Making Society Bounce with People Living in the Margins (Serial Column / Chapter 1)

How to create a community that does not infringe on individual autonomy

For over a decade, the word "community" has been frequently used in discussions about human connections.

Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced real-life contact, its value has been further emphasized, and we have increasingly heard phrases like "community management is the key from now on."

However, in the midst of this trend, hasn't the fundamental question of "what a community should be in the first place" been somewhat left behind?

And another thing: I have long felt that the ideal form of a community is deeply similar to the essence of creating soil where a child's autonomy can be nurtured.

I would like to organize my thoughts in my own way while pulling these two questions together.

What is an organic community?

What is a community that continues to function for a long time?

When facing this question, I always feel that the "individual within it" is more essential than the "continuation of the place."

If we use the metaphor of a stage and a lead actor, the lead actor is always each individual participant, and the community is merely a "stage for the lead actor to thrive."

No matter how attractive a place may be, if the stage itself becomes the lead actor, strains will gradually emerge.

Thinking about it this way, wouldn't it be much healthier for a community to be a "place that continues naturally as a result of individuals being themselves" rather than a "place where one must contribute to keep it going"?

However, in reality, an unconscious pressure to "be someone useful to this place" often arises.

Relationships that should have started from the security of "having a place to belong" are quietly replaced by a dependency structure on the desire for approval—the need to "keep demonstrating value here"—which silently binds individual freedom.

I have felt that atmosphere myself more times than I can count.

A sense of discomfort with community marketing

I also sometimes feel a gap between the ideal and the reality in the term "community marketing," which I hear often in recent years.

Originally, it should be an endeavor to explore how to engage with new values and carefully cultivate relationships with customers and peers.

However, in reality, it sometimes looks like nothing more than a subdivision of traditional mass marketing, incorporating the relationships themselves into a revenue-generating mechanism.

Of course, I do not mean to deny all commercial activities, operations, or the efforts of community managers.

In fact, there are business owners around me who carefully respect the autonomy of each individual customer and utilize their community to bring out that person's unique potential.
There, the operation itself is not the goal; the community functions strictly as a "soil for individuals to enrich their own lives."

The difference between the two, I suspect, lies not in "how to grow the community," but in "how far one is willing to protect the autonomy of the individual."

The Differences Between Companies, Religions, and Communities

In the context of building the same future with peers, the vessel known as a "company" exerts great power.
On the other hand, when dependence on the same values becomes excessive, a structure similar to a "religion" can sometimes emerge.

Unlike those, for me, a community is something I want to be a "place entrusted to the individual" where, while sharing a similar direction or set of questions, the ultimate way of living and meaning-making remains with the individual.

That is precisely why I hope that the recent surge in community building and the training of community managers will function not as devices for enclosing people, but as "support for setting people free."

If a community leans toward "enclosure" to maximize the business owner's profits, the room for individual autonomy to be exercised narrows, and the place, rather than liberating people, could quietly become something that binds them.

What a community needs is neither control nor neglect; perhaps "a design that does not erode individual autonomy" is what is most important.

Parallels with the State of Elementary and Junior High Schools

I feel that the perspective I have organized here also applies to the state of elementary and junior high schools, as well as parent-child relationships.

Do not over-hype it.
Do not force participation.
Do not over-glorify contribution as a virtue.
And above all...
Protect the premise that "even if they are not here, that person's life remains valid."

In other words, a community does not need to be the center of a person's life.
Rather, I want it to be an existence that does not steal the center, but gently provides room for expansion.

I believe that such a place is a community that does not weaken people, but rather strengthens their spirits and supports the polishing of their individuality.

I have no intention of stepping into the debate over whether schools are communities.
However, when viewed from the perspective of "how organic can a school be as a place where a child's autonomy is nurtured," I cannot help but feel a question there that is very similar to that of a community.

I would like to delve deeper into that in the sequel, Chapter 2.

[Making Society Bounce with People Living in the Margins] Series Structure

Introduction | Starting a conversation about loosening up on "doing things properly"
Chapter 1 | How a community should be without infringing on individual autonomy (This article)
Chapter 2 | The school as a community and children's autonomy
Chapter 3 | Rethinking the family as the "first community"
Chapter 4 | The struggle of parents who take away margins even though they don't want to
Final Chapter | Parents living their own lives set their children free

Backstage, Inc.
Culture Formation Designer
Yoshinori Kawai

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