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| Here's something, from Open Culture, that I'm definitely unqualified to comment on. And yet, here I am, commenting on it. To many of us, the concept of solitary confinement may not sound all that bad: finally, a reprieve from the siege of social and professional requests. The article, and its accompanying video (which, for once, I actually watched—it's relatively short, and the narration is clear and almost soothing) concentrates on the effects of involuntary solitary confinement, such as one might experience in prison. But according to the animated TED-Ed lesson above, written by psychiatrist and correctional mental health expert Terry Kupers, the negatives of the experience would well outweigh the positives. I suspect many people here in the US would be like, "So what? These are bad people. Why should I care if they experience mental anguish?" I think such an attitude misses a lot, like how we also like to say that improvements in mental health might do something to reduce crime. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, isolation takes its greatest toll when imposed against the will of the isolated, and even more so when imposed for an indefinite duration. And I think, again without much evidence because this is so not my field, that there's a big difference between choosing to be alone and being forced into it by external circumstances. One's level of introversion must play into this somehow; some of us are more well-suited to alone time than others. And there's also the confounding variable of simply having something to occupy our time, be it writing or video games or that old shut-in standby, solitaire. I ask myself: is it better to be forced to be alone, or forced to be surrounded by potentially dangerous people? Because that's what I imagine happens in prisons. While traveling in the United States, Charles Dickens bore witness to the punishment by solitary confinement already in effect in American prisons, coming away with the impression that it was “worse than any torture of the body.” All due respect to Mr. Dickens, but how would he know? After much research on the matter, Kupers has come to the conclusion that, in fact, it “does immense damage that is contrary to rehabilitation, while failing to reduce prison violence.” And I'm not going to argue about it with someone of his credentials. I only question the applicability of this to ordinary, non-forced situations, such as what we experience outside of the penal system. On the other side of the equation, though, we have Jean-Paul Sartre, who elegantly noted, in a stage play: "L'enfer, c'est les autres," usually translated to English as "Hell is other people." In the context of that play, Huis Clos or, again the common translation, No Exit,  the line is delivered from literal Hell, by someone who is forced for all eternity into close proximity to two other people, specifically selected for incompatibility.One could stretch Sartre's metaphor into life, and note that we're stuck here with a lot of incompatible people. And yet, sometimes, we do connect to others. The important point, I think, is having the choice. And, for me at least, having the ability to retreat into solitude for some period after spending time even with people that I like. As with many things in life, it's about balance. Which is, ironically, commonly used as the symbol for justice. |
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