion. A spiritual biography. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2010, p. 64 (without proof)
  5. ↑ Quoted from Martin Tamcke: Tolstojs Religion. A spiritual biography. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2010, p. 65 (without proof)
  6. ↑ Odo Marquard: Plea for the ability to be lonely . In: simply live . Issue 10/2012. Subject: The power of loneliness ( online ), accessed June 22, 2020
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