Why are you so petrified of silence?
Here can you handle this?
Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlines
Or when you think you’re going to die?
Or did you long for the next distraction? (Alanis Morisette)

When I wrote my MA thesis on Heidegger back in 2002, I took my basic orientation from William McNeil’s emphasis on Heidegger and Deinon, man’s essential restlessness, not-being-at-peace of man. McNeil prefaces an essay on the Deinon with the following key passage from Heidegger’s Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: “Man is that inability to remain and is yet unable to leave his place (McNeil, Scarcely, 169).” Think for example a person’s cabin fever/shack wackiness that surfaces when there’s nothing to do. Characterizing the Deinon, McNeil says the following, “Heidegger’s translation of to deinon, ‘the decisive word,’ as das Unheimliche – intends this word to be understood in the sense of das Unheimische, that which is ‘unhomely,’ something ‘not at home’ that nevertheless belongs, in an ever equivocal manner, to the worldly dwelling of human beings (Scarcely, 183).” In precise note, McNeil adds that for Heidegger “to Deinon is “the fundamental word … of Greek tragedy in general, and thereby the fundamental word of Greek antiquity, (cited from Heidegger, Scarcely, 188n.47).” Heidegger comments, referring to another place in Sophocles, that “[s]uch is the rise and the fall of man in his historical abode of essence – hupsipolis – apolis – far exceeding abodes, homeless, as Sophocles (Antigone) calls man (Parmenides course, 90; compare “essential misery of man, 100″).” Heidegger is so prolific that it’s important to establish a hupokeimenon that casts a certain color over what he’s doing. Heidegger’s reading of Kant can be seen here too because Heidegger discusses why Kant had to awkwardly posit the faculty of the Imagination to mediate Sense and Understanding whereby Heidegger traces the problem back to an earlier Greek understanding that thinks back behind the interpretation of the “I” over against the world.

In order to see the becoming homeless (deinon/apolis) of humanity, we need to look back in time to the age of the polis with the Greeks. The ancient Greek polis, or city-state, represented a highly collective culture where citizens’ identities were deeply intertwined with the community’s well-being. Arete, often translated as “excellence” or “virtue,” was originally tied to heroic ideals from the Homeric epics, emphasizing contributions to the polis through warfare, athletics, politics, and civic duty. This manifested in the hoplite phalanx, where individual soldiers fought as a unified collective for the defense and glory of their city-state, and in reforms by figures like Solon and Lycurgus around 600-500 BCE, which aimed to create equitable laws (nomoi) that empowered the middle class and fostered a sense of shared citizenship.

The polis ideal demanded that every citizen actively participate in political, economic, and social affairs, with personal freedom often subordinated to the state’s needs—viewed as the highest honor.

This collective framework began shifting toward individualism during the 5th century BCE, particularly after the Greek victory over the Persians in 480-479 BCE. The triumph boosted confidence but also initiated a period of intellectual and political transformation known as the Pentekontaetia (roughly 479-431 BCE). Athens’ rise as a naval power and the formation of the Delian League, initially a defensive alliance, evolved into an Athenian empire by the 430s BCE, imposing tribute and suppressing revolts in allied city-states like Naxos and Thasos.

This imperial expansion reflected a departure from the defensive, egalitarian ethos of the traditional polis, introducing Realpolitik where “might makes right” justified personal and civic ambition over collective harmony.A key driver of this shift was the emergence of the Sophists, itinerant professional teachers who arrived in Athens around the mid-5th century BCE. They charged fees to educate wealthy young men in arete, redefining it from communal service to personal success, particularly through rhetoric—the art of persuasive speech essential for thriving in Athens’ direct democracy.

Sophists like Protagoras promoted relativism with ideas such as “man is the measure of all things,” suggesting that truth, justice, and laws were subjective and human-made conventions (nomos) rather than divine or natural absolutes. They distinguished nomos from physis (nature), arguing that societal norms often constrained innate human potential and inequalities, thereby challenging the polis’s traditional values of equality and solidarity.

This encouraged skepticism toward inherited customs, empowering individuals to prioritize personal intelligence, debate, and self-advancement over communal obligations, which critics saw as eroding the polis’s moral foundation.Philosophers built on and reacted to this Sophistic influence, further accelerating individualism. Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE), for instance, used dialectical questioning to probe personal ethics and the soul, urging individuals to “know thyself” independently of societal norms, though he still valued civic duty.

His student Plato (c. 428-348 BCE), disillusioned by Athens’ democratic excesses and the execution of Socrates, critiqued the polis in works like The Republic, advocating for rule by philosopher-kings who pursued truth through individual reason rather than collective decision-making.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) similarly emphasized personal virtue and the examined life, though he viewed humans as inherently political beings suited for polis life—but in practice, his ideas supported a focus on individual flourishing. Aristotle famously viewed humans as social creatures but then turned around and said the contemplative life (theoria) was the highest human aspiration. The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) exemplified and hastened this transition, as Athenian imperialism and Sophist-inspired rhetoric led to brutal realpolitik, professionalizing armies and diminishing the citizen-hoplite’s role.

Post-war, Greece saw continued fragmentation, with city-states like Sparta and Thebes pursuing dominance, ultimately leading to Macedonian conquest in 338 BCE under Philip II. By the Hellenistic era after Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE), the polis gave way to vast kingdoms (cosmopolis), where philosophies like Epicureanism (withdrawing for personal tranquility) and Stoicism (emphasizing individual duty to a universal order) served as personal therapies in an impersonal world, detached from collective civic life.

Overall, this evolution stemmed from military successes, democratic experiments, economic growth via trade and colonization, and intellectual ferment that exposed Greeks to diverse ideas, fostering relativism and self-reliance. While the polis’s collective arete drove early achievements, its reinterpretation through Sophists and philosophers prioritized the individual’s potential, marking a profound cultural pivot that influenced Western thought.

The shift from the collective ethos of the ancient Greek polis to a more individualistic outlook, as influenced by Sophists and philosophers, provides valuable context for understanding Sophocles’ use of “apolis” in his tragedy Antigone (performed around 441 BCE). In the play’s famous first choral ode, often called the “Ode to Man” (lines 332–375), the chorus praises humanity’s remarkable ingenuity and mastery over nature—sailing stormy seas, plowing the earth, taming beasts, inventing language and laws, and devising shelters against the elements—while emphasizing that such resourcefulness can lead to either good or evil outcomes.

However, the ode pivots to a stark warning: human potential must be bounded by respect for earthly laws (nomoi) and divinely sworn justice. As translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff, the key lines state, “When he honors the laws of the land and the gods’ sworn right high indeed is his city; but stateless [apolis] the man who dares to dwell with dishonor.”

Here, “apolis” (literally “without a polis” or “cityless”) labels the individual who misuses their cleverness through hubris, daring (tolma), or disregard for communal norms, rendering them an outcast—effectively “homeless” in the profound civic and social sense of being alienated from the polis’s protective and identity-defining structure. This usage reflects Sophocles’ conservative stance amid the 5th-century BCE intellectual ferment. The Sophists’ relativism, which portrayed laws as subjective human conventions rather than immutable truths, encouraged personal ambition and rhetorical skill for individual success, often at the expense of collective harmony.

Philosophers like Socrates and Plato further amplified self-examination and individual reason, sometimes in tension with polis traditions. In Antigone, Sophocles dramatizes this clash: characters like Creon (who rigidly enforces state edicts) and Antigone (who defies them for higher familial/divine duties) embody the perils of unchecked individualism or authoritarianism, both of which threaten the polis’s stability. The chorus’s invocation of “apolis” serves as a cautionary label, underscoring the fear that such shifts could erode the communal bonds of arete, leaving individuals isolated and “homeless” in a world where the polis was synonymous with civilized existence. This interpretation aligns with the broader cultural transition toward Hellenistic individualism, where personal philosophies increasingly supplanted collective civic life, making Sophocles’ warning a poignant commentary on his era’s changes

It is in this backdrop we need to place Heidegger who was drawn toward restoring collective culture with his disastrous Nazi period that was tempted by such collectivizing Germany (e.g., the Hitler Youth). Although his personal failings are not ours, we too are learning to re-ask the question of the being of the human in the world anew.