Will and Democracy

Insofar as the idea of Circle is, for Spinoza, a common idea, its adequacy is independent of any personal possessor of it. Similarly, his ideas of common goods, including the one that entails them all, i. e. the idea of Democracy, are all impersonal. Hence, his political theory runs the risk of Totalitarianism, i. e. of abstracting from all personal differences. Now, while examining the possession of idea of Circle, he does not consider the process of actualizing a circle, i. e. the drawing of a figure in accordance with that idea, a process which entails the personal Will of the drawer. Similarly, his idea of Democracy abstracts from the ongoing, and, possibly, unending, process of constructing a Democracy, a process which eludes reduction to Totalitarianism, because individual participation is essential to it.