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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

"If we lose our capacity for solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability to think. We risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away’, as she put it, ‘by what everybody else does and believes in’ – no longer able, in the cage of thoughtless conformity, to distinguish ‘right from wrong, beautiful from ugly’.


by Jennifer Stitt


In 1840, Edgar Allan Poe described the ‘mad energy’ of an ageing man who roved the streets of London from dusk till dawn. His excruciating despair could be temporarily relieved only by immersing himself in a tumultuous throng of city-dwellers. ‘He refuses to be alone,’ Poe wrote. He ‘is the type and the genius of deep crime … He is the man of the crowd.’

Like many poets and philosophers through the ages, Poe stressed the significance of solitude. It was ‘such a great misfortune’, he thought, to lose the capacity to be alone with oneself, to get caught up in the crowd, to surrender one’s singularity to mind-numbing conformity. Two decades later, the idea of solitude captured Ralph Waldo Emerson’s imagination in a slightly different way: quoting Pythagoras, he wrote: ‘In the morning, – solitude; … that nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company.’ Emerson encouraged the wisest teachers to press upon their pupils the importance of ‘periods and habits of solitude’, habits that made ‘serious and abstracted thought’ possible.

In the 20th century, the idea of solitude formed the centre of Hannah Arendt’s thought. A German-Jewish émigré who fled Nazism and found refuge in the United States, Arendt spent much of her life studying the relationship between the individual and the polis. For her, freedom was tethered to both the private sphere – the vita contemplativa – and the public, political sphere – the vita activa. She understood that freedom entailed more than the human capacity to act spontaneously and creatively in public. It also entailed the capacity to think and to judge in private, where solitude empowers the individual to contemplate her actions and develop her conscience, to escape the cacophony of the crowd – to finally hear herself think.

In 1961, The New Yorker commissioned Arendt to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi SS officer who helped to orchestrate the Holocaust. How could anyone, she wanted to know, perpetrate such evil? Surely only a wicked sociopath could participate in the Shoah. But Arendt was surprised by Eichmann’s lack of imagination, his consummate conventionality. She argued that while Eichmann’s actions were evil, Eichmann himself – the person – ‘was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous. There was no sign in him of firm ideological convictions.’ She attributed his immorality – his capacity, even his eagerness, to commit crimes – to his ‘thoughtlessness’. It was his inability to stop and think that permitted Eichmann to participate in mass murder.

Just as Poe suspected that something sinister lurked deep within the man of the crowd, Arendt recognised that: ‘A person who does not know that silent intercourse (in which we examine what we say and what we do) will not mind contradicting himself, and this means he will never be either able or willing to account for what he says or does; nor will he mind committing any crime, since he can count on its being forgotten the next moment.’ Eichmann had shunned Socratic self-reflection. He had failed to return home to himself, to a state of solitude. He had discarded the vita contemplativa, and thus he had failed to embark upon the essential question-and-answering process that would have allowed him to examine the meaning of things, to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood, good and evil.

‘It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong,’ Arendt wrote, ‘because you can remain the friend of the sufferer; who would want to be the friend of and have to live together with a murderer? Not even another murderer.’ It is not that unthinking men are monsters, that the sad sleepwalkers of the world would sooner commit murder than face themselves in solitude. What Eichmann showed Arendt was that society could function freely and democratically only if it were made up of individuals engaged in the thinking activity – an activity that required solitude. Arendt believed that ‘living together with others begins with living together with oneself’.

But what if, we might ask, we become lonely in our solitude? Isn’t there some danger that we will become isolated individuals, cut off from the pleasures of friendship? Philosophers have long made a careful, and important, distinction between solitude and loneliness. In The Republic (c380 BCE), Plato proffered a parable in which Socrates celebrates the solitary philosopher. In the allegory of the cave, the philosopher escapes from the darkness of an underground den – and from the company of other humans – into the sunlight of contemplative thought. Alone but not lonely, the philosopher becomes attuned to her inner self and the world. In solitude, the soundless dialogue ‘which the soul holds with herself’ finally becomes audible.

Echoing Plato, Arendt observed: ‘Thinking, existentially speaking, is a solitary but not a lonely business; solitude is that human situation in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about … when I am one and without company’ but desire it and cannot find it. In solitude, Arendt never longed for companionship or craved camaraderie because she was never truly alone. Her inner self was a friend with whom she could carry on a conversation, that silent voice who posed the vital Socratic question: ‘What do you mean when you say …? The self, Arendt declared, ‘is the only one from whom you can never get away – except by ceasing to think.’

Arendt’s warning is well worth remembering in our own time. In our hyper-connected world, a world in which we can communicate constantly and instantly over the internet, we rarely remember to carve out spaces for solitary contemplation. We check our email hundreds of times per day; we shoot off thousands of text messages per month; we obsessively thumb through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, aching to connect at all hours with close and casual acquaintances alike. We search for friends of friends, people we barely know, people we have no business knowing. We crave constant companionship.

But, Arendt reminds us, if we lose our capacity for solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability to think. We risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away’, as she put it, ‘by what everybody else does and believes in’ – no longer able, in the cage of thoughtless conformity, to distinguish ‘right from wrong, beautiful from ugly’. Solitude is not only a state of mind essential to the development of an individual’s consciousness – and conscience – but also a practice that prepares one for participation in social and political life. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/before-you-can-be-with-others-first-learn-to-be-alone


Anonymous Jennifer Stitt said...
Thank you, UOJ, for posting the article. Please read my full solitude series here (that also explains my personal view on shidduchim):

1. Listening to Silence, Hearing the Unspeakable
2. A Short History of Walking
3. The Difference between Loneliness and Solitude
4. The Courage to Be in Solitude
5. Solitary Encounters

Jennifer Stitt is a historian of modern American thought, culture, and politics. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has appeared in Aeon, Big Think, The Garrison Institute, On Being, Quartz, Quiet Storm Literary Magazine, Public Seminar, and others. She lives and writes in Birmingham, Alabama.

9 comments:

Jennifer Stitt said...

Thank you, UOJ, for posting the article. Please read my full solitude series here (that also explains my personal view on shidduchim):

1. Listening to Silence, Hearing the Unspeakable
2. A Short History of Walking
3. The Difference between Loneliness and Solitude
4. The Courage to Be in Solitude
5. Solitary Encounters

Jennifer Stitt said...

My latest article The Discipline of Hope was removed following the request of Mr. D. Trump. But you can still read it here:
>> LINK <<

Nisht ken groiseh Filosof said...

Eichmann, may his name be blotted out, certainly was ideological. See the Brisker Rov's explanation of Amalek's ideology. If you've never been invited to the Chumash shiur of Rav AJ Soloveitchik, you can read it in Rav Brevda's sefer "Kimu veKiblu". Nazi drive & efforts to obliterate Jews were dogged & tortured. There are countless early sources that provide a window into the evil mind of another Eichmann ancestor, Haman ym's. One of the most detailed is the sefer Kesef Nivchar whose mechaber was a chover of the Mogen Avrohom.

And I hate to quote from a molester advocate like Lippy Geldwerth, but he's been going around repeating a recent historical discovery of a cable sent from Berlin to the Nazi "Oestreich" Governor in Poland, advising that it is inevitable that some Jews will escape but try your darnedest to make sure that at least the "Talmud studenten" do not escape as they are the key to the perpetuity of the Juden.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Eichmann was evil and a sociopath no doubt, but when push came to shove he threw his ideology under the bus for money from Kastner and Rav Weissmandl ztl.

Anonymous said...

According to the Acharonim, Eichmann did nothing of the sort despite whatever appearances. R' Chaim Volozhiner teitches Kol haMaitzar leYisroel naaseh Rosh as a gutteh zach as once they become a chief, their bechira is taken from them. This is his explanation of the Daas Hashem shita of his rebbi the Gr"a that they no longer have control over their own minds. An even better example was Saddam's irrational behavior causing even weasels like France to gang up against him for the Gulf War.

Putting this aside for a moment, there are other terutzim al pi derech hateva. Eichmann desperately needed supplies in the face of the advancing Russians. And there was still an effort to stop the Kasztner train before the Swiss border but the commander of the Nazi post quietly mutinied and pretended he got the halt order after the train had crossed the border.

Vos zogt UOJ? said...

Now that Uri Zohar has been publicly outed by numerous witnesses as having many victims of molestation, rapes & allegedly even pedophilia, what right does he have to run around as a kiruv guru & to speak at Fresser events until he asks mechila from everyone & makes financial reparations?

Paul Mendlowitz said...

I never fully understood the charedi embrace of Uri Zohar.

Philly Yeshiva 1, Public Safety 0 said...

NBC News: Anyone found in violation of the declaration could spend 6 months in jail and/or a $500 fine

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY (WABC) Rockland County has declared a State of Emergency over the ongoing measles outbreak, with Executive Ed Day announcing non-vaccinated minors barred from public places. Effective midnight Wednesday, March 27, anyone under 18 years of age & not vaccinated against measles will be prohibited from public places until the declaration expires or they receive the MMR vaccine. Officials said if someone is found in violation, their case will be referred to the DA's office. Parents will be held accountable for their children if they are in violation. Officials say there are no religious exemptions & that they've been working with area rabbis who encourage their members to get vaccinated. According to the emergency declaration, public places are where more than 10 persons are intended to congregate for purposes such as civic, governmental, social, religious functions, or for recreation / shopping, food / drink consumption, awaiting transportation, or daycare / education, or medical treatment. There are currently 153 confirmed reported cases of measles in the County, according to officials. "As this outbreak continues, our inspectors have met resistance from those they're trying to protect," Day said. "They've been hung up on / told not to call again. They've been told, 'We're not discussing this, do not come back' when visiting homes of infected individuals as part of investigations. This response is unacceptable & irresponsible. It endangers the health & well-being of others & displays a shocking lack of responsibility & concern for others," Day said. "We must do everything in our power to end this outbreak & protect the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons & for children too young to be vaccinated." Day recognizes there are religious holidays coming up soon, but if people immediately comply with the state of emergency & vaccinate now, they'll still be able to enjoy Easter / Passover with friends & family. "We want people to celebrate," he said. "We don't want a repeat of this outbreak when people gathered together & fell ill last fall." Community leaders applaud the state's efforts but have real fears about this latest step. "Describe a B misdemeanor & someone can get arrested, that sounds very scary to me," said community activist Rivkie Feiner after conferring with participants of an infamous anti-vaccination conference call reportedly organized from Philadelphia. "I'm very concerned how people will be viewed & what'll happen when people go to the mall & Target or wherever to go shopping," said Gary Setzer of the Jewish Foundation of Rockland County. Meanwhile other leaders say the problem is the numbers. "This community has a boatload of children," said Yossi Gestetner of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council. "To give you context, Manhattan less than 9% of the population is under age 10. New Square the Hasidic village, 40%." The Rockland County Dept of Health will host a free MMR vaccination clinic from 1 to 3 p.m. Wed on the 2nd floor of Building A, Robert Yeager Complex, 50 Sanatorium Rd, Pomona, NY. "We must not allow this outbreak to continue indefinitely," Day said. "We will not sit idly while children are at risk. This is a public health crisis, and it is time to sound the alarm, to ensure everyone takes proper action to protect themselves & their neighbors; for the health & safety of all of us." 

Anonymous said...

People now are terrified to be alone, to be seen alone, whether with their thoughts or a book.
Why do some parents consider daydreaming a waste of a kid's time?
Why is it embarrassing to be seen just sitting on a beach or a park bench emptying one's mind?
Every one wants, needs and craves the appearance of 'busy'-- because what other proof is there that they have lives worth the envy of others?