I will agree that my usage of "character" was loose. Everything has character. I used the word as a cliche in the manner that a military man might use it or anyone else who is involved in what is called "team spirit".
The team, into which the ego is submerged to a greater or lesser extent, is more powerful than the individual although some individuals, Einstein types, are a source of power but only if a team takes up with their individual acheivements.
If you listen carefully to interviews given by sportsmen you might notice a profound difference between those involving individuals, golf or tennis, and those involving football players.
I suppose preferences are determined by one's socialisation and mine was for team games and it was an error on my part to lay a claim to the superiority of that over socialisations leading to the other preference.
But there is no question that individual performances lead to a degree of non-social and narcissistic ways of thinking which I think are dangerous.
The myth of Narcissus did have an effect on me as I think do all the surviving myths of our culture, which is itself a team effort in which individual contributions, no matter how outstanding, are submerged. When the efforts in the direction of individuality are not outstanding I think there is a danger because the capacity for silliness and waste is almost infinite. A danger both to the individual and to the culture.
