The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to the greater whole: in a still quite natural way in the family and in the family expanded into the clan; then later in the various forms of communal society arising out of the antitheses and fusions of the clans. Only in the eighteenth century, in 'civil society', do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes, as external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations. The human being is in the most literal sense a "political animal," not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of a society. Production by an isolated individual outside society -- a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness -- is as much of an absurdity as the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other.

Tags: holiday, politics, theory
Current Location: 85704
Muse: Celestialis - Deepchord Presents: Echospace - The Coldest Season