Ubuntu theology in South Africa rejects Descartes’s adage ‘I think therefore I am’ in favour of the adage ‘I belong therefore I am’ or ‘I am because we are, we are because he is’.

Strong, productive—and ruggedly individual. Whether one of a million in a forest or standing by itself on the savannah, a tree grows silently on its own, reaches its own heights, and ultimately dies alone. Right? Wrong. The aspen tree, it turns out, is not a solitary majesty, as I learned by sheer coincidence later that day from a friend who knows