Loneliness Is What Drives Some People to the Right Wing
An interview with Noreena Hertz, author of The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart.
A few years ago the English economist and author Noreena Hertz started interviewing right-wing voters in the United Kingdom, France, and the U.S. “What kept coming across, time and time again, was how lonely they felt,” she says.
Those interviews became the basis of a book, being published in the U.S. on Feb. 2, called The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart. “I define loneliness broadly to include craving the intimacy and company of friends and family and feeling disconnected from them, and also feeling disconnected from your employer and your government, and feeling uncared for and unsupported,” she says.