Going Solo [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION: THE SINGLETON SOCIETY N THE BEGINNING ofthe Old Testament, God creates the world one day at a time: The heavens and the earth. Water. Light. Day and night. Living species of every kind. After each creation, God declares: "It is good." But the tone changes when God makes Adam. Suddenly, God pronounces the first thing that is not good, lo tov. "It is not good that the man should be alone."' So God makes Eve, and Adam is no longer on his own. In time, injunctions against being alone moved from theology to philosophy and literature. In Politics, Aristotle wrote, "The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god." The Greek poet Theocritus insisted that "man will ever stand in need of man," and the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius proclaimed that "human beings are social animals."^ So, too, are other animals. (Aristode, alas, was only half right.) Beasts will indeed live on their own when conditions favor it, particularly when there is a shortage of food. Otherwise most species fare better in