Page - 67 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:2

68 | www.limina-graz.eu Isabella Guanzini | Ideas of Freedom In his post-revolutionary discourse, Constant presents the paradigm of modern liberty as the dissolution of the political and social body, as the process of emancipation of the individual from the socio-political whole. Based on the immunitarian apparatus, this modern-contemporary vision does not presuppose any communitarian foundation, but rather aims to make it inoperative. The social bond loses not only its naturalness but also its foundational and positive character. As a result, what starts to take shape is a reflection on the necessity of a private contract that could productively stabilize and regulate relations between individuals, thereby generating the social bond. The contractualistic conception of sociality is no longer grounded in obligations, debts, and gifts, but rather in mutual usefulness and reciprocal benefit (Hobbes 1999, Chapter 15). “Modern individuals truly become that, the perfectly individual, the ‘absolute’ individual, bordered in such a way that they are isolated and protected, but only if they are freed in advance from the ‘debt’ that binds them one to the other; if they are released from, exonerated, or relieved of that contact, which threatens their identity, exposing them to possible conflict with their neighbour, exposing them to the contagion of the rela- tion with others” (Esposito 2010, 13). As Thomas Hobbes aptly shows, this contractual and immunitarian para- digm concerns firstly a “protective response in the face of a risk” (Esposito 2001, 1), i.  e. in the face of the contaminating danger represented by the proximity to the other. In light of a pessimistic vision of existence – which he portrays as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes 1998, 84) – Hobbes elaborates one of the most influential political philosophies of modernity as the age marked by the disintegration of the traditional socio-cultural institutions. The individuals’ equal state and their shared will to affirm themselves are the fundamental motives at the root of civil struggles: “From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attain- ing of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only), endeavour to destroy, or subdue one another” (Hobbes 1998, 83).4 What starts to take shape is a reflection on the necessity of a private contract generating the social bond. 4 “So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quar- rel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first, maketh men invade for gain; the se- cond, for safety; [62] and the third, for reputation” (Ibid.).