Some Thoughts On The Virtues Of Interdependence On The Eve of Independence Day.

Tomorrow is July 4th, and so tonight, I will, as I do on every Independence Day Eve, lay out a mug of ale and tray of pornography for Ben Franklin’s ghost. But to be sure, this year the holiday will, like every other day of 2020, feel different than all the ones that have come before.

Of course, Fourth of July celebrations are uniquely American. It marks the day we formally announced our freedom from the British Empire. If there’s one thing Americans pride themselves on, it’s their independence. It’s threaded inextricably throughout our national ethos of “Rugged Individualism”; it is the backbone of our idealized national narrative. So much so, in fact, that to most Americans, the idea of “Independence” is synonymous with “Freedom.” Most dictionaries would agree with that formulation. But I’d like to take a moment to say: screw that.

Don’t Tread On Me As I Breathe On You At Close Range

I had hoped that the one consolation of the Coronavirus Pandemic would be a reimagining of our sense of community. Surely, if anything could remind us of our collective commonality and reliance on one another, it would be a virus. A virus doesn’t care about your political ideals or religion or favorite team. In the eyes of a virus (I don’t think they actually have eyes, but I’m not a scientist), we are all inextricably bound and irreducibly the same. We would realize this, I reasoned back in March (Remember March – will we ever be that innocent again?), and be drawn together in our fight against a common enemy.

Whelp. My bad.

Leave it to America – late capitalist, late empire, deeply alienated, and atomized into endless demographic spheres America – to find a way to politicize an illness. Suddenly, believing doctors became a matter of political affiliation. Taking precautions against the spread of a potentially deadly disease became an affront to our freedom in many precincts of our nominal republic.

As a consequence, we are suffering more from this disease – physically, socially, and economically – than any other nation that falls under the dubious heading of “modernized.” And many Americans seem content to die (and infect you along the way) rather than give up any of their blinkered and selfish misconceptions of “Freedom.”

But here’s the thing: we are not independent. No one ever has been or can be. Not totally. And it’s in that small, liminal space of “not totally” that makes our dependance on one another not only necessary, but beautiful.

It Takes A Village To…Make A Village

We need one another in all sorts of ways. Our economy, our civilization itself, takes this fact for granted. But we need each other on a more fundamental level. We need to talk to each other, laugh with each other, learn from each other, and just plain spend time in each other’s company in order to be our truest selves as individuals. These months of forced solitude and social distancing have brought that home to me more than ever.

I’ve mentioned the weekly play reading group I’m in every Thursday night, and I have to say I wake up a little lighter in my heart on Friday morning than I do any other day of the week. Seeing the faces and hearing the voices of this far-flung community every week helps me feel more whole. Just as Hamlet taught us that the purpose of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, we are the mirrors we hold up to ourselves. Just by being a part of my weekly life, I owe them an unpayable debt.

So this year, let’s have a little less hoopla about Independence. Independence, in the end, as we’re grimly discovering, can be overrated. This Fourth of July, let’s sing the virtues of Interdependence. If the last few months have shown us anything, it’s that we truly are dependent on each other. May we always remember to be grateful for that.