America at High Noon

One of the alluring aspects of the story of St. George and the dragon is the individual, solitary effort of St. George. The dragon had been a real problem and the elders  had been unable to solve it--giving up their young women to the dragon.  But St. George, without having to organize any group, without having to think about regulations, simply rode out on his horse and dispatched the dragon. One man: problem solved.
It's a story we have told in different forms through the ages:  Gary Cooper, at High Noon, has to face the gang of killers alone. Ultimately, he has to rely on himself, as every man in this life does. In the end, we are all alone. We come into t he world alone and we depart alone. The solitary soul. Odysseus may travel with companions, but in the end, he is washed up on his home shore alone.

In the real world, however, at least in the 21st century,  what one man can accomplish alone, is limited. Dragons who can be killed by a single knight on horseback are now few and far between. Most really important problems today cannot be solved by a single brave man, of great resolve and strength.  They require lots of people and lots of organization.
Ulysses S. Grant solved the greatest problem of his age, but not alone. He was single minded, but he did not act alone. 
He would show up at the tent of a subordinate general, his eyes fastened on the tops of his own shoes, kicking dirt, shoulders hunched, listening to the subordinate's explanations of his problems, why his army could not move from its current position, but the soldiers watching the conversation always knew: When Grant showed up, there would be fighting soon. 
The fox is very clever and knows many things; the hedgehog is not so clever, and he knows only one thing, but he knows it well.  Grant knew one thing: He had to engage the enemy, to keep in constant contact, to keep the pressure on Lee and Lee's army. He knew that territory, arms, supply lines, cities--none of that would win the war. He knew his one objective was to meet the enemy army and destroy it. 
After the war, one of the great Southern generals was asked how the Army of Northern Virginia had been brought to defeat. What logistical problems, what economic problems, what strategic problems had led to defeat?  "I think the Union army likely had something to do with it," he said, in the end. 

Grant was the force which drove that army.
But that took other people, organization, getting people to  swing into action.
Reading Raffi Khatchadourian's  long, excellent article in the New Yorker  (March 3), the long, complicated, push to develop a hydrogen nuclear plant which could produce an inexhaustible supply of energy for everyone on earth, out of abundant hydrogen, one has to appreciate how much working together, as frustrating and inefficient as it may be, is the only way to achieve really enormous goals. 

Albert Einstein did not make the atomic bomb in his garage. A large group of men did that. 

For all their insistence that government is the problem, the Tea Party, Joe Sixpack, the heart and soul of the Republican Party have cleaved to one, central idea: We do not need each other; we do not need group effort. It's really every man for himself in this life and that's the way it ought to be.

It's a seductive idea, especially in income tax season. But it is a bankrupt idea.
The fact is, solitary confinement is no joy.
We do more and do better in groups. 
We just don't like to admit it.