Men find interdependence more important than independence

This is Part Four of our discussion of male rites of passage into manhood.

The elders tell the boy there is no such thing as independence. This reality tends to antagonize us Americans; we, who every Fourth of July celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence with barbecue and fireworks. But that noble document asserts a political idea, not an ontic one. Which is a fancy way of saying that, while "independence" is a useful and valuable ideal for running a government, it does not in the end hold up well to the deeper human reality.

The reality, say the elders to the boy, is that we are dependent and interdependent. Don't believe me? Stop eating and notice how fast your body is tied to and dependent upon this earth. Lose your footing on your roof and see if your relationship to gravity is negotiable. Try playing right-handed NFL quarterback "independently," as opposed to acknowledging your life-and-death reliance on your left tackle.

Try loving and forgiving yourself independent of the love and forgiveness of others. Try containing, managing and integrating the entirety of your emotional life by yourself. See if you can plumb the depths of a great love affair and be fiercely independent at the same time.

Try having great sex independently.

And, say the elders to the boy, while certainly everyone is respected as an individual, there is no such thing as individualism. There is no meaningful human identity to be discovered individually; that is, in isolation. The only "me" worth knowing is the "me" that you and I will both discover in committed, reciprocal relationships.

Put a laboratory monkey from birth in a cage. Alone. Feed it with a bottle protruding from a wire cage shaped like his mother. The monkey dies. Or, if the monkey survives, it becomes psychotic, banging its head against the cage, biting and tearing at its own skin.

We're primates. Without community, we die or go crazy.

The elders insist the boy sacrifice the idols of independence and individualism. This makes way for both the duty and the joy of participation in community. Marriage is a community. Family is a community. Friendships and collegialities. The workplace. The neighborhood. Your city, state and country. The planet.

The ecosystem you inhabit is a community, meaning you have real duties in relationship to soil, water, air, flora and fauna. Economies are a community. That snarl of traffic where U.S. Highway 95 intersects Interstate 15 is a community. (Where you're going turns out not to be more important than where I'm going.)

A real man obliges himself to community. He belongs, not just in the sentimental sense of that word, but in a dynamic commitment to reciprocity. Boys leave their toys, their dirty skivvies, their lives and in some cases their children lying around wherever it was last convenient to pay attention to those things. Men understand that the unattended debris of their own lives has consequences for others.

Here it is in a parable: When a boy wants ice cream, he is entitled to ice cream. A man never confuses desire with entitlement. My desires aren't more important than your desires.

Men take their trash cans out to the street on Tuesday morning ... and bring them back in on Tuesday night! They mow their lawns and pull their weeds.

Men don't paint their suburban homes obnoxious magenta trimmed in fluorescent chartreuse just because of their "right" to individual expression. Yes, each of us has the individual right to be absent good taste in exterior paint colors, but no one has the right to unilaterally decide to lower everybody else's property values.

Men vote. They volunteer. They hold the door for me as they exit Macaroni Grill. They wait their turn. They don't run red lights. They don't litter. They don't wantonly pollute. They don't think it's a masculine duty to kill every rattlesnake and coyote they see, just cuz they can. They meet their neighbors and join in the mutual protection, safety and security of the neighborhood.

Boys freeload; men get jobs, and then, ironically, pay the taxes upon which the boys freeload.

Men are not diminished by accountability to their wives and children. Real men can lead. Real men can follow. They never do anything just to "show somebody who's boss."

Real men happily affix their signature to the Declaration of Dependence and Interdependence, and then take their place in community. It's a duty. It's a joy.

It's reality.

Next, community.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.