The dominant narrative these days across much of the world is, as Ayn Rand said about her novel The Fountainhead, the story of ‘individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul’. In India, we too celebrate such individualism where heroic individuals, through their will power, strategic vision, perseverance and unique personal qualities, lift society up by its bootstraps and, like Nietzsche’s superman, and create a new moral order. This new social order will, ostensibly, enjoy a higher level of human creativity and human freedom. In this narrative, individualism has built the modern world.
This is, however, only half the story. While Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Stephen Schwarzman, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Mukesh Ambani have made a significant difference as individuals, as also countless others who have passed away, there is another perspective that is equally significant but has rarely been celebrated. Obscured by the dominant narrative, this other account applauds the contribution of groups. Working together in collaborations, such groups, through sharing and cooperation, produce outcomes that are no less beneficial for society. In this story, there are no supermen just worker bees.
The making of the $9.7 billion James Webb telescope is one such story. One of the most significant technological achievements of the last few years, that involved construction, transportation, launching, alignment, and deployment in deep space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a project that marked twenty plus years of continuous collaboration between many teams. Its successful placement in deep space is a defining moment in humankind’s history of reaching for the stars. Another journey into ‘man’s soul’ has just begun.
