Individual, society and community

One of the great myths of the modernisation movements that is beginning to unravel as time passes is the conception of the “free or autonomous individual.”

The free and autonomous individual was to be a personality able to risk stepping outside the moulds of the community that bind his will, able to make his own decisions, and able to shape his own personality through his own decisions. From the sum of these individuals, the structure called “society” would emerge. Society was to stand out as the alternative to the sociality organised as community in the traditional world. And the most important pillar and actor of society was to be the individual himself.

As early as the 19th century, F. Nietzsche would expose that this “individual” was demanded entirely by the capitalist market for its own project, and that he had no characteristic other than being a ready-made community member with a prepared role and duty. In doing his buying and selling in the capitalist market, this individual actor needed in particular to be a personality freed from traditional community ties and having acquired predictable behaviours in the marketplace. So that he could be calculated upon, economic models could be built on him, and even, to some extent, sociology could be done.

Of course, this myth of the individual was supported by certain philosophical considerations. Philosophies of the free and autonomous individual were made, but when these considerations were followed through to the end, it became clear at the end of the road that this individual project was a raw fantasy that was both incompatible with reality and, even when attained, of no benefit to anyone, not even to itself.

The individual acquires even his own “self” within a process of socialisation, as a result of graded relations he establishes with others, especially with the groups he perceives as the “other” and with those others he calls “ours.” Today this finding is counted among the most commonplace knowledge of the social sciences.

Human personality, even under the most modern conditions and even in its most spontaneous state, takes shape within a community. Even the modernisers who tried to realise the project of modernity, that is, who aimed to dissolve communities and substitute society in their place, tried to do so within the most rigid community structures, by developing very special community languages. Even those today who, knowingly or unknowingly, voice anti-community ideas have a milieu in which they acquired or share these ideas, and these milieus themselves work as communities.

According to the interview Türkan Saylan gave to Ayşe Arman, the ÇYDD takes a one-to-one close interest in the people to whom it gives scholarships. So much so that it takes great care that there be no “infiltration” among them. If there is an “infiltration” expected to take place through receiving a scholarship, then the relations are not left at the level of merely giving a scholarship; a kind of “affiliation” (intisap) is also sought. For affiliation, certain mental, environmental and behavioural preparation and qualifications of merit are sought. Sharp boundaries are drawn with “others,” and an “othering” discourse is developed about “them.” As the categories feared to “infiltrate” are defined, “among ourselves” states also begin to be lived, and the special language that operates within a closed community begins to work.

In fact, even those who live in the same housing complex may, because of the lifestyle they share and their socialising together, begin after a while to move toward a commonality of political stance or opinion as well.

About 10 years ago, the sociologist Ramazan Yelken, looking at these community patterns under modern conditions, had observed that a new acceptance had developed in the social sciences in the direction of “The Return of Community” (Vadi Yayınları). Indeed, it simply had not been seen that community had in fact never withdrawn from life. Following in the footsteps of Ferdinand de Tönnies, everyone fell under the illusion that “society” had taken the place of community.

In the end, the individual sought by the project of modernisation could not be reached. Nor could the transition be made from community to a society composed of “those” individuals. Instead, community “transformed.”

Today’s community encompasses not the traditional relationships that people are born into but formations that they choose by their own will, contribute to, and are able to transform. That is why the transformed community contains, in one respect, a characteristic of being a modern “society.”

The patterns of socialisation that people join voluntarily and can leave whenever they wish undoubtedly provide the modern human with a different field of action.

But the development of personality, the way a person’s relation with his surroundings or with others is established, that is, existence as community, has not changed in essence, and no one can be exempt from this mode.