BEING LONELY -
Making sense of Australia’s epidemic of social and ecological disconnection
August 2020
The authors of this essay, Drs Richard Hil, Louise Holdsworth and Charlie Brennan, do a superb job in reminding us of the ravages of loneliness and its larger dynamics. As many have experienced, loneliness is gut-wrenchingly awful. It affects a large proportion of Australians in the most intimate and private ways, as well as our communities and societies. It also weakens our capacity to change the neoliberal system that greatly contributes to it. As the authors of this essay wisely observe,
“given the existential threat posed by the climate emergency in particular, there has never been a more important time to consider what’s ahead of us and how we might set about building more supportive and cooperative localised communities to help us withstand the worst and perhaps create a new, just and more inclusive societies.”
This essay is the result of a collaboration between the Ngara Institute and (the then) Resilient Byron and is the first of Plan C’s publications.