I have recently been thinking a lot about alienation at Middlebury. All of you are aware that Ev, who was a friend of mine, died in Forest Hall, but some of you may not know that Yan, another student and beloved teammate of mine, died in the same building over two years ago. The eeriness of two deaths in the same building leads me to wonder how our living spaces could have both direct and indirect impacts on our well-being. I am curious about the reciprocal relationship between two things: how our understanding of the world affects the places we live in, and how the places we live in influence our understanding of the world and our well-being. I think about how, despite often being called a “bubble” protected from the social realities of the world, Middlebury College often mirrors the patterns of alienation seen in our wider society. On a slightly optimistic note, I found that asking these questions in light of the tragedies of Ev and Yan’s deaths made me see more clearly the problem of isolation at Middlebury in general. By investigating mental health on this campus and how it correlates with trends in rural, suburban and urban areas, I believe that it is moreso ideologies — those that seem uncontrollable and anonymous like “the market,” “globalization” and “modernity” — than solely geography that explains how our build environments cause so much alienation.
How does the problem of alienation manifest on our campus? In The Campus’ Zeitgeist survey last year, several questions highlighted mental health concerns and their disproportionate impacts on students here. Some lowlights from the survey: The only gender group that had a majority (53%) who never struggled with eating and exercise were cisgender men, while, for example, every trans woman surveyed had struggled in that area. White students surveyed were statistically the most happy, and, in the most extreme case, they were 28% happier than the least happy racial or ethnic group (Middle Eastern and North African students). Lastly, mental health was the fourth most common reason — behind academics, extracurriculars and jobs — for respondents to feel like they could not be social. While these results are concerning, there is one key aspect that went unexplored by the Zeitgeist questions: the connection between physical space and loneliness. For a campus that is small, walkable and “close-knit,” I wonder about the ways in which our ability to form community is reflected in statistics like the number one reason students sought sex and romance being “companionship,” and the fourth, “loneliness.”
The built environment — a concept that most simply describes how humans physically construct the world but can also refer to philosophical ideas such as how we think about “natural” and “unnatural” — is clearly connected with mental health when looking at statewide and nationwide trends. First of all, the way we live in America is quite individualistic and segmented — over two-thirds of homes in the US are detached (physically separated), single-family homes. The historical context of these low-density houses can often be traced to restrictive ordinances and racial zoning that stopped low-income communities of color from living in whiter areas. Sometimes this was accomplished through outright bans on which people could live where, but most of the time it was done by preventing affordable, and thus dense, housing. Similar tactics with more sinister veils are still used today by privileged communities to keep housing density low. In addition to perpetuating race and class segregation, detached, single family homes and lack of infrastructure in rural areas can contribute to adverse health effects for those experiencing homelessness and insecure housing, and leave many Americans feeling unhappy in less dense areas.
While I was initially interested in applying this architectural lens and using geography, I realized that Middlebury College does not neatly fall into the category of rural or suburban. Sure, you could make the case that the broader area is extremely rural and that the town itself is more populated than many places in Vermont, but a college campus in general seems to add complexity to any of these categories. I paired this idea with the fact that loneliness, while often correlated with physical proximity and geography, is not conclusively explained by it. For instance, while the number of people living alone in the last century in America has increased from 5% in 1920 to 27% in 2016, most of these individuals live in higher density environments. While it is clear that low-density living communities have prevented us social creatures from fully receiving an adequate sense of belonging, it is not just geographic proximity that causes the challenges in fostering connections but American worldviews about community and “success” as well.
An explanation that fills this gap comes from philosopher Otto Paans and his idea that alienation is manifested through the built environment, but that it does not always have to just mean if people are far apart then they are lonely. Instead, he argues that modern Western ideology, specifically, capitalism, individualism and scientific progress are baked into our spaces and “actively reflects values and ideas about society and its organization,” which can happen even in denser living areas. Essentially, a feedback loop is created when individualism (think Margaret Thatcher’s idea that there is no such thing as society) is reflected in how we physically order our world, and how that in turn makes us lonelier. The key insight from Paans is that this individualism can be seen more obviously through architectural choices like single-family houses, but is also disseminated through less obvious design. “Utilitarian non-spaces” is Paans’s idea that space can be constructed to emphasize efficiency and curb spontaneity — just picture all of the constructed paths on McCullough lawn that let everyone speed off to go back to work after Ev’s vigil, instead of an environment that would emphasize lingering and slowness. Another of Paans’s ideas is that even if we are close to others in proximity, places like colleges can become “instructive spaces,” or a set of physical features that direct behaviors and reinforce identities; in our campus context, I think about the ways that Middlebury’s layout constantly reinforces the idea that we are “students” and that it requires, as many of Ev’s friends attested to at the recent vigil, walking to the Knoll or going on a long bike ride to feel like you can “escape” the Middlebury bubble in order to fully embrace your other identities or priorities.
Middlebury College, in my experience, is nowhere close to the worst it can get when it comes to alienating environments, or even other colleges. However, in light of two student deaths in the past two years — which is unacceptable — we must reckon with how the dearth of care and connection is a symptom of oppressive structures. For those of you living in dorms or large living spaces and have not met your neighbors, I would implore you to ponder on what greater connection looks like on campus and seek out the clubs and organizations that are either doing work to create radical communities or are asking these questions about what barriers exist preventing these connections. On that last note, I would invite a reflection from Matthew Desmond, a scholar who asks us how we can redefine some of our values and thus reshape our world: How can we move from a “freedom that is contingent on our bank accounts” to a “freedom that comes from shared responsibility, shared purpose and gain, and shared abundance and commitment?”
