Those with signs of Covid-19 are being asked to ‘self-isolate’ (Latin insula, ‘island’). But do they have the mindset for it? That requires self-sufficiency, for which the Greeks had a word: autarkeia (our ‘autarky’; contrast ‘autarchy’, ‘absolute rule’).
Such a mindset was essential in the ancient world, where the threat of starvation, disease or disaster was permanent, and death everywhere. Only the self-sufficient, who had the capacity to provide a basic living for themselves and their families, and the mindset to be content with that ‘basic’, stood a chance of survival. In that world, you were on your own. Democritus (5th century bc) likened it to living in a foreign country.
This attitude had resonance in the intellectual world. Socrates, an aficionado of the simple life, agreed that autarkeia was an essential mind-set, freeing one from the desire for material needs to create space for a life of self-examination.
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