Taking Things On

Clarifying "what you want to do" or defining one's desires, and "choosing for oneself," seem to be treated as paramount in today's world. In terms of the Will, Can, and Must framework frequently used in career discussions, spontaneous "Will" is being heavily prioritized.

In contrast, I have often argued that there is also a way of thinking that begins with "Must".

One reason Will has come to be emphasized so much is, I believe, the advancement of individualization across several dimensions since the 1990s.

Take careers, for example, as mentioned above. Previously, companies decided department assignments and transfers, but as the premise of lifetime employment began to waver, careers became something individuals had to design for themselves. What is required then is decision-making as an individual; both in education and in job hunting, people are asked, "What do you want to do?"

This certainly has a positive side: it increases individual freedom. On the other hand, it can also be seen as a shift that transfers risks previously borne by companies and society onto the individual. One could say that what was once undertaken by "we" has been apportioned to each individual "I."

The conclusion that "you bear responsibility for yourself" holds true only on the premise that "you chose it yourself." When answering the question "What do you want to do (what will you choose)?", what awaits is the statement, "Because you chose it, the responsibility for the outcome lies with you." If this logic holds, companies and society can offload responsibility onto the individual. The buzzword "self-responsibility" (jiko sekinin) that became prevalent in the 2000s in Japan was, I think, one manifestation of this trend.

As the scope of choice expands, individuals also bear corresponding responsibility and risk. This logic seems consistent, and up to a point, it may even seem fair. Yet when we pause and reflect, the first question that arises is: "Was it truly a choice?" Another concern is that when choice and responsibility are intertwined, it easily fosters the inverse feeling: "I have no responsibility for things I did not choose, or things that are not my fault."

When this feeling spreads, society becomes an array of isolated individuals who define their scope solely by what they have chosen. There, problems that no one chose end up belonging to no one.

While pondering these issues, I recently had a conversation with a former colleague where the topic of "taking things on" (hikiukeru) came up. In a book I was reading recently, the idea of "taking on history" also appeared. I felt that this phrase might be well-suited to describe how one relates to things that cannot be said to have been chosen by one's own Will, and so I decided to write down my thoughts on "taking things on."

Things That Arrive Unchosen

Going through life, things arrive unexpectedly even when we never chose them. A burdensome task gets passed our way, or we find ourselves pulling chestnuts out of the fire when we didn't have to. The history of the country one was born in, or issues like climate change, are similar. If we follow the logic that binds choice to responsibility, we could brush these aside by claiming, "It's not as though I chose this." But is that really acceptable?

The fact that Koichiro Kokubun's The World of Middle Voice (Chudotai no Sekai) was widely read in the 2010s may have been because this discomfort with such logic was widely shared. Kokubun referred to language that perceives events strictly in terms of "doing" or "being done to"—demanding to know whose will an action originated from—as an "interrogating language." An interrogating language seeks the source of an event within the spontaneous will of a single individual. The question "What do you want to do (Will)?" is likely one such example.

Meanwhile, using the perspective of the "middle voice," where the subject exists inside the process, being present at an event or having a role assigned to oneself is neither something one did nor something done to one. It is neither active nor passive; it lies within the gradation between the two. One is simply inside the event, and often there are other people there too.

So how should someone who is inside an event face it? If the middle voice is a way of seeing that describes the state of "being on the inside," I feel the phrase "taking things on" can describe how a person on the inside responds from there.

In my case, things that arrive unchosen sometimes take the form of work requests that exceed my capacity. Such requests come to me because, through an accumulation of good fortune, I happen to be in my current position. Each time, I catch myself thinking, "There must be many people who know more and are much smarter than I am," or "Is it really appropriate for someone like me to take this on?" To be frank, I feel an apologetic sensation akin to imposter syndrome (though I feel I am at an age where I really should have outgrown such feelings). Even so, when I think that declining might mean the role falls to someone unsuitable, I take it on.

Behind this awkwardness of taking something on while harboring feelings of unworthiness, I believe there lies the thought: even though it is not my fault, because I happen to be here, I bear a responsibility, and therefore I will take it on.

Yet the phrasing "having responsibility even though it is not my fault" does not mesh with the initial logic of "having responsibility because you chose it." Therefore, let us untangle the word "responsibility" into two aspects.

Responsibility as Response

I believe there are at least two sides to responsibility. One is the responsibility of being held accountable for what one did or did not do, and the consequences thereof. The logic of "self-responsibility" is grounded in this. The other is the responsibility of responding to the call of others or to the issue before one's eyes. Here, I call the former "responsibility for actions" and the latter "response-ability" (responsibility as response). The English word responsibility, like response, originates from the Latin respondēre (to answer, to respond).

Suppose someone collapses on the street. That person falling is not the fault of a passerby like me. Even so, if I happen to be there, I can at least call an ambulance. Even in a situation I did not choose, I can still make a response.

History is the same. In his famous 1985 speech marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, A Forty Years' Wilderness, West German President Richard von Weizsäcker stated that those who were not yet born cannot confess to guilt for acts they did not commit, and then continued:

All of us, whether guilty or not, whether old or young, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and held responsible for it.

Here, guilt and the responsibility to take on the past seem to be distinguished. While guilt attaches to the actions of individual persons, the responsibility to take on the past is spoken with "all of us" as the subject. Bringing this closer to ourselves, even for generations born after 1945 who cannot be considered direct parties to the war, if they happen to have been born in Germany or Japan and enjoy the benefits of an advanced nation, they bear the responsibility to take on that past.

Conversely, demarcating pre-war and post-war with the stance that "because I was born after the war, that war has nothing to do with me" represents a declaration that one will not take on the history of that country. This applies the sentiment mentioned at the outset—"there is no responsibility for what one did not choose"—to history, and is an act of removing oneself from the "we" that continues from the past (though perhaps such an individualistic perspective has its place).

Climate change is also an issue that cannot be pinned on any single individual. The greenhouse gases being emitted right now are the result of our own actions, making them subject to responsibility for actions. However, the social systems and communal arrangements that continue to emit greenhouse gases were chosen by generations born before us. Nor did we choose to be born into this society.

We might shrug our shoulders and continue the status quo, claiming that we have no responsibility. Yet these problems are something we can at least change going forward. On the other hand, they cannot be changed through the response of a single individual alone. If so, taking on the history and the problem, and striving to solve them alongside others, seems to be a valid way to be.

In short, while responsibility for actions asks each individual "who chose what in the past," response-ability asks "how the people who are here right now will respond from here on."

Responding with What We Have Received

However, not everyone can take things on in the same way. People with greater capacity to take things on will inevitably shoulder more. Rather than grounding this in social status like noblesse oblige, it is about considering how much capacity to respond one possesses.

Every human life has vulnerabilities, and no one is perfect. Everyone carries some wound or weakness, but relatively speaking, there are those whose wounds are shallower and those who are stronger. There are busy periods and healthy periods. Wounds and weaknesses are not binary zeroes or ones. Moreover, simply being born in Japan places one among the fortunate in global terms. Within that context, if someone grew up in an affluent family, received a good education, and occupies an elite position, that is even more true.

Here, we return to the question shelved at the beginning: "Was it truly a choice?" There was certainly effort on the person's part. Even so, being born into an environment where one could make an effort, or where one could cultivate "what one wants to do," was not acquired by choice. Being able to possess Will autonomously also rests on what one has already received.

And much of what we receive comes from outside ourselves: family, preceding generations, education, and societal institutions. Earlier, I cited receiving benefits as a reason why postwar generations take on the past. The capacity to respond similarly connects to the magnitude of what one has received (the reason I take on requests beyond my capacity is also because, through accumulated good fortune, I occupy my current privileged position). That is why I believe that those who have received much might do well to actively take on challenges they happen to encounter, rather than focusing solely on "what they want to do."

There is not just one way to respond. In addition to a "strong response," where one takes central ownership all the way through the outcome, there are also "weak responses": giving voice to something noticed, contributing a little time or money, or passing an issue along to someone capable of handling it. Calling an ambulance for someone who collapsed is a weak response. Even just offering a little assistance—few people are in a position to do so, or have that opportunity come around to them. If that is the case, simply doing what one can when the opportunity arrives may be more than enough.

How to Respond to What Comes

We cannot choose what arrives in life. However, we can choose, to some extent, how we respond to the events that arrive. Kokubun distinguishes between "will" as a pure beginning severed from the past, and "choice" made continuously within the flow from the past.

The interrogating language of "What do you want to do?" may treat choice as the former kind of strong will. Yet we can also demonstrate who we are by choosing how to respond to what has arrived.

This sequence reverses the logic of "self-responsibility" discussed at the outset. In self-responsibility, choice comes first, and responsibility is called into question as a result. In the mindset of taking things on, an event arrives first, giving rise to a responsibility to respond, and within that, one chooses how to respond. Viewed this way, choosing and taking things on do not conflict. Taking things on is, after all, a choice in itself.

Yet it is choice in Kokubun's sense, not will as a pure beginning. Taking things on cannot be called fully active, in that one did not initiate it oneself. Nor can it be called purely passive, in that it was not merely forced upon one. Borrowing the vocabulary of the middle voice: a person inside the event is responding within its ongoing process.

After Natural "We" Disappears

At the outset, I wrote that when isolated individuals who define their scope solely by what they have chosen line up, problems that no one chose easily end up belonging to no one. Where, then, does the "we" that takes on such problems come from?

Historically, individuals could not survive alone. Securing food, raising children, and preparing for disasters and illnesses could not be done in isolation; living without groups like families, villages, or companies was virtually impossible. Therefore, groups formed spontaneously, so to speak, without anyone needing to construct them deliberately. There, "we" was neither chosen nor taken on; it was a precondition for survival.

The individualization since the 1990s mentioned at the beginning was, I think, the process through which this changed. People did not suddenly become capable of living without others; even today, our lives are supported by the labor of many. What changed is that this interdependence became anonymous through markets and public services, rendering it less visible.

When one can live without forming face-to-face relationships, the necessity of belonging to a group diminishes. It was a liberation from an assigned "we" that coerced individuals on the grounds of belonging. At the same time, what had previously been undertaken collectively by "we" was reallocated to each individual "I."

Now that "we" is no longer formed naturally, unless someone consciously tries to build it, "we" is unlikely to emerge. Some attempts to actively forge communities are emerging, but beyond that, by "taking on" things that cannot be said to have been chosen by oneself, there lies the potential to reconstitute "we" anew.

Perhaps that means reweaving our obscured dependence on others back into tangible relationships. Weizsäcker's speech can also be read as urging us to become part of a "we" by taking on the past. This, too, represents one form of such a "we."

Engagement That Is Neither Active nor Passive

Even so, not everyone is in a position to actively take on things they did not choose. As noted earlier, the capacity to take things on differs by person. If we demand that even those struggling with daily life "actively take things on to build 'we,'" it merely becomes the logic of self-responsibility turned inside out.

What serves as a clue here is the "neither active nor passive" nature of taking things on that we examined earlier. For instance, lending a hand simply because one happened to be there, getting slightly involved because one couldn't refuse a request, or quietly keeping an eye on a situation out of concern. These forms of engagement were not initiated by strong will, yet they are not merely being imposed. Many of the weak responses mentioned earlier take this shape.

Of course, given that work tends to congregate around those who cannot say no, this intermediate form of engagement can only function when not taking something on is also recognized as a legitimate way of responding. Moreover, no one can respond to everything. How far one gets involved can and should vary from person to person, depending on how close they happened to be, what they have received, and how much capacity they have to respond.

Looking back, my own awkwardness when accepting requests beyond my capacity may have been precisely this intermediate feeling—something that could not be described purely as chosen by my own will, nor as something forced upon me.

Avoiding Burdening the Individual Once More

One could critique the argument so far by claiming that it repeats the very issue raised at the beginning. If we criticize the shift of what companies and society once bore onto the individual, yet seek the solution in the individual taking things on, we end up burdening the individual with societal problems all over again.

In response, I want to distinguish between taking something on and continuing to shoulder it as an individual. An individual taking something on is a starting point, not the destination. When we happen upon someone collapsed, what we do is not treat them ourselves, but call an ambulance. Because the institution of emergency services exists, the response required of the bystander can be small. In the same way, problems taken on can be handed over into forms that "we" can bear—into organizations, institutions, and customs. Weak responses like speaking up about what one notices or conveying issues to those who can handle them are meaningful precisely because they pass the problem into a broader mechanism.

Conversely, this means we can continue to demand that society and companies bear what they ought to bear. An individual taking something on is not a substitute for institutions; it is a catalyst for reshaping them. And if a person who takes something on continues to carry it alone, that does not mean a "we" has been formed; the burden has simply shifted onto that person. Whether taking something on was successful is better measured, I believe, not by how much one shouldered, but by how much one was able to transform it into a form shared with others.

Choosing and Taking Things On

Even if those who can take things on with a strong will are few, there must be far more people who engage in ways that are neither active nor passive. Today, when "we" is neither formed naturally nor easily constructed by everyone possessing strong wills, I believe that intermediate engagements accumulate and are passed over into institutions, thereby reconstituting "we."

In other words, taking on unchosen things in ways that are neither active nor passive is what constitutes not an "I," but a "we."

The freedom to live as an individual should certainly remain. On top of that, by not only using Will as a starting point, but also recognizing this way of taking things on, people can find points of contact with society and history, and become part of a "we" alongside others.