The End of Solitude

Kayli Tolleson

Bob Haas

English 1103-06

February 17, 2018

Rhetorical Précis

           

In his article, “The End of Solitude” (2009), William Deresiewicz makes the claim that, “Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone.” (2) Deresiewicz shows this by using allusions, talking about individuals like Don Quixote and Freud, and anecdotes, telling stories about his life to better explain the topic he is writing about. He touches on these topics in order to show how much of an affect technology is having on our society and how we as individuals cannot live in solitude for fear of being left out. While this essay can be aimed towards all generations, Deresiewicz focuses on talking to the millennials that could be reading the essay. On many occasions, he addresses individuals who are in their teens and 20’s and at one point even says, “Young people today seem to have no desire for solitude, never heard of it, can’t imagine why it would be worth having.” (12). However, there are times where he also talks about the older generation and acknowledges their part in the technology phenomenon as well.  

Descriptive Summary

Paragraph 1:

            Celebrity and connectivity cultures. These two cultures come together to create the world we live in today. This is what makes us feel like we are known by other individuals and hate to feel alone or forgotten.

Paragraph 2:

            We are always connected through our technology. We do not have solitude in our life because we are always sending messages to each other.

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            He uses a real-life experience to change the subject and show that individuals in today’s society, especially teenagers, do not want to do anything alone for fear of solitude.

Paragraph 4:

            History and religion are able to show that solitude has been a part of human nature since the beginning of time. Deresiewiez uses figures and their relationships in history to prove his point. He talks about how religion brings us back to self-solitude and old truth.

Paragraph 5:

            This paragraph is all about Romanticism and Reformation. It talks about keeping to one’s self and seeing what is inside when talking to or encountering God. He then goes to say that the printing press and reading was comparable to our television and internet. This mixed with “the quest for a divine voice” became available to everyone and allowed for large scale communication in that time.

Paragraph 6:

            Going off of Romanticism, Deresiewiez talks about how it is now becoming literal and literary. The soul has its moments where it goes into a social phase so that it feels surrounded by people, but it also takes the time for itself to have solitude. The Romantic version of solitude states that there should be both private and public parts to it so that the self can be in tune with itself and others.

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            Modernism is the idea that the soul has no other option but to stay alone because all of the people who fought for modernism believed that the world was assault on the self.

Paragraph 8:

            The world is becoming so much more modern that there is no way to escape being alone. Everyone is always together whether it be in the big city setting or through technology. The Romantic ideal emerged from this thought and self-examination.

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            In today’s society, we are not scared of being in or apart of a big group of people, but we are scared of being alone. Technology became more advanced and played into this allowing us to be even more connected the farther apart we are. Everything started changing around this time and with that came higher risk for crime and violence. Things could not be as they were before because of this growing technology and everyone coming together and living in the same place.

Paragraph 10:

            This growth in technology can be considered a blessing and a curse. People are now able to stay connected with each other no matter where they are, but with this comes the idea that we are never alone. We are always connected with each other through social media and texting. People are now concerned with how popular they are on these sites or the way that they look to others who could be viewing their profile at any given moment.

Paragraph 11:

            Friendship is starting to lose its meaning with the use of social media. Along with friendship people are losing intimacy and closeness with each other. Kids are starting to say that they do not have time for solitude because of this.

Paragraph 12:

            Many individuals in their 20s and teens have started to lose the desire to have intimacy and solitude. The constant use of technology has made it so that we are never alone and instead of being scared of being cut off from a group, we have eliminated that because we are always aware of what people are doing.

Paragraph 13:

            Loneliness and Boredom go hand in hand when talking about the generations. In previous generations, the television became and invention to cure individual’s boredom. People in the 60s and 70s would turn on the TV when they were bored to have something to do

Paragraph 14:

            He talks about how when he was a child growing up, he was always forced to watch TV when he was bored because it creates stimulation. Today, people of that time are still fighting to get out of the habit of feeling like they have to do something when they are bored or by themselves.

Paragraph 15:

            “Loneliness is not the absence of company, but it is the grief over that absence.” There is always going to be a time when someone is going to feel lonely, but it is technology that makes that loneliness feel even stronger. This shows that technology for loneliness has become the same as technology for isolation.

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            The internet brought back reading to a world where television was taking over, but with this came the act of skimming and reading and writing in short hand so that nothing took too long to read and it interrupts our mental solitude.

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            Psychologists and Sociologists have put together through tests that the human mind is able to be influenced and shaped by what is put in front of us. At the same time, young people today are not as lost as Thoreau’s theory of darkness says we are.

Paragraph 18:

            With technology and social media, people are able to post whatever they want on social media instead of keeping their feelings to themselves in a way that a journal would have done. Today’s society does not value the thought of keeping their feelings to themselves.

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            If people were to understand what solitude can not only do for finding out about ourselves but also allowing us to have integrity they would not go talking about it for everyone to know. Solitude is like virginity in the sense that it is untouched by other people in the fact that we are locked in our own rooms with just yourself to know about.

Paragraph 20:

            Individuals need to learn that it is ok to be alone because to go with the crowed is to conform to society. They use the analogy that God was alone, but the Devil had many people he was surrounded by. We are trying to get back to the way we were of isolation.

Paragraph 21:

            Solitude isn’t easy, and we cannot change the whole culture to believe that it is ok to be alone but the change can happen in an individual.

Paragraph 22:

            He also understands that not talking to people can be seen as rude or inappropriate, but at the same time people have to learn that it is ok to be alone and not make conversation. People need to learn that to have solitude also means to stand alone and to be ok with that.

              

Academic Summary

            In William Deresiewicz article The End of Solitude, he addresses how technology has affected our society and made us into a culture that embraces connectivity through screens. He then touches on parts of history and past philosophers who studied human connection and their take on how human interactions should be. “Communal experience is the human norm, but the solitary encounter with God is the egregious act that refreshes the norm” (4). This leads Deresiewicz into a transition where he can talk about how society has changed because of technology and uses another comparison to that of when he was a kid and the television became a very popular technological item. “I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the age of television. I was trained to be bored; boredom was cultivated within me like a precious crop.” (14) Through the use of technology and hiding behind screens, we have become a society that does not know the difference between solitude and connectivity. “If they didn’t, they would understand that solitude enables us to secure the integrity of the self as well as to explore it.” (19) Overall, the article is trying to tell the audience that although technology has become a part of our culture, we should be able to put it down and live our lives finding out about ourselves and who we are as individuals.