The foundation for our current conceptions of Individualism was laid during the Age of Enlightenment, in the 17th and 18th centuries by two men: 1) the Englishman, John Locke, and 2) the Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A battle between these two men’s ideas has raged for the last 250 years, and, very broadly speaking, one could say that modern Conservatives are Lockeans, whereas modern Liberals follow Rousseau. Most people would probably say it is more Locke vs. Marx—and in a world-historical sense this may be accurate—but here in America, where Marx’s critique of Private Property has never held much sway, I would place it with Rousseau, who’s schema still allowed for Private Property (plus Rousseau is the initial source of the search for alternatives to Classical Liberalism which proceeded Marx by about 100 years).
Rousseau is an extremely interesting and complicated character, which I will very much be returning to at a later date, but for now I want to focus on Locke: the most influential thinker upon our Founding Fathers.
Locke, like many thinkers of the Enlightenment, based his ideas on what Modern Political Philosophers called: THE STATE OF NATURE. The State of Nature was a hypothetical thought-experiment first proposed by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan, in 1651. It is a pre-social condition, in which Man lives as a solitary being, that “existed” before the incorporation of men into particular groups or cultures. It was used as a way to strip away all the human conventions and traditions that had been invented in order to discover Man as Man based on Nature—as opposed to Man of a particular time, place and culture—which has been the goal of Philosophy since Socrates. And what was found there, was that Man's two deepest motivating factors are Self-Preservation and Self-Interest, and these two natural ideas form the basis for all of Modern Philosophy.
Locke’s most influential work was his Two Treaties on Civil Government, written in 1689 during his six year exile in Holland. In the First Treaties, he lays out an argument refuting divinely-ordained, hereditary, absolute, patriarchal monarchy; in the Second Treaties, he argues that the only legitimate form of government is one derived from the Consent of the People based on Freedom and Equality. And as Thomas Jefferson appropriated for the Declaration of Independence, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles.”
For Locke—and all the other State of Nature Philosophers—Man is by Nature an Individual, so he concluded that the only reason we need government is for the protection of our Individual Rights, which we naturally possess—namely life, liberty and property. In Locke’s view, governments were originally instituted among Men in order to have an impartial arbiter in Rights disputes, to protect the Rights that Men possess which predate government—Natural Rights, discoverable thru Reason, that we have in the State of Nature, before the creation of artificial living conditions known as "Societies." These are the Rights annunciated for us, as Americans, in the Bill of Rights.
These were very radical ideas at the time, and flew in the face of every previous civilization—all based on the dictates of a god. The veil had been lifted and no longer did Man need to rely on myths as the basis for their societies. Instead, they would be replaced with reasoned Consent that was available to all human beings regardless of their geographic location or cultural upbringing. It was Socrates—the original questioner—in action, but with one big difference: Socrates never believed it possible or desirable to create a society without binding myths or “misinterpreted accidents” which add up to a vision of the world for a specific People.
So…what the hell happened? How did we end up with this mess we see before us today?
—With a politician who tries to sell a President's former senatorial seat and another who thinks that presidents are above the law; with our system in shambles because of Wall Street derivative scams and Enron type meltdowns; with faith in the government, the schools, organized labor, the press, the justice system, big business, and God at all time lows.—
Unfortunately, the easy-going conclusions of Locke did not suffice, nor did their real-world application work out as well as it was hoped, yet somehow our system has not experienced any crisis of legitimacy for the general population. Our system has become a confused, incoherent amalgam of the last 250 years of Philosophy, yet somehow manages to function, and function very well, for enough of a majority of Individuals that there is no will, public or private, to do anything about it.
German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant, could see all the way back in the late 18th century that this new system proposed by Locke was the greatest engine of stability ever created for a society because it was the most adept at satisfying the Individual's needs, but he had just one slight qualm: the price of it was Human Dignity.
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