By Sidney Secular
December 29, 2021
Donald Jeffries, the author of the lead article in the October 2021 issue of the Freedom Times, entitled “The American Loneliness Phenomenon,” paints a depressing portrait of life in isolated cocoons across the fruited plain. Those who are lonely are especially prone to feel a palpable pain of abandonment during the holiday season. Even those who visit family members and friends may do so only because of an obligatory invitation extended to them. This definitely doesnot represent a Norman Rockwell-type conception of a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings served to a large and loving family gathered together to celebrate the holidays!
Of course, as usual, the Salvation Army and similar mostly Christian groups act as somewhat impersonal dispensers of holiday cheer for those in need. Massive mailings soliciting donations are sent out months before for the funds necessary to purchase massive quantities of turkey dinners to be served to equally massive numbers of shut-ins and homeless with the hope that for the rest of the year they will be able to accept the isolation that has befallen them. Compassion and charity, once the duty of family and friends, has become ritualized, impersonalized and commercialized often so that those financially better off can exhibit a sort of showy nobles se oblige towards the masses and those who have not faredall that well in a crony capitalist competitive economy. It’s a sort of give an underdog a bone thing –whether a wishbone or other some other bone to those seen as social “turkeys.”
Polls show that 27% of Americans over 60 live alone–a figure greater than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, seniors in other countries often live with an extended family, a matter once fairly common in America until the era of the “Gray Panthers” when seniors were advised by the culture to desert children and grandchildren and live for themselves in their “golden years.” Even older married couples tend to live alone while more childless couples and“empty nesters” live in the US than in the rest of the world! But, hey! It simply gives the US one more thing in which we’re Number One! This trend has become a sort of slow, low grade anti-social epidemic that garners little attention as opposed to contrived diseases used to justify the development of vaxxes that serve the dual purpose of creating additional billions for those already billionaires and, as Scrooge once said, “decreasing the surplus population.”
This rending of familial relationships has become inexorable as the movement of dysfunctional families replaces ordinary social and cultural mores with our present“anything goes” social morality. Almost every tale you hear about family relationships seem to involve tell-tale, often inexplicable or exaggerated disputes or rejections among family members. Even marriages of decades-long standing seem to fall apart as one or both of the partners seeks newly stimulating sexcapades or suddenly find him or herself not knowing who he or she is after nearly a lifetime of thinking that he or she did know! Relationships go cold-turkey as libbers discover that a long time friend is a Trump supporter or said something disagreeable on Facebook. There seems no longer to be any cohesive glue holding people together once the children fly the coop and the couple feels a combination of sudden freedom after excessive confinement.We hear a lot of rhetoric, especially from Conservatives, about “family,”but actually,America has long abandoned traditional families and their values. The explosion in the number of nursing homes in the last half of the 20th Century reflects the dissolution of close family ties and taken together with the abortion rate, we are seeing the abandonment of the very old and the very young when they are both at their most vulnerable.
Men are especially prone to loneliness in many cases because they either couldn’t attract a mate or, having attracted one, couldn’t keep her. Frequently, it wasn’t the man who was impossible to satisfy but rather the women he courted. This difference in motivation becomes evident when looking at the custom dating/mating services(not of the internet type). The man pays a large fee to be placed in the system while the women pay a small fee or nothing at all. In other words, the men are the primary clients and the women are solicited to provide a large pool of candidates from whom he may choose. Often these women have a lukewarm or mildly interested attitude about the whole thing as opposed to the needs of a man who would use such services to actually obtain a life’s partner.Unfortunately, the current social milieu usually finds that modern females, once attracted by male virility, have a lower opinion of conservative men with their standard masculinity than in past times. Today, many women now seem to be attracted to the “metrosexual types” with their man buns and liberal “sensitivity.”
In my own experience, women in such circumstances prefer a good time to choosing a partner based upon qualities once considered desirable. These women cite in their list of preferences such things as a sense of humor(but with a very real limitation on what the gentleman considers “funny!”), the man involved being financially “open handed” – also known as “how to treat a lady” – and, of course, any past experiences in taking ladies on costly jaunts all over the globe. Is it any wonder that Western men sometimes seek out Asian ladies as they are the least corrupted by Western “values?”
There are truly lovely women out there – and I don’t just mean physically attractive! – seriously seeking a mate, but they are rare. The ones that sign up for these services tend to be excessively picky, overly eccentric or of the type made famous in the film Sunset Boulevard (I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille!) and frankly, good looks and even a lively personality is not enough to compensate for being egocentric. Men – who can also be quite egocentric! – will usually tolerate a good deal of quirkiness if a lady is reasonably good looking and has a pleasant personality while the ladies who are seriously seeking male companionship can usually find someone to their liking without a great deal of effort.
The stats in this matter show a situation that certainly is not static. In 1950, 22% of American adults were single. Today, over 50% of American adults are single and about one in seven live alone and comprise about 28% of all households. Comparing America with the rest of the world shows a stark difference. About two-thirds or more of older people in some countries live with younger family members, while only 6% of Americans do. Most American children and grandchildren place grandparents into what everyone – even they – recognize as medically and administratively monstrous and expensive facilities even the best of which tend to facilitate the resident’s demise while depleting his or her financial resources.
In most non-white cultures, older people are called elders and given the greatest respect by all around them. Family patriarchs are treated like royalty. Meanwhile, in our culture,senior citizen discounts here do not compensate for being treated as discounted – and discarded – citizens. The absurd COVID restrictions of the past year have especially played havoc with seniors in nursing homes. Their death rates in these facilities as well as in hospitals have shot up in proportion to the overall numbers of vaxx shots received, the mortality rate of the hospital protocols and the restrictions on the numbers of vital visits by family members.
Seniors have been treated as disposable by younger executives in many companies having no understanding of or appreciation for their skills and experience. They are many times the first to go when the layoffs come and are not considered valuable “human resources.” Many of these companies can’t resist mistreating their most valuable workers who may not be high-tech but can impart important work habits to college graduates who are figuratively – and practically – still wet behind the ears. Discrimination against senior employees has long been a major staple of activist efforts by groups like AARP and AMAC, the latter an organization that unlike AARP watches out for the interests of conservative seniors.
Maybe the emphasis on killing babies(abortion) for convenience has soaked into the American psyche to the point at which convenience in our harried and rushed existences takes precedence over taking the time and effort to do and take care of the things that really matter. As noted previously, babies and older humans just get in the way of having your fling and doing your thing. It was a Western governor who once opined that the elderly “have a duty to die and get out of the way.” I have since learned that this man – now old himself! – has rethought his previous life’s motto! Certainly, the acceptance of “quality of life” parameters in global medicine has seriously affected the directions of that master physician, Hippocrates whose oath began with, “First do no harm!” After Roe v. Wade in 1973, the Oath of Hippocrates taken by all civilized physicians and forbid abortion was changed to, “I will do nothing illegal!” As every wretched, murderous act today is either ignored or now considered legal, this great oath of history has been rendered void and innocent people are paying for their ignorance and apathy at the hands of their once-trusted physicians.
Not to denigrate pet lovers, but it may be that the increase in “pets” – and not just dogs and cats –substitutes for failing interests in the needs of fellow human beings including the elderly. This emotional “substitution” also explains the increased attention given to rescuing abandoned and mistreated animals as well as concern with the needs of “endangered species” around the planet. Animals are physically and emotionally easier to deal with and control as well as lacking the off times difficult interactions and time consuming, often exasperating duties involved in “end of life” situations.
Even more odd is America’s failure to adhere to that old adage, charity begins at home. The US wastes its largesse on every conceivable foreign and anti-American group while ignoring the needs of its own citizens including our military veterans. The same can be said of those Christian denominations that spend their time and treasure feeding and saving the entire world from its follies while many of America’s elderly have to choose between food and medicine and even find themselves homeless and existing on dumpster diving. Foreign aid as a “charity” is worthless; neither is it intended for that purpose. It is just a political tool to enrich – and thus gain as an ally – foreign government “boorocrats” whose use of our wealth benefits them rather than us. The GovMint wants to provide every conceivable imagined need and desire of illegal aliens though they provide nothing in return for their care. Indeed, in some urban areas hospitals are forced to close because they are overwhelmed by illegals using emergency rooms as free care for simple health issues while the absence of these health centers leave America’s elderly and poor in the lurch. Meanwhile, professional“charities”use America’s humanitarian urges to spend large chunks of money on overhead expenses including marketing and the bloated salaries their top management.
The homeless are virtually ignored though it is known that the vast majority of those identified as homeless are addicts. Still, abandoned seniors can easily become homeless as they no longer have the means to obtain housing or the families to prevent this final descent into hopelessness. Of course, the lack of a response to the homeless situation means that drug addicts and the mentally ill are ignored by liberal politicians and this grave problem is put upon the public who have seen many of our most beautiful cities become sewers of detritus and human excrement. And as little or nothing is done to elevate real estate values, there are economic consequences resulting in ordinary Americans of all ages losing their homes over their inability to pay the outrageous interest rates (usury) on mortgages that sometimes triples the amount of the principal borrowed. This situation peaked at the crest of last year’s Covidiocy as many lost their jobs! As a result, there seems to be a panhandler at every urban street corner now and it is beginning to look very much as it did during the Great Depression!In better days, family members would chip in and pay a few month’s worth of mortgage payments to keep their kith and kin safe and warm, but alas– just as with their seniors, they have abandoned them to their own devices. The Christian culture of love and caring has been replaced by the Utilitarian understanding of the “survival of the fittest.” Christian virtues and values have gone the way of the dodo bird.
Our present “isolation” has also created a sort of modern “matrix” – that is, an unreal reality within which people function as if it were real. Look at groups such as Facebook and Twitter! Time spent with ersatz “friends” – that is, people whom one never expects to actually meet –on anti-social media would be better spent with the living whether it is visiting a neighbor who is alone or keeping some lonely senior company for a few hours. Much idle social media chatter would be better devoted to interacting with real people who are lonely. Many of these lost souls have suicidal thoughts and some literally act on those thoughts. We have suicide prevention hotlines, why not loneliness prevention hotlines? It is time for America and Americans to take a good look around. If we do nothing, there won’t be anything left to save.
© 2021 Sidney Secular – All Rights Reserved
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