The Anti-Neighborhood
June 3, 2009
Perhaps you live in a normal neighborhood. Maybe you reside in a peaceful corner of America where people still make eye contact, wave hello and share meals during a crisis. If you do, cherish what you have.
I was talking to an elderly woman in her mid-eighties not long ago, a person who has lived in the same house in a pleasant suburban neighborhood for more than 50 years. “You must know lots of people on your street,” I said.
She is a gracious and uncomplaining person. But, she looked at me and said, “I don’t know them at all. If I fell down in the driveway, they wouldn’t come and help me up.”
Life is not a bed of roses, it’s true, and people have important things to do. But, something inside me rebels at the thought of an old person ignored. I can’t adjust to the idea. I like to think that if there were a few women at home, this would not have been true for this widow.
Neighborhoods thrive on trust, common habits and time. A non-neighborhood is a place where people may still possess common habits and trust but lack the time to forge connections. The anti-neighborhood is different. There, people have lost the social instincts. Autism becomes collective.
When people receive a basic level of social stimulation from television, it cuts into the desire for simple interactions. But, after a while, it can rob them of all neighborly intuitions. I once invited a couple who were new to our street over for dessert. They were mystified and taken aback. They had no idea what they were supposed to say, as if they were taking part in a ritual in an alien country.
Children and the old always sense something is amiss. To a normal child, it is inconceivable not to express curiosity about the people nearby. Where is that man from? Who is that woman in the green car? Are there any children in that house? You could never convince him that it is natural for people to just ignore each other.
Transience has always been a big challenge for the American neighborhood, but what afflicts it now far exceeds this surmountable problem. After a while, the child catches on. He picks up the habits of living among strangers.
