Let’s wake up our sluggish sociability | La Presse

Nathalie Collard concluded a recent column⁠1 with a question. As our southern neighbors tear each other apart, do we agree with the eminent Robert Putnam that we must take care of each other more than ever? For my part, the answer is clear: completely. To do this, we must absolutely restore a deep meaning to our existences and reconnect with our numbed sociability.

Published at 1:32 a.m. Updated at 11:00 a.m.

Virginie Dostie-Toupin Municipal councilor in Saint-Lambert

The Importance of Purpose and Community

In a recent open letter⁠2, Éric Sauvé described with disarming accuracy the emptiness he felt when he left the army, losing his purpose and his brothers in arms. Few people are lucky enough to have a job that offers them a meaningful mission and exceptional camaraderie. Work often remains a simple occupation, a livelihood that leaves the quest for meaning specific to human experience unfulfilled.

This void often leads to withdrawal into entertainment or individualistic desires. More tragically, it sometimes leads to radicalization.

To avoid the anti-democratic excesses that Tocqueville feared, one of the solutions he advocated is based on associative involvement. Beyond traditional associations, a multitude of organizations and foundations are just waiting for our help.

Quebec schools could also take inspiration from international education programs that require their students to do community service hours. While students may be reluctant at first, they eventually embrace this healthy habit for both the giver and the receiver.

Quebec could also, like France, set up a civic service that would allow citizens to get involved in their communities.

Sociability that nourishes the soul

As early as 2014, Susan Pinker, psychologist and author of the book The village effecthighlighted the positive impact of embodied sociability⁠3. Even before the pandemic and the massive deployment of social networks made the situation worse, she was already concerned about the deleterious consequences of the endemic loneliness that was taking hold in many developed countries.

PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES

Corvée des Amis de la montagne in spring 2022. The author reminds us that associative involvement is a good way to avoid anti-democratic excesses.

His thesis is obvious, but bears repeating: regular, meaningful human interactions are essential to our mental and physical well-being.

She adds that virtual relationships do not replace the benefits of face-to-face contact. It is clear that we must rediscover the taste for meetings and warm exchanges that nourish the soul. And for those who no longer have social hunger because of having fasted: appetite comes with eating.

Gender Interaction: A Crucial Issue

There is, however, a threat to our ability to socialize fully. It is the ever-widening ideological gap between the sexes that affects all Western youth. As the mother of four daughters, I am much less concerned about the obstacles that would prevent them from fulfilling and realizing themselves as women than about a deleterious atomization. In other words, glass ceilings worry me less than closed vessels.

Clearly, rich interactions between women and men are a perfect solution to avoid excesses and refocus positions. We need to get back to it.

Moreover, gender equality will inevitably be the result of joint and bidirectional work. Of course, several major feminist issues remain, but let us also be concerned about the under-education of boys, a phenomenon that does not bode well for anyone⁠5.

As the most comprehensive longitudinal study of happiness shows, the key to women’s happiness is no different from that of men⁠6. In fact, it is meaningful relationships with family, friends, and partners that are most important to our well-being.

It is up to us to cherish and maintain them.

4. Read the column “Why are young Quebec women more progressive than men?”