You didn't build that

In a recent NPR broadcast on the wonders of the human brain, we learned how researchers have been able to identify particular regions used for specific tasks and emotions. Such as the finding that people who are happy tend to have a larger precuneus, a structure also thought responsible for consciousness.

These are indeed miraculous times, that we can inspect our own brain and determine what makes us self-aware, what makes us feel happy, which regions might cause insomnia, and how we learn language. One scholar exclaimed of the mystery and power of a brain that is able to unlock its own secrets and understand itself.

After all, our brain is but a computer, composed of about 86 billion neurons. The African elephant has three times as many, but we rarely see scholarly articles published by elephants.

The secret, of course, is that we have evolved the ability to communicate, to both exchange and record complex thoughts. And that over time we have developed tools and technologies allowing us to delve into our physical world, to manipulate and understand its workings, including that of our own brain.

When a single researcher is bent on the task of fathoming the human brain, it is not only her brain focused on the task. She is benefiting from billions of fellow human brains that have, over many years, built a corpus of thought and research and tools and recorded knowledge. This is our unique human power.

Robinson Crusoe, stranded alone on his desert island, would have little chance of understanding the operation of his own brain.

In any human endeavor, it is the multiplication effect that makes our race so successful. Libraries full of research, universities training new generations, clever tools and machines and sensors probing our world, computers and networks facilitating communication, we amplify the power of our own measly 86 billion neurons.

In spite of the critical importance of this social infrastructure, individual brilliance is still crucial, cultivated, and revered. Albert Einstein, whose theory of ripples in the fabric of space-time was recently validated, stood on the shoulders of Copernicus and Planck and Maxwell. It’s as if this fabric of human knowledge and abilities forms a trampoline on which a brilliant, young, aspiring thinker might ascend to a new insight, a breakthrough, a flash of genius.

In this we observe the interaction and mutual interdependence of society and the individual.

“You didn’t build that” is a meme that has pervaded our recent politics. It is meant to diminish the significance, and hence the deserved remuneration, of individual contribution. Liberals use it as a justification for increasing the tax on success. Conservatives interpret it as an attack on the value of entrepreneurs and the free market.

In truth, both have a point. Tom Brady would not be fabulously wealthy without the social infrastructure that offers him a field of play. But we (at least those who are fans) would be the poorer for not seeing his brilliance on the field. Tom Brady is wealthy because we value the entertainment he provides.

Examples abound. Steve Jobs (rest his soul), was enormously wealthy but brought us our ubiquitous, dearly loved iPhones. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, each multi-billionaires, founded Google, an indispensable tool to billions of people every day. Mark Zuckerberg, another multi-billionaire, brought us the spectacle of silly cat videos and embarrassing spring break photos on our Facebook feeds. None of these folks “built that.” But “that” wouldn’t have been built, in this way, at this time, without them.

More quotidian examples surround us. For government employee, teacher, police, and fireman pension funds, those are invested in corporate America. The success of those companies, and the CEOs who lead them, is paramount to your retirement. Yet somehow it is fashionable to decry and punish that success.

Just as in science, society has evolved a commercial infrastructure upon which our entrepreneurs and business leaders create and implement their individual visions. It is true that trucking companies couldn’t be successful without public roads. But without trucking companies, the value of public roads would be diminished. And it’s also true that we must all contribute to the public fisc.

But we must never demean nor punish individual achievement, whether an Einstein, Zuckerberg, or Brady. Individuals need society, and the inverse is blindingly obvious. The trampoline is useless without the jumper.