Politics - 2 - [Draft]*

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§ 3 — The political anthropology of freedom

Individualism is a copious resource for mankind which has lain dormant for millions of years. Freedom is the mode of operation that man has chanced upon to be able to make the fullest use of the dormant potential of individualism.

As a prolegomenon (preface) to a theory of politics under conditions of freedom, I shall lay out the anthropological framework of the political propensities of human beings, in the course of which I explain

• why man is a naturally individualistic being, 

• why her individualism can flourish only under conditions suited to her social nature and needs, and 

• why it has taken a long time and very special conditions to create a social environment in which it is possible to lift the potential of individualism.

Freedom may be regarded as a state of affairs such that the individualistic potential of humans is brought into balance — to a greater extent than ever — with our inescapable dependence on social ties and social considerations. Politics, being a discovery procedure with full public participation, is a key part of the heuristic apparatus by which we ascertain the conditions of this balance.

Freedom is a platform for productive individualism, which latter is a socially embedded phenomenon, that is to say: the conditions of individualism are not themselves of an individualistic nature. Rather than being causally rooted in needs and desires and other supposed or attained entitlements of the individual, the conditions of individualism represent first and foremost a matrix of social relationships, being derived from and dependent on collective arrangements.    

Continued here.