💡 Solidarity series For the full picture of why the more you connect the lonelier you grow — and where the exit lies — start with the cluster pillar. → Why the more you connect, the lonelier you grow
Introduction
A launch full of heat. Members growing. Words of gratitude, and a solid response.
And a few years later, the same scene repeats. The operator’s sudden halt of activity. The bewilderment of the members left behind. Or a closed, airless atmosphere that feels stifling from outside.
Whoever the operator, whatever the theme, whatever the scale, the destination is much alike.
Many are surely searching for how to make operation succeed. What this article verifies is the premise beneath it: why, in different places, the same ending is repeated — its structure.
Let me give the conclusion first. It is not a failure of operation but three terminuses toward which the design “those who lead and those who follow” necessarily heads.
📖 Contents
Terminus 1: The Operator’s Burnout
Look first at the first terminus.
Burnout does not happen suddenly; it advances slowly through three stages.
The first stage is “the migration of motive.” The experience “I put out what I wanted to put out, and there was a reaction” turns into the behaviour “keep putting out what gets a reaction.” Even if quality is maintained, the motive that generates is quietly migrating from inside to outside. This stage is hard to notice from outside and even for the person.
The second stage is “defensive transmission.” A stage of keeping out content that, while meeting the expected standard, has drifted from your original concern. The fear of falling silent also strengthens. Put something out and you must meet expectations; fall silent and worry and criticism come — you enter a structure where both lead to depletion.
The third stage is “rupture.” It appears to the outside as a sudden halt of activity, but its substance is “the loss of the will to continue.” From the first stage to here takes months to years. Even if it looks sudden from outside, it is only the final stage of an accumulated process.
The sociologist Max Weber argued that 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 to keep supplying fresh insight. Burnout is not weakness of will but the terminus toward which one embedded in this structure heads.
Terminus 2: The Members’ Dependence
The second terminus advances on the participants’ side.
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.
What is grave is that this dependence advances accompanied by a sense of “I am learning.” Participants learn the terms and become able to speak the operator’s 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 operator’s viewpoint. Copying is not learning. It deepens the dependence on the original.
The world of scholarship has the concept of “citation.” When you cite another’s research, it is not “this person says it, so it is right” but “using the data this research showed as material for my own argument.” Citation is not subordination but the use of an ingredient.
Learning in a dependent place is, in many cases, not this citation but closer to copying.
And a turning point arrives. When the operator halts activity, the participant who has long depended is left in a state of not knowing “where to head next.” The “question of one’s own” they held before entering has faded with time.
This is not a lack of ability. It is a shrinkage of thinking born as the result of “the habit of posing one’s own question” going unused for a long time. Obedience is visible, but the shrinkage of the power to pose questions is invisible. Only when the operator becomes absent does its degree come to light.
▸ On the point where this dependence begins, see why dependence begins in the place you entered seeking connection.
Terminus 3: Closure
The third terminus is a change in the nature of the place itself.
What is treated here is not a particular organisation but its social-psychological structure. Excessive obedience to a particular figure, the exclusion of critical thinking, the cutting off of external information, an interpretation of the world by internal logic alone — a state holding such features.
This is not necessarily something a malicious operator deliberately creates. When the design “there is one who stands at the centre” grows large, there is a dynamic that arises necessarily.
First, an “absolute rightness” is formed. No one declared it; the accumulation of agreement makes the standard.
Next, pressure on those who doubt that rightness is born. This pressure arises even without the operator explicitly instructing it. The social cost of expressing an opinion against “what everyone thinks is right” forms of its own accord.
The principle of “social proof” shown by the psychologist Robert Cialdini works here [Cialdini, 2007]. People are apt to judge as right what many people think is right.
And finally, critical thinking itself comes to be treated as “something harmful.” The more closed it becomes, the thinner the connection to the outside. The deeper the dependence, the greater the loss when that place vanishes.
The Single Root Common to the Three
These three look like independent problems. But they share a root. “A relationship that does not presuppose self-reliance.”
The operator burns out because they cannot stop depending on the participants’ approval. A dependence in which one’s reason for being wavers without evaluation binds the operator.
Participants become dependent because they choose the relief of obedience over trust in their own judgement. A dependence fleeing the weight of self-reliant judgement binds the participants.
Closure advances because belonging to the place takes priority over identity as a self-reliant individual. The fear of “falling out” binds the participants.
What the psychologist Erich Fromm drew out in Escape from Freedom was this structure [Fromm, 1941]. Freedom is accompanied by the burdens of loneliness and responsibility. To flee these burdens, the human being seeks submission to a strong authority.
Further, there is one more layer. Dependence on the platform. Follower counts, visibility by algorithm — these indices are defined by the platform. On top of dependence on the operator, dependence on the platform is layered. This multi-layering makes escape still harder.
Why “Improvement” Does Not Work
Know these three, and the reason many improvements do not work comes into view.
Raise the quality of the content, and participants come to expect more. The escalation of expectation accelerates depletion (Terminus 1).
Tidy the rules, and the authority to enact and enforce concentrates on the operator. This very concentration of power becomes the source of “absolute rightness” (Terminus 3).
Screen the members, and the exclusivity of “a group of the chosen” is born. Exclusivity strengthens the sense of belonging and strengthens resistance to critical thinking (Terminus 3).
What these commonly overlook is the question of the design philosophy. As long as you are searching for “how to run a place with one at the centre better,” you cannot reach where the problem lies. The problem is not in the operation but in the premise of the design.
Conclusion: Take the Question Outside the Frame
That the same ending is repeated was neither the fault of the operator’s qualities nor the participants’ problem. It is because the design “someone leads and others gather to it” necessarily produces the dynamic heading toward three terminuses.
Let me confirm, to be safe. I am not denying a place where people gather itself. The limit of working in isolation is real, and the value of learning from another’s viewpoint is genuine. What is being questioned is the design philosophy of that place.
If so, what is needed is not improvement but taking the question outside the frame.
From “how can I make a better place?” to “what should the founding principle of solidarity be in the first place?”
The moment you pose this question, the options change. Rather than placing a figure at the centre, place a shared question. Design it not as a place that distributes answers but as a place that brings questions. This transformation alone removes the very conditions that produce the three terminuses. The whole of this design is gathered in why the more you connect, the lonelier you grow.
References
Academic papers and theory
- Weber, M. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1921)
- Fromm, E. Escape from Freedom (1941)
- Cialdini, R. B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (2007)
- Milgram, S. “Behavioral Study of Obedience” (1963) Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4)
