In recent weeks, memes have been circulating about comedy shows and satirical websites having to shut down: “We’re sorry, but we can’t come up with material that’s crazier than real life right now.”

Regardless of your views on the US presidential election or, for that matter, politics in much of the rest of the world, we can all probably agree: The news feels overwhelming. Our social discourse seems to have gone off the rails. We're talking past each other at a higher volume and with greater vitriol than ever before.

But why?

Ask ten people this question, and you’ll get ten different answers: polarization, ubiquitous phones, social media, economic inequality, a decline of traditional values, pollution, and war.

But the woman who was arguably the greatest political philosopher of the 20th Century had a different and unexpected answer. More than 70 years ago, she predicted a great deal about humanity’s current situation.

Hannah Arendt saw loneliness as a phenomenon that turns decent, humane societies into brutal, divided states.

While leading authorities like the US Surgeon General and the World Health Organization have called loneliness and social isolation an epidemic with real implications for human health, the conventional wisdom has been that it’s not really a top-tier issue. It’s a personal, emotional, subjective challenge rather than a collective political........

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