The Rise of Emotional Divestment

These days, we digest sadness alone with our phones. This is so thoroughly the case that sometimes even speaking out loud to your spouse or your mother or your close friend about a recent disaster or tragedy can feel like doubling down. They probably already know about it, so why endure the awkwardness and despair of feeling it together? And if the... See more

Nevertheless, we need to keep showing our vulnerable hearts to each other. The stakes are enormous. We need more chances to connect and bond with each other in public. We need reminders that total control and complete divestment from others isn’t possible and it certainly isn’t desirable. We need to learn how to forgive each other and reassure each... See more

We are here to connect deeply, and to feel everything together. Trusting that, believing in it, and spreading love and compassion: That’s our solemn duty, today and every day.

Considering these factors, it’s not hard to see why most people aren’t enthusiastic about going to a communal space to watch slow, sad stories about human pain and suffering. These days, we digest sadness alone with our phones. This is so thoroughly the case that sometimes even speaking out loud to your spouse or your mother or your close friend ab... See more

No one wants to take the risk of caring deeply.

Under these conditions, in which strategy is constantly privileged over passionate feelings and deeply felt principles are constantly misread as strategy, emotional divestment from public life becomes not just tempting but unavoidable.

Our around-the-clock overexposure to global human suffering, our daily feed of what we once considered catastrophic events — political, ecological, cultural — when combined with diminished attention spans, smaller and smaller chunks of content, and baked-in cross-platform imperatives to remain emotionally removed from any given person, place, or ev... See more