The Loneliness Epidemic
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 656 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kay Hymowitz joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss a challenge facing aging populations in wealthy nations across the world: loneliness. Her essay in the Spring 2019 issue, "Alone," explores this subject.
"Americans are suffering from a bad case of loneliness," Hymowitz writes. "Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of 'deaths of despair' suggest a profound, collective discontent."
Evidence of the loneliness epidemic is dramatic in other countries, too. Japan, for example, has seen a troubling rise in "lonely deaths." The challenge, Hymowitz says, is to teach younger generations the importance of family and community before they make decisions that will further isolate them.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks Podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:06.0 | Joining me on the show today is Kayeimowitz, Kay's the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, |
| 0:12.2 | and a longtime contributing editor at the magazine. Her latest piece in City Journal is called Alone. |
| 0:19.2 | The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness. |
| 0:23.8 | That's the subtitle. It's one of the great pieces she's ever written in City Journal, and I encourage |
| 0:28.8 | you to find it on our website. Lastly, just one more announcement. We created a new email address |
| 0:35.3 | for the show, so if listeners want to get in touch and drop a comment or share an idea, |
| 0:40.7 | you can now email us at podcast at city-jurnal.org. |
| 0:46.9 | That's podcast at city-journal.org. |
| 0:51.5 | That's it for the introduction. |
| 0:52.9 | We'll take a quick break. |
| 0:53.9 | And we'll be back with |
| 0:55.4 | K. Heimowitz. Hello again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal, and joining us in the studio now is Kayeimowitz. She's a contributing editor at City Journal and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. You can follow her on Twitter at Kayeimowitz, and she's the author of many |
| 1:28.8 | books, most recently the New Brooklyn, what it takes to bring a city back, which came out in |
| 1:34.0 | 2017, and prior to that, manning up how the rise of women has turned men into boys, which came |
| 1:41.5 | out in 2011. We're here today though to talk about her latest piece |
| 1:47.0 | in City Journal called Alone. |
| 1:49.4 | Kay, thanks very much for joining us. |
| 1:51.3 | Oh, I'm happy to be here, Brian. |
| 1:53.0 | So let's just start off. |
| 1:55.2 | What made you wanna write about the topic of loneliness? |
| 1:59.8 | And what is the state of loneliness in America? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Manhattan Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Manhattan Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.