Schur loved not only the central thesis of “What We Owe to Each Other” but also the book’s title. “It assumes
that we owe things to each other,” he told me. “It starts from that
place. It’s not like: Do we owe anything to each other? It’s like: Given
that we owe things to each other, let’s try to figure out what they
are. It’s a very quietly subversive idea.”It is, in a way, deeply un-American — an
affront to our central mythology of individual rights, self-interest and
the sanctity of the free market. As an over-the-top avatar of all our
worst impulses, Eleanor is severely allergic to any notion of community.
And yet her salvation will turn out to depend on the people around her,
all of whom will in turn depend on her. What makes us good, Chidi tells
her, is “our bonds to other people and our innate desire to treat them
with dignity.”
bongdanceking 