Healing the Loneliness Epidemic with Movements that Build Civic Engagement and Collective Efficacy

"The Pioneer", Artwork by Mark Henson

Evolutionary history shows two primary modes of existence for humans over time. One of them shows that we can be brutal, competitive, selfish, and cruel. However, for most of the 200,000 years of human experience, we've existed in close communities with our lives depending on each other. Cooperating, protecting, and sharing with our neighbors. The question for humanity seems to be: What brings out the worst vs. the best in us?

I remember hearing a lecture by influential anthropologist Margaret Mead on my local community radio station. Mead was asked what she considered to be the first sign of real civilization in a culture. She said that the sign was a femur that had been broken, and then healed. In the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you cannot run from danger and therefore are considered as meat to predators. If you separate from your tribe, you’re at risk of encountering other tribes who will most likely kill you. On the other hand, a healed femur is evidence that someone likely took the time to bound up the wound, carry the person (or animal) to safety, and feed the person food. She asserted that helping someone else through difficulty is where real civilization starts.

We now live in a world in which our social fabric is in great disrepair. Authoritarianism, wealth inequality, and political polarization are at levels that we couldn’t have imagined, even just several years ago. Social media, in its unhealthy use, sows division and distracts us with consumerism and paper tigers drowning out real issues. Our ability to understand each other, talk to each other, and work together seems dangerously degraded. People cluster to media organizations that fit their belief, and dismiss other outlets. The internet, once thought to open the world up to all the information possible and bring people together, has instead drawn people into their own corners. I once heard that technology is like a knife. You can use it to cut an avocado or a finger. It’s all about how you use it. So what are the underlying values of our culture that are driving how we use technology? Are we using technology in a way that serves the greater good?

“We have created a belief system that people are disposable. Literally, you can delete and swipe and change and shift and move and live in this technological world without really exchanging anything related to the heart.” – Vivian Chavez, associate professor, Dept. of Health Education, San Francisco State University

The irony is that while we’re more connected than ever, with the average Facebook user having 338 friends, we’re also more alone than ever. In the U.K. and elsewhere, the epidemic of loneliness is viewed as a health crisis, where a Prime Minister of Loneliness has been implemented in the UK and Japan. Studies show that loneliness is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and that loneliness increases mortality risk by 26%. Loneliness increases the pressure on an already strained healthcare system.

Loneliness is not just an individual problem, but a societal problem. Our decline in social engagement impacts our abilities to work together to solve collective problems and leave us feeling helpless and hopeless.

Desmond Tutu said it best: “A person is a person through other persons.” How do we renew our understanding of humans as social beings who develop through relationships and meaningful engagement in society?

In a fifteen-year study, Harvard public health professor Felton Earls showed that collective efficacy, the capacity of people to act together on matters of common interest, made the greatest difference in the health and well-being of individuals and neighborhoods across Chicago. Collective efficacy was more influential to the health of a community than wealth, access to healthcare, low crime levels, or other factors. He argued that what was most important is neighbors' willingness to act, when needed, for one another's benefit, and particularly for the benefit of one another's children.

john a. powell, director of the Othering and Belonging Institute, is a strong voice for social connection. His intention is not to organize around hope or despair, but to engage across our differences, and build “deep mutuality.” One of my favorite examples of this is in a documentary about Jane Goodall. Yes, I couldn’t watch the video without crying my eyes out because it was so touching. The documentary is as much a showcase of Goodall’s life in activism as it is a message to a politically polarized world riddled with urgent issues: talk and build relationships with people and companies on the other side.

Goodall is aware that some of her decisions have been deemed controversial: her friendship with for US Secretary of State James Baker, her work with Conoco (now ConocoPhillips) oil company to build a chimpanzee sanctuary, hard conversations with the National Institutes of Health regarding their medical research and testing practices on chimpanzees and visiting their labs. "I lost a lot of friends because of going into the labs, sitting down and talking to the people, organizing a conference to bring in the lab people, the scientists and also the animal welfare people. There were a lot of animal rights people who refused to speak to me — they said, 'Wow can you sit down with these evil people and have a cup of tea with them?' I was totally and completely flabbergasted."

“If you don’t talk to people, how can expect them to change?” said Goodall. When speaking to the NIH, “I didn’t stand there and accuse them of being cruel monsters. I showed slides and some film of the Gombe chimpanzees and talked about their lives, and then showed some slides of the chimps in the small cages and said, ‘You know, it’s like putting a person in a prison like that,’” said Goodall. “Many of the scientists said, ‘We really have never thought about this in this way’ a lot of them were actually crying. And so I think this began a different way of thinking. “

She stands by all of it because it produces results. When Dr. Goodall told former Secretary Baker of her plans to tour Africa to see the plight of the chimpanzees and their habitat for herself in the late 80s, despite being a devout hunter Baker telexed every country she planned to visit and asked them to help her, and they did. It took decades, but the NIH phased out medical testing and research on chimpanzees. Conoco built the chimpanzee sanctuary, the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, saving all of the starving chimpanzees in the Brazzaville Zoo in the Republic of Congo, and many more orphaned, malnourished and injured chimpanzees since.

In this age of cancel culture and unprecedented political polarity, Goodall’s pragmatism, and insistence that arguing does not change minds but appealing to people’s hearts and to their better nature is what produces progress distinguishes her from contemporary activists. “I’ve always believed that if you want somebody to change their mind it’s no good arguing, but you are to reach the heart,” said Goodall.

- From Forbes article, “Jane Goodall Champions Pragmatism For Progress In National Geographic Documentary ‘Jane Goodall: The Hope’”

Whether it is communities fighting for public education reform, freedom from harsh public health mandates, or fixing homelessness, deep down it is all the same work. Movement Journalism, an emerging project in the southern US, says that any healthy social movement is about “building connection where there was no connection, creating relationships where there were no relationships, weaving thick neighborhoods where there were thin neighborhoods.”

Examples of social, civic engagement and the reclamation of the Commons are everywhere. Dan Pitera, executive director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) defines civic engagement as “a set of systems that are put in place that will remain way beyond the project.”

Here are some other inspiring examples of how I've seen this play out.

Homemakers Organizations for a More Egalitarian Society (HOMES) got involved in tearing down fences between backyards and creating shared space as well as systems of shared work like meal preparation, day care, gardening. Shared appliances, tools, cars, and an approach to shared work helped eliminate sex stereotypes and treated men’s and women’s labor equally. One of the first steps was organizing to persuade cities to allow them to modify zoning laws so they could open up their backyards.

Disco Soup Day is a collaborative, celebratory movement to address the global issue of food waste. It's an event to cook, eat and dance together, showing a fun way to save food, yet also reflect on the amount that goes to waste and on the solutions we all have at hand. In the past, Disco Soup activists transformed 50,000 kilograms of food into thousands of delicious meals, involving thousands of volunteers on all five continents.

Internet cooperatives emerged in the face of net neutrality rollbacks back in 2016. More than 300 electric cooperatives are building their own internet, enjoying enjoyed connection speeds in the top 20% of the US. Neighborhoods aim to build shared tools and educate their communities on digital literacy.

Library of Things fosters community, relationship building, and local empowerment. Imagine going into a library that, in addition to books, also offers power tools, kitchen appliances, camping gear, party supplies, sports equipment, musical instruments, and more. You wouldn’t have to buy, repair or store infrequently used items. You’d have access to a much wider variety of goods than you could ever own, and you could easily share things with neighbors. The Library of Things allows people to offer classes, workshops, events, game nights, and public forums where people share not just things, but also ideas and skills. (I definitely want to start this in my community!)

Gift Circles is a group facilitation format that matches resources with needs and cultivates collective gratitude and generosity. People meet regularly, bring dishes for a potluck, eat and socialize, and then sit together in a circle where each person can speak to what gift they'd enjoy sharing with the community. "For instance someone might offer giving a massage, making a custom mix CD, giving a life coaching session, dance class, or a home-cooked meal – the gifts were generally more service-oriented, though there was an occasional item gifted as well, like a futon or pair of headphones. There was a great sense of glee in the room as we watched the hands go up to accept various gifts – the giver always looked happy that someone wanted what they were inspired to offer. The receivers were often thrilled too. After the first round where we shared gifts, we would then do a round where anyone with a need could speak their need, and likewise, people who were interested in helping meet that need would raise their hands. Needs ranged from things like help moving, assistance with home repairs, website design, reviewing someone’s resume, a bike, a ride to the airport on Tuesday morning, to some courageously shared personal needs like more friends, sex, and cuddles.”

Time Banking is a form of alternative currency that helps community members exchange skills without using money. A timebank is an alternative ledger system that records exchanges and values with each hour contributed as equal, regardless of whether the hour was spent doing yard work, providing legal counsel, or cleaning someone’s teeth. Each member can bank the hours they earn by helping others, and also trade hours in their account as payment to anyone for their help. Unlike barter, which is one-to-one, Time Banking leverages the skills of everyone in the network.

Italy's Social Streets got launched to create opportunities for "meaningful neighbour interaction through self-organizing groups. Its goal is to help residents of a particular street get to know one another—establish enduring bonds, exchange hyper-local knowledge, and share needs, all by preparing a collective meal or carrying out projects of common interest." Neighborhood work groups are also showing success, with neighbors organizing together to help each other with various projects.

These are just some of a few ways that we can rebuild civic muscles and reclaim the art of intimacy and democracy with each other on local community levels and global-technological networks. I believe that the answer to breaking free from authoritarian systems lies not in solely resisting the oppressive actions taken by governments and corporations. In fact, the exclusive focus on what's going wrong and who's to blame creates more division, and therefore more separation and loneliness. Our media systems can play a pivotal role in catalyzing and informing the right conversations, and helping us consider possibilities for a wiser, more creative world. Reporting problems is not enough. Journalists can do this by building on the traditional fact-based questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how) by considering a seventh question: What's possible now? When solutions are underreported, reforms go unrealized. The Institute for Applied Positive Research discovered remarkable results in a study of struggling communities in Detroit. Researchers found that solutions-reporting increased news readers' problem-solving skills by 20 percent. The readers in the study who focused on solutions also reported feeling more energized, less anxious, more connected to community, and more confident that their city was improving. As Geneva Overholser shares, "we became so enamored of topple-the-mighty journalism that we forgot about raise-up-the-people journalism."

What would you like to see in your local and global communities?