Can we please stop celebrating Independence Day? Or at least change the name to Independence So That We May Decide How Best to Be Interdependent Day?

I get why we celebrate the Fourth of July. I understand why the New World was tired of answering to the Old. But although we gained independence in one sense, what we really gained was the freedom to choose how to go about establishing our interdependences. Because whether we like it or not, we need one another. And unfortunately, the United States has never been great at admitting that. But the sooner we tune our national mind-set to the interdependence channel, the healthy and happier we can collectively be.

Human beings are wired to depend on one another, whether they’re configured individually or as a group. If we could stop denying that fact and start deciding what we want our dependences to look like, we would have much more to celebrate each July 4th.