The May 19 issue of The Week magazine says that U.S. Surgeon General VivekMurthy reported “the epidemic of loneliness” in America. He recommended a nationwide revival of human connections (including 15 minutes of telephone conversations with someone) to overcome the problem of loneliness.

Here the good doctor is stepping out of bounds: He is an expert authority on medical problems, not on social issues in which he is no more an expert or authority than a homeless man in the street. All social issues, including loneliness, are the issues of living together in society (in which the homeless man can possibly claim more of expertise and authority than the good doctor).

All medical problems, on the other hand, occur individually to each human body. Why is a body-specialist acting like he is a society-specialist, advising on an issue — like loneliness — that occurs only within a human society, not in the body? Body problems are visible and controllable; “social” issues are visible only through our minds, not on X-rays, in petrie dishes, or under a microscope. You can never diagnose loneliness; you can feel and understand it only in a “social” context.

As happens to most retired people, I have had my share of visits to specialists — gastroenterologist, cardiologist, urologist, surgeon, eye doctor, not to mention local ERs. Not once did these specialists ever ask me about my “social” life or mind-situation. They never asked me how my life is going or if I am happy, what my religion or political beliefs are, and so on. Aside from my insurance and medical history, and my vital signs and blood pressure, they mind their own business, which is taking care of my bodily needs.

Questions about my social life are totally irrelevant to their business with me. The specialists go on with their tasks of taking care of my bodily needs and leave my own social business alone, which is utterly, totally and logically unrelated to why we, the specialist and me, are together. If I have to visit all 135 extant medical specialties before I die (except psychiatry), all of my health care problems are covered by my physicians, without a single personal-social-mind bit of information exchanged.

Strangely, however, when we casually read about what the surgeon general says about loneliness as an “epidemic” in American society, we forget to ask why the good doctor doesn’t mind his own business. His job is to take care of our body, not our morality. My body may belong to medical doctors for maintenance; but my mind belongs to me and, by extension, to society where all minds and behaviors must relate. To solve our social issues, we elect representatives and talk to our priests and ministers, friends and neighbors, and watch the news on TV and make daily decisions. Our body’s maintenance is in the hands of God and doctors, but our social life is up to ourselves. We resist all forms of social engineering — from tyrants, utopians, money power and, now, from technical-professional experts — to keep it that way.

Loneliness is not a disease, not a subject you will ever find in Grey’s Anatomy. It’s our Way of Life in which we choose our culture, economy, politics, religion, education, social connections and so on. It’s our moral freedom we choose in society. Likewise, “lonely” is a choice we make to determine the extent to which our personal-social life is shared with other people in society.

Being lonely is how we “feel” about the choice of our relations with other people. Some of us are gregarious and have many friends, and some of us tend to be reserved with our own time or guarded with our space. To live “lonely” is our choice, like being Republican or Christian.

On the historical and cultural level of analysis, we might note that America was created as a “nation of strangers” and Americans are often called “the lonely crowd.” When you have so much space and so few people to inhabit it, and are nurtured in “individualism” (fancy name for self-centeredness), you tend to mind your own business. You add the capitalist consumer choices to this sort of spacious society, and everybody lives his or her own life. If this national character leads to a lonely crowd, so be it. We made the bed and we must lie in it.

The doctor says loneliness leads to suicide. But both loneliness and suicide come from our own social decisions, not from a virus attacking our bodily system. It’s the bitter end of freedom we so dearly love. Loneliness and suicide are our companions in our pursuit of freedom to remain irresponsible and self-centered. People who have many friends and attend church may live longer; people who prefer to live alone might die early. Both are choices connected to the social creed of freedom and individualism, as American as apple pie. If you crave freedom you cannot reject loneliness that freedom demands as its price. If loneliness is an “epidemic in America,” as the doctor says, it’s because freedom is an epidemic, which surely requires more than 15 minutes on the phone or easy pills — perhaps a massive 1776-scale remaking of society.

Only three days after the surgeon general mentioned loneliness as an epidemic, the good doctor gave another warning to America, this time the deadly disease of “social media” which poses a “profound risk of harm” for its youths.

What if, instead of loneliness or social media, the good doctor said “monogamy” (or Catholicism or Trumpism or nudism, whatever) is our grave health problem in America today? Most thinking Americans would be quick to protest: “Doctor, it’s none of your (darn) business!”

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.

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