Between The Individual And The Nation

As we all know, John Locke is a very important political philosopher, in the process of the ancient politics turning to the modern politics and he is acclaimed as the father of libertarian. In the ancient politics,"human beings were natural political animals", and the goal of the politics was to achieve"good", which is at the top of a set of strict value hierarchy. Human beings, as natural political animals, is to achieve the virtues of their own. So, the city takes precedence over people, and people can only get the human values and independent personality from a city. The Christian political culture from the middle ages inherited the classical Greek political culture. People who want to get the human values of their own must obtain the love which the god gives to people and the goal of the political life is to give glory to the love from the god. So that, in the middle ages people also live in a set of value hierarchy. John Locke, is the father of the libertarian, whose goal was to liberate people from this value hierarchy and to make them get independent personality. From then on, people no longer accept values negatively, but become the value producers. Also, the goal of the politics is no longer to achieve"good", but to achieve happiness.For John Locke,"property"is the most important concept, which is the core of John Locke's political philosophy and is the stepping stone which makes the state of nature turning to the political state. Then, all values come from property. Without property, people will loss their personality, so that property is the externalization of people personality. John Locke's political philosophy bases on property and property becomes the moral foundation of John Locke's political power. So can be said that John Locke's political theory is a modern political economics.John Locke laid the foundation of the modern political idea and the basic political institution of the modern society, advocated individual liberalism and made people wake up from the enlightenment, which publicize the rational spirit, so that self becomes the center of the world. But at the same time these place human beings in a unprecedented state of freedom. However this free state is an ogreish state, because human beings become the producer of values and the nation steps back to backstage. Can be said that John Locke made the world prosperous, but also ogeish. This article's goal is to illustrate that the foothold of John Locke's political power is not the nation but the humankind, and is not to establish a standard of moral value but to protect the human freedom and property.This article can be divided into five parts:The introduction presents the writing background of the two treatises of government briefly and indicates that the political predicament which John Locke faced to, the problem awareness and the ideological path that John Locke had. British was at the time of bourgeois revolution in the 17th century where John Locke lived in and at this time political power was in a state of instability. So for John Locke, the political priority is to determine who can own political power, the origin, the confines and the purpose of political power.The first chapter shows the origin of political power by describing the essence of John Locke's property, and then indicates the foothold of John Locke's political power. First describe the essence of John Locke's property on the background of the state of nature and the natural law. John Locke demonstrated the property comes from the god's giving starting by taking the god as the creator. The god created human beings and gave everything that they need to live, so that human beings have property natively, but they belong to the god. However, John Locke tell us that human beings have the ownership of their own in the chapter of property. Through this, John Locke established a degree of autonomy, which is a very important turning of John Locke's political theory. The first chapter is to illustrate John Locke puts his attention to the individual property by emphasizing this turning point. Individual is the real starting point of John Locke's political philosophy, and individual property is the essential content of John Locke's theory of political power.After illustrating the essential content of political power, the second chapter illustrates the foothold and purpose of John Locke's political power, and then indicates moral awareness of John Locke's political theory. Both as the political philosopher, in the process of the ancient politics turning to the modern politics, they have so many common grounds. Also, they have essential difference, which is the foothold of political power. So the second chapter firstly illustrates the foothold of Thomas Hobbes's political power by showing the cause and the purpose of Thomas Hobbes's absolute power. Then comparing the foothold of Thomas Hobbes's political power with the foothold of John Locke's political power, indicate that the foothold of John Locke's political power is not the nation, and it's purpose is not to determine a set of moral standard. But it's foothold is the individual and it's purpose is to protect human freedom, but this freedom is lack of moral standard.Through the analysis of the first and the second chapters, the third chapter makes a simple evaluation on the John Locke's political philosophy on the whole.In the summary section, based on the analysis of John Locke's political power and combined with the experience of reform and opening up, show that we have to look out the value nihilism when we accept the freedom and equality from the western political tradition and market economic system.