Isolation In Mainstream Music

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It seems that out of all things mainstream music nowadays gets wrong, they actually are on point concerning the effects of being alone. “Isolation is not good for me” goes the lyrics to a famous 90’s pop song. Truth is, isolation is not good for anyone.
No one wishes to live in complete solitude. Even our deepest dreams of reflection, relaxation, and retirement are usually accompanied by a partner or some kind of distraction.
When left undistracted and unoccupied for long periods of time, the human brain gets corroded and enslaved by solitude so that the flow of ideas constricts and every single thought gets repeated again and again until no real sense can be made. Most of us have witnessed the mental depression Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) experienced …show more content…

When an individual gets separated from the whole, we are all the worse for it. (Donne)
This principle remains true even when applied to large communities and countries. Similarly, no country is an island entire of itself (that is, of course, in the allegorical sense; in the geographical sense, Australia is an island).
When nations or communities isolate themselves or get isolated from the rest of the world, all inhumane practices are given a chance to surface. Different groups of people are not given the chance to keep each other in check by pointing out each other’s unethical practices if they are distanced. Also, different groups of people breed hubris, hate, and prejudice for each other. Lord of the Flies by William Golding builds on this idea.
Golding presents an allegory of human nature and society by setting a group of English school boys on a deserted island. The boys, left without adult supervision, strive to develop their own society and to set their own hierarchy of power; but all the while they disagree and tussle until they descend into complete savagery and …show more content…

His purpose for writing The Lord of the Flies was to question the relationship between human nature and civilization and to prove that certain human instincts have to be contained in an ordered regime, a regime that is formed by the active engagement of different human beings from different paths of life, not a regime that is formed by isolation. (Golding)
Donald B. Watt, a psychiatrist from Pennsylvania, USA who was aware of the deadly consequences of isolation, observed that countries post World War I started isolating themselves as they got busier with internal policies. He realized the importance of active engagement because he had served in Iraq for three years in the 1910’s and had travelled to Iran and India. Because of his extensive knowledge of and appreciation for international living, in 1923 he started something new, a movement that we rarely accredit him for: student exchange programs.

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