Why the decline of arts criticism contributed to the "loneliness epidemic"

Plus, chamber music at the club.

Hello. Since we last spoke, I have:

• Completely binged The Empress, Netflix’s German-language show fictionalizing the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I have gone down so many Habsburg-related rabbit holes and realized that my favorite shows are those that are beautifully shot and, ideally, not in English (so I am forced to pay attention). I will be (finally) watching My Brilliant Friend, but if you have any other recommendations…let me know.

• Made plans to see The Brutalist this evening.

• Got tickets for one of New York City Ballet’s upcoming Art Series shows, which will feature an installation by artist Elizaveta Porodina, a post-show DJ, and tickets universally priced at $54.

Now, the news.

The Girl by the Window by Edvard Munch (1893)

You have surely seen the headlines over the past couple of years describing the so-called “loneliness epidemic.” It’s one of those issues that at its basest form can be explained with a typical, “it’s the phones.” But like all societal issues, it is far more complex than that. The Atlantic’s latest cover story, “The Anti-Social Century,” written by staff writer Derek Thompson, unpacks the various factors that have contributed to people increasingly embracing solitude. It is not so much a crisis of loneliness, Thompson’s reporting shows, but rather one of self-selected isolationism.

Things like the widespread adoption of food pickup and delivery, abundant streaming services, addictive social media platforms, and self-optimization narratives that encourage followers to spend their waking hours partaking in solitary, self-improvement efforts (meditation, meal prep, cleaning, exercise, work) without any acknowledgement of the health necessity of spending time with other people all contribute to this. But this issue is not the one that I want to pull apart. Rather, I’d like to make the case that depleted support for the arts and humanities, and the decimation of art criticism, have been key forces contributing to 21st century era of isolation.

Thompson’s analysis gets at the corners of this hypothesis. He notes that:

The New Deal made America’s branch-library system the envy of the world; communities and developers across the country built theaters, music venues, playgrounds, and all kinds of gathering places.

But by the 1970s, government funding for such efforts started to dimish. Over the latter half of the 20th century, widespread television adoption reduced the necessity for people to leave their homes for entertainment. And of course, in the 21st century—to startling degree in the past decade—social media has encouraged an even greater turning-inward.

These new online ecosystems have fostered community in many wonderful ways. But you don’t need me to tell you that they have also built echo chambers that are dull at best and dangerous at worst (see: Meta’s recent end to fact-checking, the fate of the platform formerly known as Twitter, etc.). Tech oligarchs have control not just of the ways that we connect to others online and receive information, but also how media organizations are able to reach viewers and therefore how they are able to survive and what they are able to publish. Legacy media always had its problems, but there is something particularly painful about being a journalist who has spend the past decade of their career wondering if they have no financial choice but to leave journalism and hearing not just about the more-than-liveable wages and splendor of 20th century media, but also about the fact that being a full-time arts and literary critic used to be much more of a realistic dream. It is not in the tech companies’ best interest to promote anything more than the mainstream, and publications, as a result, must cow to their algorithmic preferences to somehow achieve the lofty goal of finding a stable audience that can financially sustain it.

What I’m getting to is this: The reason we are more isolated than ever is because We Live in a Society where there is no extensive governmental support for gathering places such as theaters, museums, and libraries, there is no sustainable media ecosystem that, at scale, publishes critical analysis (or lets be honest, a glut of news) about the arts and humanities, and there is no widely adopted online platform that rewards thoughtful (read: not angry) discourse over such analysis, or even a mass platform that raises the profile of such analysis, lest it’s framed as rage bait. (This very platform, we must all admit, does not quite have the breadth of users that Instagram has).

Reading William Deresiewicz’s recent article for Persuasion, “How Art Lost Its Way,” I felt simultaneously plaintive and validated. Deresiewicz charts the decline in arts criticism from the late 20th century to today:

What’s gone missing, in a society that long ago excused itself from seriousness, is a broader sense that art is urgent business, that your life, in some sense, depends on it. With that goes the mass audience. With that goes not only the possibility of meaningful criticism, but also its point. No one needs help understanding White Lotus, or Amanda Gorman, or Sally Rooney.* For such creations, we can make do with “cultural criticism”—moralistic agendas, topical talking points, biographical chitchat—which is not arts criticism but a simulacrum thereof, and which any self-respecting gender studies major can produce.

*I will note here that I do think there has been great literary criticism on Sally Rooney, particularly becca rothfeld’s “Normal Novels” for The Point.

The point of arts criticism gets lost when you have popstars wearing t-shirts that proclaim “they don’t build statues of critics” (a quote that allegedly originated with the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, but has evolved into a sentiment that to express any kind of critical—specifically, negative—thought about a work of creativity is to be a “hater”). Because surely, the critic’s only reason to analyze a work with less-than-glowing feedback is because they’re jealous that they are doing the work? (For what it’s worth—as an editor at a business magazine, I see entrepreneurs lob the same kind of accusations at journalists who document their poor management tendancies, failures, etc. I don’t want to be a founder!!!).

No. Rather, the point is that to analyze something means to give it attention and care and consideration. The point is to use one’s own critical thinking skills to really actively engage with someone else’s creation and to try to excavate what it is that makes it work or not work. The point is that any kind of artistic progress is made as the result of conversation. But we have lost the ability to disagree, even over things that are meant to be life-affirming in some way, like art and music and dance. And so, we regress deeper into ourselves, where we can safely hold onto our own opinions (not that the explicit purpose of criticism is to change people’s opinions, but that’s a conversation for another day).

I like doing things alone. When I went to Vienna by myself just after my 30th birthday, I spent hours wandering museums. I went to concerts and the opera and the ballet. I sat and journaled in the hotel bar. I partook in these things by myself, but I was not isolated. I like being around a lot of people. I like seeing how people react to a piece of art—where they linger—and I like eavesdropping on reactions to a performance during intermission. It is one of the reasons I like living in New York. I feel comfortable doing these things alone should I feel like it, but I don’t feel lonely doing them.

Of course, it can be more fun to bring along a friend. I know who in my circle will most enjoy a particular museum exhibit or performance. We can be together yet personally engaged in a work of art. We can discuss what we have seen. We can agree or disagree. We can, of course, gossip in-between acts or paintings, talking about completely unrelated subjects, and still be connected with our surroundings. But when I see people posting mid-performance clips of the ballet on Instagram, I wonder if they were really paying attention to the piece or if they were more concerned about capturing “content” (ACAB but I am never more of a cop than when I am sat near an audience member who is on their phone). At the Whitney’s Alvin Ailey exhibit last week, I was frustrated by clusters of people standing in front of displays, chatting with little awareness that they were making it impossible for others to read the wall text (something that may have felt more acceptable given the exhibit’s high-volume multimedia element) or scrolling on their phones. A few months ago, I became extremely frustrated with a man at the Morgan Library and Museum’s Ballet Russes exhibit who pushed through the crowded space to take a photo of everything, without taking a moment to simply look.

I wonder (and this may be me being a snob) if social media has made is so that when people do go to a gallery or exhibit or show, they become more concerned with coming out of it with proof—that they were there, they did something “cultured,” and they are in the know—rather than surrendering to the experience and taking in new information and new feelings. It’s a bit like how Goodreads culture has, for some, turned reading into a quantitative competition, rather than an act of personal enrichment.

As Lyta Gold wrote in December, “a desire to make art for the sake of art has become a foreign concept.” So too, I think, has the desire to thoughtfully engage with art. And that has left us all more alone.

Maybe this could help. A room at the U.K.’s Manchester Art Gallery features just three artworks. The museum provides a guided meditation and encourages guests to spend about 15 minutes looking at just one painting. This focus-improving exercise is the brainchild of museum consultant Louise Thompson and her Mindful Museum Campaign, which aims to make museums a place where people can improve their mental health, BBC reports.

Also cool is the fact that London’s National Gallery is staying open for 24 hours for the final weekend of its Van Gogh exhibit, Poets and Lovers.

The U.S.’s largest members group of historians, the American Historical Association has condemned Israel’s military action in Gaza as a “scholasticide,” passing a resolution that has been moved to the group’s elected council, who will either approve or veto it. If approved, it will be sent to the Association’s more than 10,000 members for ratification. The New York Times reports that the group has previously approved resolutions condemning military action—such as Russian’s war on Ukraine—and that this resolution calls for an permanent ceasefire and the formation of a committee that would help rebuilt Gaza’s educational infrastructure.

The destruction in Los Angeles continues to unfold, and it is devastating to see so many posts of people losing their homes and communities. These losses include decades of work that Palisades-based artists have created. Meanwile, The Getty Center—which was built in 1997 to be fire-resistant—is in an evacuation zone. J. Paul Getty trust president Katherine E. Fleming says that the institution, which houses more than 125,000 pieces of art and artifacts, is safe and being closely monitored.

New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns is known for her inherent grace and the fluidity of her movement—which is why many were surprised to learn she’d been dealing with hearing loss for the past decade. She shared a few weeks ago on Instagram that she’s been fitted with permanent (invisible) hearing aids, and she recently spoke to the NYT’s Gia Kourlas about the drastic change they’ve made in her life since. “I don’t have to be in pain anymore. I don’t have to be embarrassed anymore. I don’t have to hide,” she said.

People who are under 35 are more likely to listen to classical music than their parents, a new study commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra shows, which is why it’s a great idea that a local bar in Amherst, Massachusetts, has started putting on chamber music concerts. ▲