Individuals need society to socialize them and raise them from the plane of mere animality. The quality of society, however, depends on true individuals, who are made by solitude. Moses was alone on Mt. Sinai; Jesus was forty days in the desert; alone Socrates communed with his daimon; Siddartha forsook the company of the royal compound; Henry "I have no walks to throw away on company" Thoreau went for walks solo. . . .
Thus society profits from its solitaries, assuming that those who escape from it for their own good return to it for its own good. In a Platonic figure, the escape from the Cave ought to be followed by a return to the Cave.
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