SPP and the Trinity Forum to Host All the Lonely People: Isolation, Connection, and the Common Good

In partnership with the Trinity Forum, join the Pepperdine School of Public Policy (SPP) on Friday, April 9, 2021, at 10:30 AM PDT for a webinar titled All the Lonely People: Isolation, Connection, and the Common Good. SPP Washington DC Policy Scholars Program faculty member and policy researcher, Ryan Streeter (American Enterprise Institute), and psychiatrist, Francie Broghammer (UC-Irvine), will have a conversation on America's epidemic of loneliness and the path towards meaningful connection. 

Loneliness in America has been sharply increasing, even before the onset of the pandemic—despite our virtually unprecedented national prosperity, technological advance, and immediate virtual access to information and each other, there is, in the words of Broghammer, a growing "toll of despair." The thinning of many family and community ties has sharpened our felt sense of isolation and led some to seek a sense of solidarity in political involvement. Streeter’s research has found that “normally when people get involved in their communities, social capital grows and loneliness declines . . . But we have found that political engagement is a lone exception to this rule.”

Streeter and Brogahmmer will address questions:

• How should we think about reinvigorating the relational and community ties that encourage the flourishing of both the individual and the body politic? 
• What are the antidotes to isolation in a time of pandemic—and beyond? 
• Is there hope for connecting lonely people in a divided nation? 
• Is there a way to talk about politics that actually brings people together?

About the Trinity Forum

The Trinity Forum believes that the distraction, incivility, polarization, and pathology of our age stems in part from the lack of spiritual and character formation in leaders. There are few opportunities to grapple with, reflect on, and discuss fully what matters most. The Trinity Forum endeavors to cultivate, curate, and disseminate the best of Christian thought, to equip leaders to think, work, and lead wisely and well.