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Are we all becoming hermits now?

A new anthropological type is emerging, says Pascal Bruckner – the shrivelled, hyperconnected being who no longer needs others or the outside world

20 April 2024

9:00 AM

20 April 2024

9:00 AM

The Triumph of the Slippers: On the Withdrawal from the World Pascal Bruckner, translated by Cory Stockwell

Polity, pp.118, 16.99

Long before Covid, wi-fi and Deliveroo, Badger in The Wind in the Willows showed us how to live beyond the manifold fatuities of this gimcrack world. Cosily tucked into his burrow with a roaring fire and well-stocked cellar, he was unbothered by importunate weasels and other denizens of the Wild Wood.

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