Here is a more recent essay;
What is missed is the dichotomous nature of reality. We tend to be goal oriented, linear creatures, while nature is cyclical and reciprocal, so the political dichotomy you discuss, between the individual and the community, is like nodes and networks. They balance each other out. You can’t have one without the other, so neither the left or the right can exist without the other.
That we have this monist, goal oriented culture, means both sides see themselves as on the best path, so those going the other way must be misbegotten fools, not seeing the system balances out.
As for me, I’m not exactly conformist, having grown up on a farm, around far more animals than people and tend to stick to my own world. Though it gives me some degree of distance on society, to see how the feedback between the sides makes the whole system work. Left/right, good/bad, up/down, youth/age, conservative/liberal, etc.
Thermodynamics rules. The world really is round.
