"Splendid Isolation" -Really?

Are we becoming a nation of recluses?
Toward the latter half of the 19th century, Great Britain embarked on a brief period in its history, dubbed “splendid isolation” during which time she, intentionally or otherwise, radically disengaged herself from the international community, becoming increasingly insular. For these few years, Britannia became an island in both the literal and the metaphoric sense; a state from which only the climactic build up to war was able to wrench her.

I take you on this little trip down memory lane because, as I look around me at the society we have created in 2010, I am greatly saddened and, moreover, deeply concerned that it might be happening all over again. This time, not at an international level, but much closer to home: with us. I am forced to consider the possibility that we are sleep walking into a new age of individualistic “splendid isolation.” It’s a chilling thought.

Never in recent history has the phrase “look out for number one” been more apt. Our modern society grooms and preconditions us towards self preservation at all costs; financially, emotionally and physically we are constantly reminded to put ourselves first, to secure our own interests, to take whatever steps we deem necessary to get on in life and achieve our goals. I remember all too well having this mindset drummed into me as an 18 year old 6th form student making decisions about his future. Again and again I was reminded by countless teachers that the only person who could turn my dreams into reality was me and the best thing a person could do in life was to plough all my time and energy into building my place in the sun and securing my future – now! The model most of us have had imposed upon us is a sort of odd hybrid of the American Dream and Thatcherite-Capitalism, but by whatever name we choose to call it, it would seem that non of us are immune: we are all it’s children.

As children grow and mature into adulthood, embarking on careers and families and forging their path in the world, the model is always the same: Me first. Whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice and whoever we have to knock down or step over along the way, society compels us towards something it labels “success.” Towards this state of “splendid isolation.” And it’s heart-breaking to watch.

As a student for the past three years, the trappings of Western normality have always appeared a somewhat remote reality that I’ve been temporarily immune from. But now, as I move towards graduation and begin to take those first tentative footsteps into the “real world” the full burden of society’s pressures begins to come to bear upon my shoulders. I should, society tells me, begin to start making serious career plans and costing my future so that I can afford, a few years from now, to climb the first rung of the property ladder. Not that there is any immediate rush but I should, society tells me, start seeing communal living, city dwelling, property renting and public transport using as temporal not long term solutions. My aspirations, society reminds me, should begin to focus on purchasing a ‘nice’ house in a ‘nice’ area (preferably in the suburbs) complete with its own garden, ideally not overlooked by any of the neighbours and generally situated to maximise quietness, tranquillity and just far enough removed from everybody else so as to make it rather an inconvenience for them to just “pop round” to see you. And, of course, somewhere in the middle of all this, society tells me, I ought to get married and start a family so that in between stressing over the career, worrying about the kids, attempting to please the marriage partner and juggling the finances to ensure that this whole lifestyle can be maintained...there really is little time left for anything, or indeed anyone, else. This, apparently, is “success.” This is the model of splendid isolation to which almost all of us, like it or not, will succumb. Sounds great doesn’t it?

Believing that happiness is a commodity up for sale, almost all of us will spend our lives, exhaust our energy and whittle away our cash in pursuit of our very own slice of isolated bliss. Because of course, the more money we have at our disposal, the more ‘privacy’ we are able to afford; the greater choice we have regarding precisely who we share our space with and who we shut out. In short, with all our well deserved earnings we are able to buy ourselves out of community and into solitude; remove ourselves from the masses and purchase our very own piece of isolation. And the fatter the wager packet the more pronounced the isolation can be; the higher the privet hedge, the taller the gate, the greater the distance between our castle and the next.
Safely secure within the confines of these four walls we can raise our children, go about our business, entertain what few friends we’ve decided to hold onto...protected from the corruptive influence of the outside world and all its dangers. Of course, we can’t completely shut ourselves off – it remains necessary to lower the drawbridge from time to time and venture out into the abyss but we take precautions to minimize the “damage” as much as possible. We purchase large cars that remove the need to share dirty buses with equally dirty people and we make every effort to restrict our wanderings to only the ‘pleasant’ areas, avoiding those less agreeable places where no doubt the dirty people on the dirty buses originate from!

The years rolls on, the hair grows a little greyer, the stomach starts to expand and one by one the kids fly the nest. We’re reminded of when we were that age – how exciting life was, living in the company of our friends all the while – enjoying the camaraderie and the intimacy of relational existence. We struggle to recall the last time we experienced such community. We try and make conversation with the guys in the office but they’re unbelievably boring and the friends from the old days – well, they’re far to preoccupied with their own lives: meeting the mortgage payments, ensuring little Jimmy gets his place at the best school...salvaging the marriage.

And suddenly it dawns upon you: you’re lonely. You’re lonely and you’re living in a world of lonely people; a world of lonely people all chasing after this thing called “success” – all believing that if only they can pay off the mortgage, if only they can see their kids get into university, if only they can raise enough money to decorate the lounge and re landscape the garden...then, then they’ll be happy.

I’m an idealist – you can probably tell! But I don’t think it has to be this way. I am yet to meet an elderly or middle aged person whose biggest regret is not earning enough money or not being able to buy their dream house or favourite car. Plenty however live with a deep and often unexpressed internal agony at friendships lost, communities broken and a pervading sense of disengagement from the society in which they live. All because of their pursuit of “success.”
It is a lie, but one that has gained incredible credence, that success and isolation amount to the same thing. That one inevitably leads to the other; that adulthood, maturity and responsibility carry with them the consequences of individualism, selfishness and introspection. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Who says we need to buy the suburban house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms – who says we even need to buy a house at all? Who says we need a 9-5 job that saps all of our energy and that we loath so much that we’re counting the years until retirement?

What’s so wrong about communal living, property renting or city dwelling into adult life and what’s the problem with working fewer hours in a job we might actually enjoy and settling for a “lower” standard of living?

Why exactly do we believe that family and community are two diametrically opposed states of existence?

The reason of course, is that society tells us; it drums it into us, it reminds us again and again until our ears ring with its incessant propaganda.

Well, I believe that on this issue, society is wrong. Profoundly wrong. And I’m going to prove it.