Interdependence

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Monday July 04, 2011 · 9:11 AM PDT

2011/07/04 · 09:11

The time has come to move from celebrating independence to recognizing our interdependence. With a few exceptions humans have always depended on each other. Yes I will grant you the occasional mountain person who wears no clothes and only has tools she/he made for him/herself and defends her/himself from animals with her/his bare hands. Of course I have never encountered such a person in real life, in history, or even in literature. The reason is simple, no such person exists or ever existed.

The not so simple truth is humans depend on each other as well as the earth / solar system / galaxy / universe. The sooner humans recognizes this, the sooner humans can recognize interrelationships and how to deal with them.

By "we" I mean all humans. We need to recognize that interdependence is becoming stronger over time. Over time our ability to impact the course of nature has grown, as has communication and commerce. Burning a match creates more carbon dioxide that in turn makes the planet a little warmer. My x-ray may be taken in Boston and read in Mumbai. A tsunami in Japan may slow automobile manufacturing in Detroit. Unless disaster strikes the strength of the relationships will continue to grow.

These means we must think in terms of ever larger more complicated government to manage the relationships. The strength of the United States lies in a union, not in a confederacy. The states never were independent of each other, hence the United States.

The complicated issue is how to decide. I agree with the founders that I do not want either a mob or a king to decide. I like a system of checks and balances that has guarantees for the individual as well as a method so that reason can prevail. We can disagree about the meaning of "reason" or what is meant by "reason prevailing," but we all want a better life and by reason prevailing I refer to a means of achieving a better life, not for one but for all.

So rather than celebrating independence today, I recognize our interdependence.

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