The choice between a reassuring dependency and the uncertainty of adventure can be difficult. For many people, dependency can even be experienced as a quiet adventure. It can also be seen as a means of contentment: as long as you have to live with ongoing frustration, why not accept the situation and adapt to it? At the frontier of autonomy, some people skilfully play on the notes of security and comfort.
Fundamental dependencies, accepted without question, such as the need to sleep, eat, work or be subject to gravity, are the rules of the game within which it remains possible to evolve and even free oneself through individual or collective effort, often both. We can't fly in the air, but human beings have always dreamed of doing so, and have finally succeeded in doing so, and even beyond, but not alone.
We don't build houses with our hands, grow our own food or weave our own clothes. We may participate in one or other of these activities, but above all, other people help to ensure our survival. Social interdependence to achieve individual autonomy seems a curious paradox, but one that works well.
Gradually freeing oneself from guardianship is a normal process of growth, leading to a willing contribution to one's environment, without denying its constraints. The school has made this one of its official objectives, but it remains difficult to put into practice, just as in business, where autonomy is both encouraged and strictly framed within a practical administrative blur.
What remains are the dependencies maintained for the benefit of the dominant, and the submissiveness under direct or hidden constraints, as in certain religions, political systems and companies where human beings are stripped of their agentivity. Imbalanced power relations set unconsented limits on the autonomy to which we can aspire, weakening the capacities of individuals and groups alike.
Social organization can either increase our autonomy or reduce it. What are the forms that foster it? Is there a level of autonomy that becomes problematic beyond a certain threshold? This dossier tackles the subject of autonomy in a number of ways, with a few gems to discover.
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
Illustration: Shutterstock- 2483374445
