First-Person Singular; D. Smith

One of the significant divisions in today's culture is a conflict that goes all the way to the bone marrow of those afflicted and has divided us more than anything since the firing on Fort Sumter. I refer to the people who think of them selves as individuals and those who revel in being part of a group: "I-Thinkers" and "We-Thinkers." This isn't just a passing, or trivial, observation because it represents a profound cleavage in our national makeup, one which seriously impedes communication. I-Thinkers and We-Thinkers just don't get through to each other and probably never will. Mr. Smith, a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, lives in Santa Maria, California. The strange thing about the 1-Think/We-Think phenomenon is that there are so few pure disciples of either philosophy. Most of our citizens, perhaps 80 percent of our population, are combinations of I-We thought and generally lean in one direction.

A person might run a business as a solid I-Thinker but do a complete flip on Saturday when he dresses in the old school colors and sets off for the football game. Or, a basic We-Thinker might become an incon trovertible I when a loud party next door prevents a good night's sleep. It is a case of I need my sleep, I have to get up in the morning, I am not going to put up with this. Yet, the We-Think will take over with the dawn, and our subject returns to the famil iar social enclave. The street gang is an excellent example of pure We-Think. Young people who run with the pack have no concept of their own individuality, and thus the traditional exhortation to "amount to something" falls upon unreceptive ears. A person who is not really a person at all can hardly be expected to excel at anything. Anyone who knows himself only as a small piece of the Green Dragons has no idea of himself as a separate entity and con sequently has no desire to accomplish anything as an individual.

It is quite likely that the strident minority of people who spend their lives marching for causes are far more We-Thinkers than I-Thinkers, espe cially when they resort to such physical expres sions of solidarity as holding hands and locking arms. This is a group-mentality phenomenon, and such activity seems to have considerable appeal for those people who have trouble with the first42 THE FREEMAN • JANUARY 1992 person singular pronoun, 1. They are more com fortable chanting slogans in unison as part of a resounding We. No CommonLanguage One of the reasons that the proponents of free market capitalism have such great difficulty com municating with those of a more collectivist bent is that the two groups don't speak a common lan guage. They use the same words, perhaps, but the meanings are entirely different. The person who leans toward I-Think considers himself only super ficiallyas a member of a class or a social group. He is essentially a functioning single component. Con versely,the We-Thinker has some difficulty seeing himself as being separate and distinct from his fel lows. His immediate need is to be marching in ranks.

Today's capitalism was conceived in an I-Think environment. Indeed, our much heralded "fore fathers" were about as obstinate a breed of do-it yourselfers as has ever graced the planet. The eco nomic system they spawned is little more than a reflection of the Boston Tea Party and a man named Nathan Hale who went to the gallows with but one regret. It all stemmed from a profound and unshakable belief in the majesty of the individual. These people were the personification of the term "rugged individualism." They left an indelible mark, and the outstanding feature of an indelible mark is that it doesn't go away. Unfortunately, this deep-rooted feeling of indi vidual worth has never reached the We-Think intransigents, those who seem to have no realiza tion of their own self-worth and not even the incli nation to test it. They see themselves as only parts of a giant machine, easily replaceable parts that have no value on their own. One wonders why a person who was nurtured in an environment where individualism is encouraged and applauded finds it so difficult to become a part of it. Wonder ing, of course, does not always produce answers.

f\J\J I ~i ~\II r-.t<1 lilt :ViNM~Ni li'~,~" $'" ~{.IL'li~ ~ ::.~ Perhaps it is more comfortable to be a part of the mass, safe in a warm recess where the risks are diluted. It is a place where one cannot fail because failure can only follow attempt. To the various degrees of I-Thinkers, however, the niche in itself is the very essence of failure. In this context, lack of success and failure are not synonymous. Failure only happens when one decides not to try again. The thought processes of people who are essen tially I-Thinkers and those who lean the other way are so alien to each other that conflict is inevitable. One person finds it repugnant to lock arms and march for a cause, even when he finds himself in sympathy, because he wasn't born to be a flywheel or a head gasket. To the We-Thinker this is a nat ural and desirable role. This is the difference between the two factions and, to a lesser extent, that great body of people who lie between them but lean one way or the oth er. One man's revulsion is another man's glory.

Fortunately, our progenitors set it up so that those leaning toward I-Think would make the rules, in a very real sense creating in their own image. So far, the system has worked, with considerably more I than We stirred into the mixture. It would be a neat and tidy arrangement if it could be established that our society is divided into two groups, but it doesn't work out this way, and I wouldn't question Robert Benchley for a moment. I do believe, however, that there is a hard core of I-and We-Thinkers at either end of the social spectrum, and it is these groups who are making most of the noise on almost every social and polit ical issue. For my own purposes, I could never be a card carrying member of either group because neither is solely and intrinsically right. The We-Thinkers, however, seem to make more noise and get less accomplished than the I people, and for this reason I-Think is a better way to lean-except, of course, on Saturday during football season. There are no individuals when the Oregon Ducks take the field to smite the forces of evil. D 43 Readers' Forum To the Editors: In his article "Corporate Social Responsibility: A Dialogue" (The Freeman, September 1991), 1: Franklin Harris, Jr., is correct in dismissingthe cor porate accountability theory. He errs, however, in preferring the corporate natural rights theory over the profit motive theory.