The Independence Fallacy

I wonder if this isn’t a western or, more particularly, an American thing. Surely Americans seem to treasure and dwell on independence more than others. The country, after all, was inaugurated with a Declaration of Independence, though no one could successfully argue the country is actually independent. At no time since its founding has it been less so. The degree to which this is problematic is debatable of course.

It seems, though, that the value of independence does not scale inversely. Meaning, in one given life independence has limited benefit. Obviously, we begin this journey of life wholly dependent and at some later point the idea of being “independent” captures our imagination. Something tells us our growth and joy demands it. In fact, most of us do just the opposite. We go from being dependent on a small group (i.e. family) to being dependent on an ever larger group. We actually become interdependent. We distribute our dependence across an ever-widening network–family, friends, fellow students, co-workers, community–but fail to admit that necessary reality to ourselves or to others. Growing up is a nurturing of delusions.

Like most things, the problem comes farther down the line.

Since we hold dear our delusion of independence, we hold a disdain, a fear, for dependence. Older folks worry about losing their independence, about becoming a “burden” to family. One of the awful ironies is that the same people who find themselves unhappily alone are often dead set against losing their “independence.” Sadly, many of the elderly fall into near isolation, self-imposed, due to this fear, this misunderstanding.

Ours is a culture that worships doing, especially physical doing in the form of producing work of some sort, and so as our physical body tires and wears out we imagine our value evaporating. The decades-long intentional destruction of the family only exacerbates the loneliness of aging. In typical American fashion, we’ve gone from honoring and caring for each other later in life to monetizing and outsourcing care in the form of assisted living facilities, nursing homes, retirement communities, etc. We are all to blame for this and by it we are all diminished.

The Founding Fathers declared themselves independent from an oppressive and tyrannical British government and so changed the course of world history. But they did not do so independently. The final statement makes that clear: “… we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” They chose willful interdependence over enforced dependence.

Independence has it place. But it is merely a means to a better end, not an end of itself. Embracing and applying a spirit of interdependence would rewire our families and communities. While doing so would not right all the wrongs or cure all the ills, it could begin to combat the true American pandemic of loneliness. And all it requires is a change of thought.