Mattias Desmet and Aaron Kheriaty: Understanding the Age of Loneliness

American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Times

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

America is facing an epidemic of loneliness, and it’s as bad for people’s health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, says U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy.

In the past two decades, there’s been a marked rise in suicides and “deaths of despair.”

What’s fueling these trends of social fragmentation, isolation, and atomization? And how are they linked to broader political and social trends?

In this episode, two of the world’s leading thinkers on bioethics and group psychology join together with me for the first time.

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty is a former psychiatry professor and director of the medical ethics program at the University of California Irvine Medical School. He’s the author of “The New Abnormal.”

Mattias Desmet is a professor of psychology at Ghent University and author of “The Psychology of Totalitarianism.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Basically all age groups, with the exception of the very elderly, have seen
0:04.0	marked rise in suicide in the last 20 to 25 years.
0:08.0	It's very highly correlated with use of technology.
0:11.0	The more technology use, the more lonely people feel in a country.
0:15.0	Today, two of the world's leading thinkers on bioethics and group psychology
0:20.0	joined me together for the first time.
0:23.0	Dr. Aaron Carriotti is a former psychiatry professor and director of the medical ethics program
0:28.3	at the University of California Irvine Medical School. He is the author of The New Abnormal.
0:33.9	Matthias Desmett is professor of psychology at Ghent University and author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
0:40.3	Totalitarian leaders can only cease control in a society where a lot of people feel lonely.
0:48.3	This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Janja Kellek.
0:52.3	Aaron Kariotti, Matthias Desmet, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. And I'm Yanya Kellick. Aaron Kariati, Matthias Desmond, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders and together, amazingly.
1:00.0	It's great to be with you and it's great to be with my new friend, Matthias.
1:05.0	You all likewise. Happy to be here. Together with you, Aaron, and thanks for having us on.
1:09.0	Well, so you were together in a session here at this Brownstone conference this year,
1:14.6	and you brought up the issue, and this is something we've both talked about in previous
1:18.6	interviews, I've talked about with both of you, is this issue of loneliness.
1:22.6	And as the years have gone on, I keep thinking about it as a foundational issue.
1:28.3	So I want to start by discussing that.
1:30.3	And of course, atomization is this concept that comes from that.
1:35.3	So maybe let's start with you, Aaron.
1:37.3	You actually mentioned that Vivek Murthy said himself that there was this, you know,
	...

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