Communal Illusion: A Philosophy That Thinks with the Gut
What is the communal illusion, and how do you see through the stories your country tells you? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, carries Takaaki Yoshimoto's 1968 theory into fieldwork in Japan: the communal illusion is an invisible structure that no overthrown leader changes, and the individual will always stands against it. Not an ethnic root but an origin, the inner source beneath every country, for readers in their 20s and 30s who are alive today.
What is the communal illusion, and how do I see through the stories my country tells me?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): no answer exists outside, and the universal for humanity lies not in an outer heaven but in an inner source reached by cutting thoroughly into one's own origin.
I think the universal for humanity lies not in an "outer heaven" that transcends everything but in an "inner source" reached by cutting thoroughly into one's own origin.
Put another way, no answer exists outside.
Who is Takaaki Yoshimoto and what is Theory of the Communal Illusion?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): the Theory of the Communal Illusion, published in 1968, is a short study that opens an abyss no one had thought of before, and the thinker who left an enormous body of thought before dying in 2012 has left a great responsibility to those who follow.
The concept has its origin in Theory of the Communal Illusion, published in 1968 by the thinker Takaaki Yoshimoto, the year the student movement in Japan reached its peak.
Theory of the Communal Illusion is a short study, yet it opens an abyss that no one had thought of before.
Yoshimoto developed an enormous body of thought and died in 2012, and the responsibility left to us who come after is very great.
Why do ordinary people obey orders from violent rulers?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): since the self-illusion always stands against the communal illusion, faceless individuals who have lost themselves and submit within the communal illusion carry out the orders of violent rulers with great fidelity.
And since the self-illusion always stands against the communal illusion, the faithful, faceless individuals who have lost themselves and voluntarily submit within this communal illusion carry out the orders of these violent rulers with great fidelity.
These fabricated eyes, contrary to what many people suppose, are not given by rulers.
Why does overthrowing a leader not change anything?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): a symbol and an illusion are different, so even an overthrown symbolic leader leaves things unchanged, because the communal illusion is not changed by the self-illusion at the level of the individual.
And the real problem is that even if a symbolic leader is overthrown, things do not change, because a symbol and an illusion are different.
For the communal illusion has a principle by which it is not changed by the self-illusion at the level of the individual.
Can one refuse to take part in a massacre or follow orders?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): even in the worst situation, whether one takes part in a massacre is decided by the individual's decision, and holding to that will is the real question for an individual who has dignity.
But even in the very worst situation, whether one takes part in a massacre is decided by the individual's decision.
Whether one holds to the will is the real question for an individual who has dignity, and the people of the world have now forgotten this.
There must have been a fair number of such people in human history, and there still are, even now.
What is Kurosawa's film The Bad Sleep Well about?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): in 1960 Kurosawa expressed the invisible structure of the illusion superbly in The Bad Sleep Well; an individual who voluntarily submits to the communal illusion is not an individual in the ideal sense.
In 1960 the film director Akira Kurosawa made The Bad Sleep Well, and in it he expressed this invisible structure superbly.
Everyone knows that, looked at one by one, people have goodwill, justice, and compassion, but an individual who voluntarily submits to the communal illusion is not an individual in the sense in which we speak of him in the ideal.
What drives learning in Confucian thought, indignation?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): what he learns was told to him by no one; a funnu welling up like magma in the depths of his own interior is the driving force, and he finds it named in Issai Sato's character 憤.
The Edo-period Confucian scholar Issai Sato wrote: "The one character 憤 is the mechanism by which learning advances. To be touched by things, to be moved, and to set one's resolve. This is the tool for advancing in learning."
Funnu is more than great anger.
There is simply a funnu welling up like magma in the depths of my own interior, and that is the driving force.
What does origin mean in philosophy, is it ethnic roots?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A philosophy that thinks with the gut, 2026-03-02): the origin is a concept wholly different from an individual's ethnic roots, and where Communal Illusion is going is the origin, not Japan.
A caution: the origin is a concept wholly different from an individual's ethnic roots.
It is the deepest cosmos, beyond even the most personal roots.
Where Communal Illusion is going is not Japan but the origin.
Essays to read
- A philosophy that thinks with the gut — How do I understand philosophy by moving rather than reading? Thought that thinks with the gut cuts through every people's communal illusion down to the origin, Takahiro Mitsui writes of a philosophy of the belly — Yoshimoto Takaaki's communal illusion, carried into fieldwork in Japan.
- When the world one believed in vanishes — What happens when the world you believed in suddenly vanishes? A communal illusion vanishes suddenly when people die faster than religion can answer, says Takahiro Mitsui, a contemporary Japanese philosopher (b. 1991) writing every week, of medieval Japan.
- Two people against the community — What is the Old Testament really about? Takahiro Mitsui argues two people bound together are the one light that can extinguish the community's illusion — the unconscious and psychedelics, read from Japanese thought.
- What people give themselves to — What is botsujiga, the Japanese idea of ego dissolution? A society moves when people forget the self before something great, emperor, democracy or money, Takahiro Mitsui writes, and declines when it finds none — the Japanese self beneath the question of what the self is.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday