Tyranny of Intimacy
“The reigning belief today is that closeness between persons is a moral good. The reigning aspiration today is to develop individual personality through experiences of closeness and warmth with others. The reigning myth today is that the evils of society can all be understood as evils of impersonality, alienation, and coldness. The sum of these three is an ideology of intimacy: social relationships of all kinds are real, believable, and authentic the closer they approach the inner psychological concerns of each person. This ideology transmutes political categories into psychological categories. This ideology of intimacy defines the humanitarian spirit of a society without gods: warmth is our god. The history of the rise and fall of public culture at the very least calls this humanitarian spirit into question.”
Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, 1977
I think people who eat alone in restaurants are losers.
Brenda MacMillan, 1986
Ivo Kransfelder called these beliefs the “tyranny of intimacy” when writing about the works of Edward Hopper. He was discussing the way Hopper eschewed the feelings of human warmth in his works in contrast with the prevailing social conscience. It seems that modern society continues to have this fear of isolation and alienation. The loss of close family connections and religious community have led to a desperate desire for the warmth of others no matter who they are. Hopper utilized these feelings in works such as Automat and Nighthawks. Often, he used strong lighting of the protagonist, usually artificial, to heighten their alone-ness. The spotlight serves to isolate its subject at the same time as it announces their presence.
I would like to investigate this ability of strong light to create a sense of alienation and to utilize the fear of being subjected to its focus.
