Procreating Alone
Robert Putnam’s sociological study Bowling Alone (2000) provoked an avalanche of reflection and debate on the importance and fragility of social capital. Even while many have questioned various theoretical and statistical elements of Putnam’s work, commentators still look to it as a lodestar in the effort to understand, document, and, to the extent necessary, challenge certain trends in contemporary American culture.
To many observers, the situation has continually worsened. Digital streaming, remote work, online education, and the proliferation of delivery services intensified the isolation that Putnam predicted. We are not only bowling alone; we are watching alone, learning alone, and eating alone–and the pandemic only aggravated the “loneliness epidemic” that the US surgeon general predicted back in 2017.
One deep human urge presses against these tendencies. Throughout history, the centripetal force of sexual attraction has induced people to form bonds—sometimes brief, often lasting. To satisfy our physical and emotional desires, we must come together. The socially interactive character of sexual union is reflected in the archaic terminology that has mostly fallen out of use, such as intercourse, commerce, and congress. Merriam-Webster still offers under the first definition of that third term: “a) the act or action of coming together and meeting; b) coitus.” This instinctive coming together is the natural foundation on which the Church built the sacrament of marriage. At the beginning of his treatise On the Good of Marriage, Saint Augustine wrote that “the first natural bond of human society is man and wife.”
But what if even this final line of defense against the march of social disconnection has been breached?
