True. Relations and community were much important in the Ancient world. Consider that the word "idiot" originally meant someone who didn't see the point of poli

True. Relations and community were much important in the Ancient world. Consider that the word "idiot" originally meant someone who didn't see the point of politics. Also consider the system of patrons and clients that existed in Ancient Rome. The Greeks thought that there were two levels of humanity: zoon bios (biological life) and zoon politicon (political life). With our current (post)modern civilization, we are in many ways going back to an even more primitive (ie Neolithic) stadium of existence, where political life ceases to exist and life is more playful/hedonistic. One example: the institution of monogamy is something that didn't really exist in Neolithic times (there are some indications that only 40% of men reproduced). It was something that arose with agriculture and today we are in many ways back to a hunter-gatherer world. I think Sweden is at the forefront of this neo-Neolithic trend, having often been termed a country of "state individualism", where the individual is free to decouple from social relations and depend on the State as a safety net.