Why the More You Connect, the Lonelier You Grow — Four Principles for Rebuilding Solidarity

Introduction

Working independently places you inside a deep isolation. You keep making decisions with no one to consult, and no one can confirm for you whether your judgement was right.

Within that isolation, the word “community” carries a strong pull. There is a place where I can connect with people in the same circumstances — from that hope, people seek community. And in fact followers grow, members gather.

Yet the more the connections increase, the more another kind of loneliness grows. You are surrounded by words of gratitude, and yet you have no partner for thinking. No one argues back against your ideas.

The know-how of running a community has already been discussed at length. What this article sets down is the question one step upstream of it: why the very design of increasing connections works in the direction of deepening loneliness — its structure.

Let me give the conclusion first. The problem is not a failure of operation but the design philosophy itself — “those who lead and those who follow.” And the exit is not to become a better leader; it is, and can be nothing other than, to transform the founding principle of solidarity.

The Desire Is Legitimate; the Way of Answering It Is Distorted

Let me make one thing clear at the outset. The desire for community is, in itself, legitimate. There is a limit to working in solitude. The value of learning from another’s viewpoint is real.

The problem is that when you try to answer this legitimate desire, the design called “follower-type” gets chosen. The desire to resolve loneliness is converted into the form of “dependence on a leader.” The desire to “think together” is quietly swapped for the desire to “be told the answer.”

The follower-type satisfies a legitimate human desire in a distorted direction. It satisfies the desire to connect in the form of dependence. It satisfies the desire to learn in the form of the wish to obey. Precisely because it is satisfying the desire on the surface, it looks as though it is working.

I am not denying community itself. I am questioning its design philosophy.

The Leader Becomes “a Vessel for the Desire to Be Approved”

What happens to the leader who launches a community?

At first it looks smooth. But before long, the enquiries begin to multiply. “In my case, what should I do?” These questions, delightful at first, begin to take on the meaning of “please think in my place.”

The leader responds — because responding feels as though it deepens trust. But each time they answer, the expectation “ask the leader and an answer comes back” settles in. Once this structure is complete, the leader begins to function as a vessel for the community’s desire to be approved.

The sociologist Max Weber classified the forms of the legitimacy of power into three. One of them, charismatic domination, carries within it a problem called “the routinisation of charisma” [Weber, 1921]. Charismatic authority is maintained only by continually displaying “miracles.” But it is impossible for a leader to keep supplying fresh insight forever.

Burnout is not weakness of will. It is the necessary terminus toward which one embedded in the structure of charismatic domination heads.

And what is more, words of gratitude keep arriving even as one is worn down. The voice “I can be here because you exist” brings guilt about stopping. Between depletion and a sense of responsibility, the leader gradually becomes unable to move.

▸ This structure of depletion is treated in why relationships wear you out — not because there are too many.

Members Gradually Stop Thinking

On the members’ side, meanwhile, what happens?

In an environment where “ask and an answer comes back,” the motive to go through the process of thinking for yourself, forming hypotheses, and learning from failure thins. Asking before thinking becomes habitual.

By the self-determination theory of the psychologists Deci and Ryan, people have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness [Deci & Ryan, 1985]. When the structure “obeying the leader is the correct answer” is reinforced, the members’ need for autonomy ceases to be met. Then intrinsic motivation is replaced by extrinsic motivation — approval, praise, the leader’s evaluation.

What is grave is that this dependence advances accompanied by a sense of “I am learning.” Members learn the leader’s terms and become able to speak their views in their own words. Seen from outside, they look as though they are growing. But they are not developing an original viewpoint; they are only making a precise copy of the leader’s viewpoint. Copying is not learning. It deepens the dependence on the original.

And when the leader stops their activity, the members who have depended are left in a state of not knowing “where to head next.” The “question of one’s own” they held before entering the community has faded.

The Three Terminuses Are Born Necessarily from the Design

The follower-type has, in the long run, three termini. The leader’s burnout. The members’ dependence. And cultification.

Here let me touch on a famous theory. Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans” showed the insight that building deep relationships leads to sustainable activity. Seth Godin’s “Tribes” argued that people who share a common vision hold power.

Let me confirm, to be safe. I am not treating these theories themselves as the problem. The insight that “building deep relationships is more sustainable than diffusion to an unspecified mass” is essentially correct. The problem lies in the distortion that arose in the process by which these theories were implemented in the particular environment of the platform. The insight “build deep relationships” came to be interpreted as the directive “increase your follower count” — that distortion is what is at issue.

Seen structurally, every one of these discourses presupposes an asymmetric relationship between “those who lead” and “those who follow.” And a community designed on top of this asymmetry heads toward one of the three termini.

▸ The three termini are dissected in why online salons all end the same way.

“A Relationship That Does Not Presuppose Self-Reliance” — the Common Root

These three look like independent problems, yet they share a root. “A relationship that does not presuppose self-reliance.”

What Erich Fromm drew out in Escape from Freedom was precisely this structure [Fromm, 1941]. The freedom modern society gave the individual is accompanied by the burdens of loneliness and responsibility. To flee these burdens, the human being seeks submission to a strong authority. The follower-type answers this psychological desire precisely. By providing the relief of “just obey the leader,” it makes a refuge from the burden of autonomy.

And “self-reliance” here means neither a large income nor a stable belonging. If, the moment the leader you relied on stops, or the place you belonged to is closed, you fall into a state of “not knowing what to do,” that cannot be called self-reliance.

What matters is that “self-reliance” and “living in solitude” are wholly different. When self-reliant human beings gather, each becomes for the others not “a dependency without which I cannot live” but “an ally whose presence widens my thinking.” Presupposing self-reliance enriches solidarity.

What Separates “Believer” from “Ally” Is the Kind of Reaction

Then what is the relationship to aim for?

As I have gone on transmitting through my newsletter, I have received two kinds of reaction.

On one side there is the reaction shaped as “I think you are exactly right.” As reception it is courteous. But when I receive this reaction, my thinking does not move.

On the other side there is the reaction shaped as “this viewpoint differs from my own observation right here.” When I receive this reaction, something happens on my side. There is the surprise of “so that is how this person sees it,” and the discovery of “my way of seeing had stopped here.”

The former is a believer-type reaction; the latter is an ally-type reaction.

Here lies the paradox of loneliness. A leader who keeps receiving only believer-type reactions has, while surrounded by approval, no partner for thinking. That one’s own ideas are received exactly as they are also means that one’s own ideas are being verified by no one.

Being surrounded by tens of thousands of followers while no one argues back is, in a sense, lonelier than holding a few allies.

Note that “believer” here carries no religious meaning. It is a social-psychological metaphor for a state of accepting the words of an authority without critical examination — of surrendering one’s autonomous judgement to an external authority.

Ally-Type Solidarity Has Four Design Principles

Ally-type solidarity is not idealism. It is something that can be built on clear design principles.

First, self-reliance as a precondition. Each person holds an “eye” they can lend. A human being who has walked their own life by their own choice holds a distinctive observation. This distinctiveness is the source of an eye lendable to others.

Second, resonance at a high level of abstraction in worldview. Using the same method is not the condition of solidarity. Agreement on a concrete method collapses when the method changes. Resonance in worldview can be maintained without harming diversity, because the latitude for each person’s interpretation and practice is high.

Third, bidirectionality. A state in which everyone is a giver and everyone is a receiver. On one question someone holds the insight; on another, someone else does. This fluidity makes solidarity function.

Fourth, the tolerance of diversity. Treating the reaction “that differs from my view” not as a problem but as an asset. From a homogeneous group, only homogeneous conclusions are born.

These four are derived as direct answers to the four defects of the follower-type — the formation of dependence, reliance on concrete agreement, the fixing of roles, and homogenisation.

▸ Each principle is treated in what is the difference between a comrade and an ally?.

Solidarity Is Decided by the Design of “What Not to Do”

In practice, the most essential thing is the design of “what not to do.”

The dynamics of the follower-type work of their own accord if left alone. Give approval. Stand in for judgement. Enter the role of one who keeps giving. The moment any one of these settles in, the structure of dependence begins.

So what is needed to maintain the ally-type is to consciously “not do” these. Do not stand in for judgement. Do not keep giving approval. Make self-reliance explicit as a premise. And build the limit into the design.

“Giving an answer” and “supporting the holding of a question” are different ways of relating. Instead of returning “do it this way,” ask back “how do you think about this question?” The latter prompts the other’s autonomous thinking.

This consistency comes not from conviction but from design. From the understanding of the structure “standing in for judgement produces the follower-type,” the action of “not standing in” is chosen naturally. When understanding of the structure guides action, a consistency independent of willpower is born.

Conclusion: Not the Number, but Whether Thinking Moves

That the more you connect the lonelier you grow was not because you run things poorly, nor because people are bad. It is because the design philosophy “someone stands at the centre and others gather to it” necessarily produces depletion and dependence.

So the exit does not lie within “becoming a better leader.” Tidy the rules and power still concentrates; screen the members and exclusivity is born; raise the quality of the content and the expected standard rises. None of these improvements touches the premise of the design.

What is needed is to change the question. From “how can I make a better community?” to “what should the founding principle of solidarity be in the first place?”

The value of holding a single ally may, in the long run, be greater than the value of holding a thousand followers. Because one year of dialogue with a single ally can update your thinking more than all the reactions received from a thousand people. Receive the overall blueprint as your next step.

Articles in This Cluster: Reading Each Argument in Depth

This article showed, as a whole picture, that the more you connect the lonelier you grow is a problem of “the design philosophy of those who lead and those who follow.” Each argument is dissected more deeply in its own piece, arranged in the order of this article’s reasoning — the structure of depletion, the three terminuses, the origin of dependence, history and psychology, and the design of the ally-type.

The structure of depletion — why gathering more wears you out

• Why relationships wear you out — not because there are too many — an obligation to answer expectations produces the depletion
• Why the more followers you gain, the thinner the relationships grow — the expansion of number and the quality of relationship are a trade-off

The three terminuses — where the follower-type always heads

• Why online salons all end the same way — burnout, dependence, and closure as necessities
• What the idea of “increasing your fans” overlooks — a true fan is not necessarily the partner of a healthy solidarity

The origin of dependence — who enters, and how

• Why dependence begins in the place you entered seeking connection — the structure of entering as “one who seeks a solution”
• Why you lose your place after seeking a third place — the desire for a place of belonging becomes the entrance to dependence

History and psychology — why people obey of their own accord

• Peer pressure is not made by anyone — social proof quietly removes critical thinking

The design of the ally-type — rebuilding solidarity

• What is the difference between a comrade and an ally? — the four principles of self-reliance, resonance in worldview, bidirectionality, and diversity
• Why increasing exchange does not deepen thinking — the design of “what not to do” decides the quality of the relationship

This argument — the trap of surrendering sovereignty to the outside — can be analysed with the same structure from other domains. Why trying to be stoic drives you further from freedom dissects the sovereignty of desire; the true nature of the guilt around earning dissects guilt over money. These are sister clusters, each dissecting from a different angle: what this article treats is the design of solidarity — whether you make believers or hold allies. The whole picture of this book’s solution, structural autonomy, starts from the structural autonomy master pillar.

Actually running an ally-type relationship is handled in the articles under the craft of community leadership. In particular, the three patterns of corruption that collapse an online salon and designing the right to be able to fail bring this article’s design principles down into operation.

The book-length treatment of this argument is available as Your Believers Are Making You Lonely on Amazon Kindle.

References

Academic papers and theory

• Weber, M. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1921)
• Fromm, E. Escape from Freedom (1941)
• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (1985) Plenum Press
• Dunbar, R. I. M. “Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates” (1992) Journal of Human Evolution, 22(6)
• Cialdini, R. B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (2007)