This study will examine Philip Slater's The Pursuit of Loneliness. The study will consider how the author analyzes the three variables of community, engagement and dependency; the concept of "toilet assumption"; the illusion of the "scarcity" of sex; and the "old" and "new" cultures in America.
Slater analyzes American society according to three "desires" which he says are discouraged by the national culture:
the desire for community---"to live in trust, cooperation, and friendship"; the desire for engagement---"to come directly to grips with one's social and physical environment"; and the desire for dependence---"to share responsibility for the control of one's impulses and the direction of one's life" (8).
The desire for community is frustrated by the cultural emphasis on individualism and competition; the desire for engagement is frustrated by the irrational American belief in detachment and magical cures for social problems; and the desire for dependence is frustrated by the high cultural values placed on independence. Slater stresses that these frustrating factors are not merely institutional (schools, media, etc.), but are practiced and nurtured by individual citizens. Still, the endless repetition of messages of competition, detachment at work in the culture make it difficult to reverse the trend.
Slater points out that competition, detachment, and independence are present in other cultures, but American society is unique in the degree that it values and encourages such elements.
Slater concludes that the three needs for community, engagement and dependency
are suppressed in our society out of a commitment to individualism. The belief that everyone should pursue her own destiny autonomously has forced us to maintain an emotional detachment from our social and physical environment and aroused a vague guilt about our competitiveness and indifference to others (29).
There is hope for a reversal of such t...