No human child will ever be able to become a healthy adult human being without a community in which it is embedded from birth. Only the still relatively young field of epigenetics has taught us that it is not genes alone, but the social environment in which a child grows up that has the decisive influence on the development of this nascent human being. No young child can escape the influence of its social community. Only an adolescent can begin to realise that under certain circumstances his environment can be harmful to him, and can begin to rebel against this influence.
This philosophical transition from individual to social being was also emphasised by Philip Pettit in his latest interview (by Barbara Bleisch; 3sat, Die Sternstunde der Philosophie, from 13th February 2022).
Nevertheless, even he still tends to follow the traditional (partly based on his enthusiasm for Albert Einstein) overvaluation of logical thinking over the feelings I prefer. According to my Universal Philosophy, feeling is the highest level of mental activity of any human being. Even his social "embeddedness" is based much more on feelings (being loved, recognised, welcomed) than on a logical calculation of what is worthwhile, or not worthwhile, for him.
It is precisely from this misunderstanding of traditional philosophy that Philip Pettit's certain perplexity also follows when it comes to a concrete proposal as to what practical structures a desirable democracy should build in order to be able to permanently guarantee the freedom of all people at the same time. And that is precisely why my latest book ("Me, You, and All of Us") is subtitled: "Where do we come from, and how can we build a family democracy". My proposal in this regard is a structure of demographic hierarchy of social communities that builds on the natural belonging of each person to his or her Base Family and Great Family. Only such a natural "embedding" of all human beings in their own respective social communities can give to each individually and to all collectively the feeling of freedom in Philip's Pettit sense, that is, the feeling of not being dominated by any other human being (not even by one's own family). Only such natural hierarchy of human communities can (if it functions properly) exclude any kind of domination at all its stages. Domestic violence, abuse of children and women in their own families cannot be excluded by any other social organisation better than the corresponding Great Family. Family-based participatory democracy is, in my view, the best option for our long-term future. And for the future of all other species that are not yet extinct from us.
