Are We Afraid of Being Alone?

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2018

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Author of A Book of Silence Sara Maitland, medievalist John-Henry Clay, and writer Lionel Shriver face the crowd to contemplate the many sides to solitude. Chaired by Rana Mitter with an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company”. Was Jean Paul Sartre right or are we just hot-wired to prefer the company of others? Is it even possible - as the famous hermit St Cuthbert once did - to experience true seclusion in our age of hyperconnectivity? And as we flock to cities in increasing numbers why do so many of us feel so isolated and alone?

Sara Maitland has lived by herself for the last twenty years on an isolated moor in northern Galloway, taking pleasure in silence and solitude. She is the author of numerous short stories, novels and non-fiction books including A Book of Silence.

Lionel Shriver’s novels include The Standing Chandelier, The Mandibles, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her forthcoming collection of stories Property, explores how our possessions act as proxies for ourselves.

John-Henry Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Durham University whose main research interests are in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon history and archaeology, and the themes of conversion and religious identity. John is also the author of historical fiction including The Lion and the Lamb and At the Ruin of the World.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
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1:00.8	I wondered lonely as a cloud.
1:04.1	Well, that seemed to work for William Wordsworth back in 1802.
1:07.9	But in our own era, solitude seems more of a problem. According to the British Red Cross,
1:13.5	nine million people in Britain today say they often or always feel lonely. Loneliness is regarded
1:20.7	as such a problem that early this year, the Prime Minister appointed a minister to lead
1:25.3	a cross-government group to look into its causes
1:28.4	and what we can do about it. So can we cope with what seems to be an epidemic of loneliness?
1:35.2	And conversely, in a world that always seems connected and switched on, can we ever be alone,
1:41.4	Greta Garbo style, to find real separation from the crowd. Well, thankfully, I'm
1:46.8	not alone today when it comes to discussing these questions. With me are prize-winning novelist
1:51.4	Lionel Schreiber, whose most recent novel is The Mandibles. Theologian and writer Sarah Maitland,
1:56.6	author of A Book of Silence, who lives alone by choice in rural Scotland,
	...

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