Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter by Philip Koch

Author:Philip Koch [Koch, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780812699463
Publisher: Open Court
Published: 2015-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Objections to Solitude: Some History

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

GEN. 2:18

Since the Sixth Day, objections to solitude have been gathering. From the stern warning of Ecclesiastes,

Woe to him that is alone! For, if he falleth, there is none to raise him up (Eccles. 4:10)

to the terse medieval French proverb,

Homme seul est viande aux loups!

(A man alone is meat for wolves!)

to the moralizing of Dr. Johnson,

There is a higher order of men . . . (who) ought to consider themselves as appointed the guardians of mankind: they are placed in an evil world, to exhibit public examples of good life; and may be said, when they withdraw to solitude, to desert the station which Providence assigned them.1

criticisms have been launched on grounds of prudence, sanity, and morality: solitude is empty, pointless, vain, foolish, lonely, and dangerous; it is unnatural, morbid, and pathological; it is self-indulgent, selfish, escapist, and evasive of social responsibility; (more recently) it is valued only in modern alienated capitalist cultures as a relief from degradation and hostility (even there, available only to the exploiting classes); (most recently) it is a male value, redolent of male privilege and male relational incapacity, irrelevant for post-modern women. Sign of personal weakness and moral blame, sign of ill-deserved status, sign of blindness, delusion, and folly,

O Solitude!

Where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face? (Cowper)2

But do the charges stick? Are the “reasons” given sound? I want to probe the logic of these arguments, to dig down to their foundations and test for strength. I am particularly curious as to how the great solitaries have responded to these charges, and how their responses measure up.

Before logic, however, some history. Criticisms of solitary withdrawal belong to a long debate in Western culture, a running argument concerning the competing claims of the “Active Life” and the “Contemplative Life,” as the two options were traditionally called. The conflict between these two “lives” is already discernible in the two sources of Occidentalism, Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian religion. Succeeding centuries articulated and elaborated the conflict, reframing it to address their own particular concerns. It will benefit us to survey briefly some of the high points of that history, by way of providing a background for the logical investigation to come.

The preclassical origins of Greek culture must be inferred from the writings of Homer and Hesiod, each writing around the end of the eighth century BC, but perfecting traditions of poetry that were already centuries old. There is certainly little solitude in Homer: his muse sings of the battles and wanderings of princes and warriors banded together, and separation from the band—even with a Briseis or a Calypso—proves unsatisfying.3 Hesiod, on the other hand, celebrates the sober simple life of the independent Greek farmer, whose Works and Days ought to be devoted, insists Hesiod, to frugal self-sufficiency, with no time for convivial sociality:

Walk right on past the blacksmith’s shop

with

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