Theory Cartoons—Being Alone...Together

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On this date in Round and Square History 

7 June 2013—China's Lunar Calendar 2013 06-07
7 June 2012—The Accidental Ethnographer: The Great Melbourne Revival
7 June 2011—Living and Learning: Stumps (yes, stumps)

[a] The New Yorker 2014 06-02

Focused on your own thing—delving deeply into an inner world. It feels good, doesn't it? 

[b] Independent RF

The literature of an earlier era characterized it by isolation. Holed up under the covers, reading by flashlight, or contemplating the state of existence in a Chinese mountain cave. Focusing on your own tasks was a solitary act.

Not no more (as we are said to say back home).

You've probably noticed it in Facebook posts, and in latté-addict trips to coffee shops, as well as family gatherings for joyful, communal, holidays. Something has been going on for some time, and I wish to call it "being alone together."

It reminds me of the introvert's gushing praise for his new companion. "Being with you...is just like being alone!"

[c] Out...standing RF

There is something to this, and the historian in me is itching to point out that this might just not be as new as we think in our narrow this life in front of us world views. 

I mean, think about it Phileas Fogg reading the papers at the club, the monks in The Name of the Rose working assiduously on their manuscripts in the Scriptorium, or the daydreaming child in a bustling classroom.

Being alone together. It's a theme about which I'll be thinking this summer, and it will continue into ANTH 206: Social and Cultural Theory this autumn.

[d] Flowing RF