Hostile Loneliness

This chapter analyzes the relationship between loneliness and antagonistic political emotions. Loneliness is commonly defined as a painful experience resulting from a discrepancy between desired and actual relationships, often involving difficulties in forming meaningful interpersonal bonds. Contemporary philosophical literature highlights the negative impact of loneliness on self-perception, agency, and the possibilities for connecting with others. With few exceptions, the political dimensions of loneliness are often overlooked in these discussions. To address this gap, this chapter examines the case of a lone-actor terrorist whose loneliness motivates a search for meaning within a radicalized community. In this context, loneliness is coupled with emotions such as vengeful anger and envy. This raises several philosophical questions: How should loneliness be understood in the first place? Can it be viewed as a political emotion in its own right, or does it require the presence of other affective states to become political? How does loneliness interact with specific antagonistic emotions? I argue that, in this context, antagonistic emotions enable lonely individuals to reclaim their sense of agency and, in some cases, pursue radical social and political change. I call hostile loneliness the affective state in which loneliness conditions the emergence and development of aggressive and oppositional emotions. Finally, I argue that these emotions become fully political when they are taken up by a community and given a collective expression.