'Loner' or 'lone wolf' tend to be prejudical labels attached to people who are more soletary or choose a more soletary life style. I will look at these introverted persons, and try to understand how they think and act, through my own experience. While I can't claim to be a defacto loner, as I have my own social cliques, my social skills are lacking and I am often left out in the cold. I hope this essay will give some perspective on what it means to be a 'loner', and why these individuals are no more evil then the rest of greater society.

The Loner and the Psychopath Stereotype

Before I look at the psychological elements and the political freedoms that being a loner entails, I want to first review the stereotypes. Sociologist Emile Durkiheim ever so famously noted that there is a correlation between the number of social connections an individual has and his likelyness to commit sucide. Similarly, the stereotypical terrorist and school shooter are loners—although evidence from 9/11 and recent school shootings tends to dispute the fact. Likewise, there is increasing evidence that the Okalohama City bombings was put together by a large number of individuals.

There is no clear explanation why this is. Some have argued that a lack of social connections is a form of anti-social behavior, and therefore makes an individual prone to committing crime. Others argue that the lack of social connections is a result of their deviance. Another theory states that such individuals lack the moderating influences of others to keep themselves balanced and inline with dominate society. All of those are different from the freedom theory

I think the reason is that the individual with fewer social connections is less tied down. He has more choices; he is less limited by social convention and societal norms. Ultimately he is more free. And freedom is something that really scares people—as the famous remark in the movie Easy Rider notes. Freedom can be used responsiblity or irresponsibly, and when somebody acts irresponsibly with the freedom it can be destructive. Therefore, in some cases freedom created by being a loner may not be a good thing, in other cases it maybe liberating for an individual, and help him find his true self.

A Matter of Personality

I don't think most loners choose to be the way they are. Some suffer from shyness or a general lack of social skills and understanding of other individuals. Their inability to act socially does not mean they are pathological, instead they may be able to live their life quite fully without being the social-elite of the party. There are plenty of jobs and places where you can live in American society, where social relations are not particularly important, such as computer programmers and those who choose to live largely off-the-land, getting odd-jobs to support their life as they so can.

For an outgoing person, it's difficult to understand how truly difficult social relations true are. Quite often much communication takes place in the form of gestures and symbolic meanings, and not the literal words and individual is saying. Words after all, often lie. Particularly challenging for most individuals are new experiences, finding your away a social situation you are unfamiliar with, and not knowing the even most basic answers that exist as part of that interaction. And you don't want to ask, as you fear that you will look stupid. So it seems reasonable that some individuals are more withdrawn then others, and that social relations take a different role then is accepted by an extrovert.

Introverts typically look inwards for their wisdom, and they find much in the world that is desirable, beyond what a social situation might show to them. They see things differently, and as such they act differently. Maybe some of their actions are different and strange to mass society, but if they are not causing substainal harm, then why should we limit their freedoms? We should tolerate such deviance. Maybe they are right and mass-society is wrong, history has shown that this often the case. We should try to understand why people act and think differently, and try to figure out if their ways are something worth embracing. If nobody explores, then we will all ultimately die from stagination.

The Free Individual

The loner probably is a free individual, as he is free from the committment and conformity that social relations entail. My introversion allows me to sympathize and undertand a lot about this individual, and my experience shows that while being alone and unable to make friends often is difficult, it does allow for some great things. He can exist as he so pleases, nobody can really tie him down. He can criticize and reject mass-society and consumerism, if he so chooses. He does not have to live outside society, although many loners do, choosing to live the free rural life—a life without restriction. He can see things differently, from a vantage point not understood by a lot of us.

Real freedom is disliked by many people, in the words of Easy Rider:

George: Oh no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Billy: What's the hell wrong with freedom, man? That's what it's all about.

George: Oh yeah, that's right, that's what it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it—that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bough and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

As previously noted, loners are free people, not held down by social convention—and it's scary, but good for them as they are more free. They are closer to nature and free thought, as they aren't as tied down by social dillusions. Their freedom can be a rejection of mass society and consumerism. Their freedom and own existence is not neccessarly outside of society, but could also represent a different way of living in society.