When Americans are born on third base and think they hit a triple. I’m in line at the Target pharmacy watching a woman edge a baby stroller back and forth. Lena, the pharmacy tech, tilts her screen toward the woman and points. The information hits hard.

Individualism has been blamed for the break up of communities, personal alienation and rampant western consumerism. At the same time, with its focus on liberty and human rights, it is lauded as the crowning glory of western culture. How do we come to terms with this paradox?

A few days after Thanksgiving last year, Kurtis Minder got a message from a man whose small construction-engineering firm in upstate New York had been hacked. Minder and his security company, GroupSense, got calls and e-mails like this all the time now, many of them tinged with panic.

The hysterectomy Ms. Noble needed to remove a fibroid was not up for discussion so far as her doctor was concerned, despite the fact that she didn’t want children. It took years of pain and an emergency room visit before she was finally granted the surgery at 37.

Rather than creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking. Imagine you came across a child drowning in a small pond and you were the only one around to help.