But at the same time, it has given us the illusion that you and I are separate. In the business world, it has led CEOs to protect themselves jealously from their people and use armies of secretaries to wall themselves off. At the German subsidiary of a global energy company, some middle managers had worked on the ground floors for ten years without ever seeing the president’s third-floor office. By isolating themselves, leaders deprive themselves of strategic intelligence from the front lines. And since a leader, by definition, is with the people (you cannot lead without co-leaders or at least followers), such separation can be costly for productivity, loyalty, and morale.
In the extreme, “expressive individualism” (that’s what experts call it, meaning: I do whatever I want, as long as I get away with it) has led to a “Me-Mine-Money” culture—note the word “selfie” and the “I” in iPhones and iPads; the Wii has even two “I”s—and to 45-year-olds driving alone in SUVs and guzzling away US energy independence.
Extreme individualism perceives a you-or-me world, a zero-sum game in which we prevent each other from getting what each wants, because the more I get, the less you get. The belief in separate individuals may well be the greatest obstacle we’ve put in our own paths. And it may cost us our common future.
Life is Plural
Amazing things happen when people recognize they’re inter- connected. Go back a century, to Armentières, France: Day after endless day, since early November 1914, British and German soldiers had fought each other bitterly, inch by inch in mud and snow, in battles of attrition. But a few days before Christmas the unimaginable occurred. Instead of hand grenades, Saxon soldiers lobbed a tightly wrapped chocolate cake. The British soldiers found a note in the cake: Would it not be feasible to have a truce that evening from 730pm to 830pm? The British accepted. English soldiers stood up from their trenches, listened to imperial German music, even applauded.
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