It seems to me that the work of revision paid off. You've gotten more clarity and somewhat better accessibility from the editing. Even more ruthlessness in taming the length of sentences and paragraphs will help you further in future.

Your synthesis of the Realists we read has given you a counterweight for your theoretical adventurousness, so that the man applying for SSD "prompt[s]" you "to discuss the role of individualism and the ‘American Dream’ in modern American politics." I'm reminded of Robinson's defusing what he learned in combat into a theory for reconciling freedom and the state. The road should work the other way as well, of course: discussion of Citizens United should prompt you to think about the man applying for disability benefits. Our opportunism might also be described as our occasional ability to relate to the constant struggle for dignified, healthy, secure life being waged by people all around us. "The poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he," said Colonel Rainborough, as the Puritan Army tried to define the shape of Republican England, in 1650. All the structures we manipulate, all the mechanisms of social process in which we intervene, are either friendly or hostile commentary on that basic proposition.