Our need to belong to a smaller or larger community is a constant in human history. Capitalism, and with it the rise of populism in politics, may have had a tendency – particularly in the West – to emphasize individualism, isolate individuals and appeal to the selfishness of individuals, but the basic need to stand up for a common cause or even to live in a community that goes beyond the nuclear family has survived.

While the divisive effect of selfishness is well known, individualism need not be a barrier to joining others. Rather, individualism leads us to choose more consciously which society we join. Instead of simply being born into a community, in the post-modern age we seek out and form our communities according to our visions and desires.

Associations form and dissolve again so that the community is not bound to each other for life. Sects are perhaps remnants of these premodern, forced communities, which usually take on an authoritarian character due to their tendency to close themselves off. Voluntary associations, on the other hand, can form and organize themselves more sociocratically and thus become a model for a freer, less hierarchically organized society. Sociocratic action can be learned and become a habit in clubs, associations and active social networks (i.e. not Facebook and the like).

Clubs, associations and social networks are independent of the state apparatus and often also of economic profit interests. The concept of civil society as a mediating sphere between the state and individual citizens goes back to Montesquieu. According to this concept, civil society can prevent the ruling classes (today huge international cooperations and their political executing parties and lobbies) from ruling despotically. However, even in an open society, the space in which public power can unfold must be fought for again and again through political action.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt describes this collective action as a second birth. According to Arendt, we are born into a world that exists before we are born. But as soon as we become aware of our existence, we intervene in events by speaking and acting. With her concept of Natality, Hannah Arendt draws attention to the fact that the unique perspective of the individual awakening to his or her second birth through collective action harbors something radically new, a possibility of action that did not exist before. This second birth confirms the bare fact of being born (Greek: Zoé) through collective, meaningful action and takes responsibility for it.

Power itself, in its true sense, can never be possessed by one person alone; power always appears in a mysterious way, as it were, when people act together, and it disappears in no less mysterious ways as soon as a person is completely with himself. (H. Arendt) 1

1 Hannah Arendt, Über das Wesen des Totalitarismus, in: Politik und Verantwortung. Zur Aktualität von Hannah Arendt, Offizin, 2004, p. 26 (citations from the German edition; English edition: Origins of Totalitarism, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973).