Unrelated

For the first time in the history of mankind, the number of people living alone was practically approaching family people

Scientists of several countries of the world declare a social phenomenon - for the first time in the history of mankind, the number of people living alone has practically approached the figure that constitutes family people.

The Solo Trend is fixed for at least the last decade, but the topic has not yet been seriously studied by anyone, it has been discussed little, and it remains inexperienced.

According to the All -Russian Census of the population of 2021, 41.8% of households in the country belong to single people. This is 27.6 million people.

For comparison, in 2002 this figure was 22%.

In America today, more than 50% of adults are lonely, this is 31 million people. For comparison, a year is taken older there, but this does not change the situation - in 1950, only 22% of the Americans were lonely; 4 million people lived separately, which amounted to 9% of all households.

According to Euromonitor International research company, the number of people living alone around the world increased sharply-from 153 million in 1996 to 201 million in 2006, that is, in 10 years the number of such people increased by 33%. Unfortunately, there are no more fresh numbers around the world. But it is known that the number of American loners today confidently overtake the lonely citizens of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The number of loners in Canada, Australia, France, Germany and England increased significantly. And even in Japan, where all life has traditionally been organized around the family, now about 30% of households consist of one person. India is close to the same numbers today.

What is behind this phenomenon? Protest? Economic situation, growth of welfare, craving for eternal youth? Or, perhaps, the infrastructure of large cities, women who have long been equal to men according to their statuses, social networks, a jump in the average life expectancy?

All taken together-you can come to this conclusion by reading the book of a sociologist, Doctor of Philosophy of New York University, Eric Kleinenberg. His book “Life Solo. New social reality ”(the publication in the Russian language reached the Alpina Non-Fix in 2014) is already by rightly called the encyclopedia of research of the phenomenon of modern loneliness-there are hundreds of interviews and analysis of a large number of scientific works, a thoroughly presented history of the issue. But it is worth talking about this, maybe starting with a film that is in no way connected with the book of Kleainenberg.

Lobster

A person says that he was 19 years old when his father fell in love with another and left his family. The mother was settled in the hotel, and then turned into a she -wolf and arranged in a zoo. He missed her very much and came every day with a large piece of raw meat. He did not know which of the wolves his mother, and therefore fed everyone. And then he could not stand it once and jumped to them. All the wolves immediately attacked him, and only two of them remained aloof. He suggested that one of them could be his mother. The ministers quickly reacted and grabbed him from there, took him to the hospital, saved him. But his leg is now mutilated now.

It looks like nonsense or a strange dream, but I am now telling you about the scene from the movie "Lobster" of the Greek director Yorgos Lantimos. In 2015, this film received a prize of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.

He fascinates from the first minutes, as soon as you start watching it - a tough, acute, hopeless reality of an alternative future if it mixes, then with such a concentration of bitterness that it becomes scary.

In this film, all loners are caught on the street, taken to the hotel, where they are given 45 days to find a pair. Otherwise, they turn into the animal that he will ask for himself. The hero of the film wants to become a lobster because they live 100 years, they have blue blood, and he loves the sea very much.

He is told that the solution is good - everyone wants to be dogs, and therefore there are so many of them. And there are few lobsters ...

To begin with, an handcuff is handcuffed to him to the belt to feel what it is without a couple of hands, and, apparently, without a couple. This is only for one day, but every morning the unfortunate wakes a loud announcer with new numbers: the room is such and such as you have so many days left ... and every evening a beautiful maid comes to the guest number, brings him to excitement and leaves when he literally begs her to stay. And for masturbation, his hand is lowered into a warm -up Toster.

Do you have any associations in connection with the topic? I - yes, I recall the Camedy Battle television program, where the girl, speaking with her stand -up, talked about how her mother is touching about marriage. And he agrees to the fact that he informs his daughter that if she does not create a family, after some time there will be no one to even bury her. And the girl wonders that, however, it will be, "no one wants to bury unborn meat?" The people in the hall even jumped from their places, and the members of the jury, the comedians at all and never seen in the mercy, burned cynics, looked incredibly crumpled ... And one of them commented: “This is how to bring a person so that such a combination arose-unborn meat!”

And what is happening cannot but cause indignation about society, so pressing on a person. The posed problem, brought in the film to the point of absurdity, is too clearly outlining the state of things. Both in the reviews and in the reviews of the film, so, in fact, this is said.

But there is a second half of the film that is strangely ignored. And there the hero runs away and finds himself in the forest, where loners are hidden. And they have their own, no less stringent rules and their torture, which apply to those who violate the rules. According to the rules, it is impossible to start novels, it is forbidden to flirt and even give a look that someone liked it. And there the girl who fell in love with the hero literally blinds.

Do you have any associations and at the same time? I - yes, and the first thing that comes to mind is the situation with flights of aircraft without children. In several countries of the world, the possibility of such flights is already being discussed, and maybe even childless planes are already flying somewhere.

If you go along the growing line of the topic, why not assume that the airline at the numerous requests of passengers will demand to transport children in the luggage department, along with animals and suitcases? They prevent them from sleeping differently.

There is no engagement in the film - he is not for loners, and he is not for his family, he is because no one can and should not tell a person how to build his personal life. From my point of view, the conclusion can only be made.

Life Solo

And the same conclusion suggests itself when you read to the end the book "Life Solo" by Kleinenberg. She can not be called “Oda Loneliness”, as many already write. The author studies the phenomenon of completely new statistics - the numbers are impressive. And he is trying to figure out the causes of striking changes. He says a lot of good things about family life, starting with such an introduction:

“At the beginning of the Old Testament, it is described how God was created day after day - heaven and earth, water, light, day and night, a variety of living creatures. And God saw that all his creations are good. However, creating Adam, God remarked: "It is bad when the person is alone" - and created Eve ... "

The author recalls that in all the historical eras of the authorities of all countries they perfectly understood the horror of loneliness and isolation. So it was even in ancient times, and at the end of the XVIII century. And throughout the last time, the camera of solitary imprisonment in the sentence was considered worse and worse than the execution, this was considered "death alive."

The most striking evidence of people's craving for life together, Kleainenberg calls the family and notes that this was the case throughout the history of mankind and in all cultures. Therefore, first of all, it was safer, and it is more convenient for the extraction of food and the possibility of reproduction. People leading a lonely lifestyle were stigmatized. In Russia, some years ago, a “old maid”-about women, or “he lives with a beave”, about men, sounded with terrible curses. In the United States, as Kleainenberg writes, more than half of the participants of the population surveyed in 1957 called unmarried or unmarried people “sick”, “immoral” or “neurotics”.

However, subsequently the situation has changed. When conducting such a survey, already in 1976 it turned out that only a third of Americans negatively belong to single people. “... although the“ shameful stigma ”of a lonely life has not yet completely disappeared, our cultural ideas about single people and family life have changed a lot,” writes the author of the book “Life Solo”. “Nowadays, when lonely adults have become more than married, the question of whether the Americans approve of a lonely lifestyle or not, no one is asking at all.” The Russians just recently, in April of this year, asked VTsIOM and found that people began to perceive single people differently.

The share of Russians who are not afraid of loneliness has grown from 54 to 68% over the past 15 years. “In Russian society, immunity to loneliness is growing ...” - the organization’s website says.

You can fix: what is happening today is a unique planetary social phenomenon, in the history of mankind there is not a single equal in terms of the scale of the analogue. What are the reasons? “Roughly speaking, today loneliness has become more affordable economically, but the economic factor is just a fragment of the overall picture. In itself, he does not give an answer to the question: why are so many wealthy citizens in developed countries use their capital and opportunities not differently, but in order to isolate themselves from each other, ”writes Kleinenberg in his book and refers to one of the founders of sociology, Emil Durkheim, the creator of the term“ an individual’s cult ”.

The statement of the Austrian economist Joseph Schupeter, who in 1942 predicted, predicted that the culture of cold calculation will ultimately lead to the “decay of the bourgeois family”. He wrote:

“... As soon as people receive a lesson in utilitarianism and refuse to perceive the traditional organization of their social environment as a given, as soon as they learn to weigh the specific advantages and disadvantages of any possible plan or action ... They will definitely notice heavy personal sacrifices that carry family ties, and especially paternity and motherhood ...”

In the present time, the scientist specializing in the study of the family and family relations Andrew Chelin defiantly declares that “the main obligation of a person is an obligation in relation to himself. Bringing all these quotes, Kleainenberg concludes: “This means that these days the cult of the individual has reached the scale as Durkheim could not imagine.”

The cult of the individual

My niece, who is now literally for distant lands from me, had just written a post on social networks that she forgot to close the window for the night and now writes a post and sneezes. At that very moment I wished her in a comment “Be healthy”, and she thanked me at the same moment - “Thank you!” That is, the whole dialogue occurred at the time of her sneezing, and all this took no more than one minute.

A person with the development of technology, having all the benefits of civilization, can no longer feel the severity or even the orphan of loneliness. Everything is nearby. I wanted someone, and not you yourself, to prepare you your favorite dish-order delivery and just go to the door. Ladvement to get out of the blankets, but you need to turn on something-say: “Alice, turn on!”, And she will turn on faster than the neighbor would do it for you. You can work remotely and you can easily find a couple for yourself at a time that you are ready and you want to spend. You can just communicate-in chats, thematic forums or online games. Kleainenberg calls the revolution in the means of communications among the four social factors that created the conditions for the real heyday of the individual. Three more - strengthening the role of women, mass urbanization and a jump in the average life expectancy.

In most economically developed countries over the past half a century, there has been a sharp increase in the number of working women. This fundamentally changed the modern relations between the sexes and led to the fact that people marry at a later age.

The period of growing up becomes longer, and the number of divorces and cases of separate residence of the spouses increases. The number of divorces is growing steadily, and the younger generation is to get a family either in no hurry or does not plan at all.

Loneliness and elderly people are not afraid today - the notorious glass of water that no one will give, if you have not created a family, has long turned into a funny meme. “Everyone will give you if you have created financial savings,” says the hero of the popular film, and, probably, no matter how rude it sounds, there is truth in this.

Mass urbanization, another condition for the life of loners. In a densely populated city, it is easier to find like -minded people. Ethan Waters in the book “City Tribes” writes that, having combined efforts, single people are able to help each other to live separately. “In cities where there are a lot of loners, cultural life is sealing ...” says Kleainenberg and says that in Las Vegas in the Games of the Cup of the Creators of the World Kickball Association for adults, 72 teams of a total number of 1,500 people participated. And that kikbol leagues already exist in India and England, and interest in this game is growing in other countries of the world. He explains that the popularity among adults in this, in fact, children's game can be regarded as a manifestation of a certain new phenomenon in our society, which sociologists call “the second youth”.

Residents of rich and developed countries are in no hurry to "grow up." An increasing number of people attract life without clear “adults” obligations, which perfectly conveys the name of the Non-Committals kickbox team, i.e. "Unrelated." Fans celebrate the closing of the season in New York, at an event called "graduation ball of kikbol."

Today, people are 30–40 years old, and sometimes they continue to study older, are in no hurry with a career choice. “... They change sexual partners and often very skeptical about the fact that the love union can continue to the coffin. They chat, sit on social networks, play video games and share music. The youngest - those who are not yet 25 years old - often even return to live with parents. This behavior allows ... to talk about the "generation of boomerang," says Kleainenberg in his book.

He says that these are new forms of individualism. And they differ from the old cult of the individual in that freedom is now understood wider. “Freedom from family supervision, shackles of religious traditions and vigilant public opinion of small cities gave wings to the townspeople ... Astets said that for them“ art is life ”... began to change themselves, their dwellings and their environment in accordance with their“ internal nature ”, rejecting“ concrete of state institutions, ”the author of the book explains the author of the book

Commentary of a social psychologist

Alina Osipova:

-I understand all this manifestation of the reset responsibility for someone except myself, loved. “You can’t forbid living beautifully,” they said in the last century, and no one can ban on life all the time, and only his beloved. Eternal childhood, joy and fun, these lights, which are so beautiful now, may end up with swamp lights.

Communication of adults in playgrounds can, of course, have fun for some time and friends on the Internet are also friends. But it is difficult for a person to live his whole life like that, no matter how he sought this. For mental health, loneliness has serious consequences. Without truly native voices and sincerely loving you people in the long run, heavy depression, acute mental disorders loom. Without a family, a person loses the point of support. I am not left by the idea that in the situation, pseudo -psychologists with advice with advice, first of all about yourself, say, say “you are one or one”. All this has, of course, meaning, but when the subtle matters of psychology go to the masses, the domestic life hacks literally begin. We must love yourself, this is true, but the Bible says "love his neighbor as himself." This is a commandment. And who is our neighbor? Frends from social networks, delivery couriers, games partner on the playground? Artificial intelligence?

It is sad to understand that if everything goes as now, humanity expects a decrease in the birth rate, and possibly extinction.