How Important Is Solitude?

Arendt vs. Strauss on Standing Apart

Both Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss espouse the virtue of solitude. I see solitude as a romantic virtue, a cousin of individuation and authenticity, terms found in Wordsworth, Nietzsche, Emerson, Thoreau, Jung, and Heidegger.

Arendt faults mass culture’s tendency to thoughtlessness for sewing the seeds for totalitarianism and mob mentality. E.g., Eichmann…