It isn't a culture thing in my experience and it has nothing to do with religion as another user suggested. You can see the same in China where many people are not religious. Or Cuba, people are extremely social there. In the latter case it's by lack of choice. When you have no proper internet access, no money, nothing to watch on TV and nowhere to go for entertainment apart from the town square and your friend's places, it's a no-brainer. So I guess that would be one way to create that experience.
As for China I already see it changing with increasing development. Families are't as big anymore, younger folks all move to the cities for work. The old ones stay behind and are increasingly lonelier. Kids are lonelier too than they used to be. They become less social which increases loneliness of course. It's a vicious cycle.
My idea without having done too much research into it would be encouraging and incentivizing people to return to the villages. It's possible for anyone who can work remotely and those jobs are increasing so it's increasingly viable. Maybe without understanding it, I think many of the lonely people are uprooted. They have nowhere they belong. They just exist but they aren't part of any community.
Btw, this loneliness is also dangerous in another sense because those are the exact targets terror groups and other extremists look for to radicalize online. It's hard to do that with someone with a happy life and good friends they see on a daily basis.
I'm going to be quite honest, but I do believe what holds together the countries I mentioned is their faith, which is Hinduism and Buddhism respectively. And both of these faiths are not widely accepted in the West, but not for reasons most people think. It's a way of life, and requires immense structure to have the support of the citizens who actually live in the said country. And for most of Southeast Asia, it works. It is as clear as the sky above can be.
But as someone already mentioned, what is happening here in the West is definitely making its way in the East towards the new generation. It's phones, it's flashy clothing, materialism. I definitely saw a lot of that too, and many parents I spoke to (which was quite a few over the years) - everyone said the same thing, they're frustrated that the children are going in a direction that bears no fruit for the mind.
I’m not sure if it’s the specific faith that matters. Much of the sense of community being discussed was provided in the West by Christian churches until recently.
Just requires a shared belief and value system of some sort compatible with building communities.
I had the same exact experience while travelling through Southeast Asia for several months a few years ago.
I came to the same conclusions you did, and I'm glad you were able to condense it in such a way.
It frustrated me though, to see that their youth were losing their old ways though. Of course it came with some benefits, but I saw them everywhere staring at their phone screens and could only feel nostalgic.
I had a similar experience growing up in East Germany, and there it definitely wasn't "faith".
Part of it at least - not sure if I'm qualified to fully analyze it (I'm not) - is how equal we really were. Yes that includes the "rulers". If you look at the house the head of the GDR lived in for decades in the closed-off area for the ruling elites, called Wandlitz, it was nothing special at all. The first journalist who when the wall fell got to report from Wandlitz, a regular GDR citizen, was unimpressed and "not jealous", in his own words. Any craftsman could do better, even in the GDR (I know because my grandfather was one and our house looked better than that of Honecker).
(Yes I know they shot people at the border. That has nothing to do with my point though. - The last time I pointed out that GDR elite at least did not behave like e.g. Ceaușescu in Romania or Putin now and did not try to get rich but actually believed in their mission, somebody complained, but that they used deadly force of arms and surveillance to achieve it does not negate that.)
When the wall came down I was in the middle of the three-year education after the initial mandatory ten years, preparation to study, and we found a partner class of equal level in Bavaria and visited one another even before official reunification. We saw a completely different culture there. Some kids drove a BMW they got for birthday, others had little, there was very little cohesion in their class while ours was a wonderful group. Mind you - my class had an extreme variety of people from all over the GDR because we learned a very popular profession. We had a classmate whose parents were diplomats who lived in Western Europe and all over the world and could travel freely, we had children of workers, and of people high or low in some hierarchy, a grand mix. It did not matter! We were all as one and material differences just did not matter at all, they were tiny to begin with, compared to the vast differences (from our PoV) even among the middle class in the West.
For us too visiting others without any preparations was daily normality. Of course, in the GDR we didn't even have phones at home for many people. My own mother had the chance to get a phone because she was important enough in her job, but she didn't want one to avoid getting called at home... so yeah, you just showed up at someone's home and it was normal.
We also didn't have significant existential pressures. Sure, what education and job exactly you wanted took some effort, but it wasn't even remotely as big a deal to get and to keep one, and to find a home, as it is now.
Yes quality and diversity of stuff you can buy and do is many levels above what we could do now, we wanted the wall gone and reunification for a reason. Also, our environment was in a terrible state, West German did a gigantic and remarkable job cleaning it all up. So, when I say what I did above, I certainly don't vote for reinstating that system, but maybe there is something to learn. It's much more stressful now, and it's hard to say why that is and why we couldn't have at least a look at that part of living in the East.
I also remember quite a few community projects. Lots of people simply got together and did stuff. For example, building a wonderful, amazing and today impossible (too unsafe!) playground, two small valleys with a hundred meters each of various wooden forts and many installations like wooden trains. Or they build several hundred garages together, my father went there too. Or, my grandfather simply spontaneously built a stone wall to support some sandstone wall - on a public stretch of the mountain road. No money was ever involved, nobody got paid. Companies/factories in the area donated machines and materials (I mean, they were people-owned and not private anyway) - serving the people was part of their mission to begin with. All the big companies had to produce some consumer goods too in addition to their normal portfolio, because the GDR was severely lacking those. So, much was born of necessity, but it still had some good parts, the cooperation for example.
It also was much easier to make friends when you went somewhere. I know my parents - certainly not especially gifted in how-to-connect but quite ordinary - easily made friends and even met them later and invited them to visit us at home, and they did, in various vacations. Not just in the GDR, even in Hungary, another East Bloc country, where we went on vacation a few times. It wasn't just once, it was quite a regular occurrence, be it neighbors old and new, or people you just met. For the children it was so easy I don't even need to bother to describe it.
> I'm going to be quite honest, but I do believe what holds together the countries I mentioned is their faith, which is Hinduism and Buddhism respectively
Can you elaborate on how Hinduism makes it better?
"A world gained for Technology is lost for Liberty" (Jean-Marie Straub, France Against the Robots).
"Loneliness without God is sheer madness. At least our ravings end in him, and thus we cure our mind and soul. God is a sort of lightning rod. For God is a good conductor of sorrows and disillusions" (Emil Cioran, Tears and Saints).
America in earlier times was much more community oriented while still being capitalist. But maybe that was tempered by having stronger labor organizations, civic clubs, churches, etc.
trompetenaccoun|3 years ago
As for China I already see it changing with increasing development. Families are't as big anymore, younger folks all move to the cities for work. The old ones stay behind and are increasingly lonelier. Kids are lonelier too than they used to be. They become less social which increases loneliness of course. It's a vicious cycle.
My idea without having done too much research into it would be encouraging and incentivizing people to return to the villages. It's possible for anyone who can work remotely and those jobs are increasing so it's increasingly viable. Maybe without understanding it, I think many of the lonely people are uprooted. They have nowhere they belong. They just exist but they aren't part of any community.
Btw, this loneliness is also dangerous in another sense because those are the exact targets terror groups and other extremists look for to radicalize online. It's hard to do that with someone with a happy life and good friends they see on a daily basis.
skilled|3 years ago
But as someone already mentioned, what is happening here in the West is definitely making its way in the East towards the new generation. It's phones, it's flashy clothing, materialism. I definitely saw a lot of that too, and many parents I spoke to (which was quite a few over the years) - everyone said the same thing, they're frustrated that the children are going in a direction that bears no fruit for the mind.
jimbokun|3 years ago
Just requires a shared belief and value system of some sort compatible with building communities.
yeahsure|3 years ago
I came to the same conclusions you did, and I'm glad you were able to condense it in such a way.
It frustrated me though, to see that their youth were losing their old ways though. Of course it came with some benefits, but I saw them everywhere staring at their phone screens and could only feel nostalgic.
nosianu|3 years ago
Part of it at least - not sure if I'm qualified to fully analyze it (I'm not) - is how equal we really were. Yes that includes the "rulers". If you look at the house the head of the GDR lived in for decades in the closed-off area for the ruling elites, called Wandlitz, it was nothing special at all. The first journalist who when the wall fell got to report from Wandlitz, a regular GDR citizen, was unimpressed and "not jealous", in his own words. Any craftsman could do better, even in the GDR (I know because my grandfather was one and our house looked better than that of Honecker).
House of Erich Honecker: https://bmg-images.forward-publishing.io/2021/12/04/58cb9e33...
(Yes I know they shot people at the border. That has nothing to do with my point though. - The last time I pointed out that GDR elite at least did not behave like e.g. Ceaușescu in Romania or Putin now and did not try to get rich but actually believed in their mission, somebody complained, but that they used deadly force of arms and surveillance to achieve it does not negate that.)
When the wall came down I was in the middle of the three-year education after the initial mandatory ten years, preparation to study, and we found a partner class of equal level in Bavaria and visited one another even before official reunification. We saw a completely different culture there. Some kids drove a BMW they got for birthday, others had little, there was very little cohesion in their class while ours was a wonderful group. Mind you - my class had an extreme variety of people from all over the GDR because we learned a very popular profession. We had a classmate whose parents were diplomats who lived in Western Europe and all over the world and could travel freely, we had children of workers, and of people high or low in some hierarchy, a grand mix. It did not matter! We were all as one and material differences just did not matter at all, they were tiny to begin with, compared to the vast differences (from our PoV) even among the middle class in the West.
For us too visiting others without any preparations was daily normality. Of course, in the GDR we didn't even have phones at home for many people. My own mother had the chance to get a phone because she was important enough in her job, but she didn't want one to avoid getting called at home... so yeah, you just showed up at someone's home and it was normal.
We also didn't have significant existential pressures. Sure, what education and job exactly you wanted took some effort, but it wasn't even remotely as big a deal to get and to keep one, and to find a home, as it is now.
Yes quality and diversity of stuff you can buy and do is many levels above what we could do now, we wanted the wall gone and reunification for a reason. Also, our environment was in a terrible state, West German did a gigantic and remarkable job cleaning it all up. So, when I say what I did above, I certainly don't vote for reinstating that system, but maybe there is something to learn. It's much more stressful now, and it's hard to say why that is and why we couldn't have at least a look at that part of living in the East.
I also remember quite a few community projects. Lots of people simply got together and did stuff. For example, building a wonderful, amazing and today impossible (too unsafe!) playground, two small valleys with a hundred meters each of various wooden forts and many installations like wooden trains. Or they build several hundred garages together, my father went there too. Or, my grandfather simply spontaneously built a stone wall to support some sandstone wall - on a public stretch of the mountain road. No money was ever involved, nobody got paid. Companies/factories in the area donated machines and materials (I mean, they were people-owned and not private anyway) - serving the people was part of their mission to begin with. All the big companies had to produce some consumer goods too in addition to their normal portfolio, because the GDR was severely lacking those. So, much was born of necessity, but it still had some good parts, the cooperation for example.
It also was much easier to make friends when you went somewhere. I know my parents - certainly not especially gifted in how-to-connect but quite ordinary - easily made friends and even met them later and invited them to visit us at home, and they did, in various vacations. Not just in the GDR, even in Hungary, another East Bloc country, where we went on vacation a few times. It wasn't just once, it was quite a regular occurrence, be it neighbors old and new, or people you just met. For the children it was so easy I don't even need to bother to describe it.
aflorez|3 years ago
Can you elaborate on how Hinduism makes it better?
miguelazo|3 years ago
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3965-scorched-earth
50|3 years ago
"Loneliness without God is sheer madness. At least our ravings end in him, and thus we cure our mind and soul. God is a sort of lightning rod. For God is a good conductor of sorrows and disillusions" (Emil Cioran, Tears and Saints).
jimbokun|3 years ago
America in earlier times was much more community oriented while still being capitalist. But maybe that was tempered by having stronger labor organizations, civic clubs, churches, etc.