A Nauseous Nocturne

Another night deprived of slumber,
Hours passing without number,
My eye trace ’round the room. I lay

Dripping sweat and now quite certain
That tonight the final curtain
Drops upon my life’s short precious play.

From the darkness, by the closet
Comes a noise, much like a faucet
Makes: a madd’ning drip-drip-dripping sound.

It seems some ill-proportioned beast,
Anticipating me deceased,
Is drooling poison puddles on the ground..

A can of mace, a forty-five,
Is all I’d need to stay alive,
But no weapon lies within my sight.

Oh my gosh! A shadow’s creeping,
Ominous and black, it’s seeping
Slowly ‘cross a moonlit square of light!

Suddenly a floorboard creak
Anounces the bloodsucking freak
Is here to steal my future years away!
A sulf’rous smell now fills the room
Heralding my imm’nent doom!
A fang gleams in the dark and murky gray!

Oh, blood-red eyes and tentacles!
Throbbing, pulsing ventricles!
Mucus-oozing porses and frightful claws!

Worse, in terms of outright scariness,
Are the suckers multifarious
That grab and force you in its mighty jaws!
This disgusting aberration
Of nature needs no motivation
To devour helpless children in their beds.
Relishing despairing moans,
It chews kids up and sucks their bones,
And disolves inside its mouth their li’l heads!

I know this ’cause I read it not
Two hours ago and then I got
The heebie-jeebies and these awful shakes.

My parents swore upon their honor
That I was safe, and not a goner.
I guess tomorrow they’ll see their sad mistakes.

In the morning, they’ll come in
And say, “What was that awful din
We heard last night? You kept us both from sleep!”

Only then will they surmise
The gruesomeness of my demise
And see that my remains are in a heap.

Dad will look at Mom and say,
“Too bad he had to go that way.”
And Mom will look at Dad and nod assent.

Mom will add, “Still, it’s fitting,
That as he was this world quiting,
He should leave another mess before he went.”

They may not miss me first, I know.
They will miss me later, though,
And perhaps admit that they were wrong.
As memories of me grow dim,
They’ll say, “We were too strict with him.
We should have listened to him all along.”

As speedily my end approaches,
I bid a final “buenas noches”
To my best friend in the world.

Gently snoring, whiskers seeming
To sniff at smells (he must be dreaming),
He lies snuggled in the blackets curled.

HEY! WAKE UP, YOU STUPID CRETIN!
YOU GONNA SLEEP WHILE I GET EATEN?!
Suddenly the monster knows I’m not alone!

There’s an animal in bed with me!
an awful beast he did not see!
The monster never would’ve come if he had know!

The monster, in his confernation,
Demonstrates defenestration,
And runs and runs and runs and runs away.

Rid of the pest,
I now can rest,
Thanks to my best friend, who saved the day.
©1989 Bill Watterson

This poem was written and illustrated by Watterson to be included in the front of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. The illustrations, taking up 12 full pages, are wonderful. Watterson commented on this in the Tenth Anniversary Book: “I took advantage of the oppurtunity to paint all the illustrations in watercolor, which permitted various subtleties and effects I couldn’t get into the Sunday strips.”

La concorrenza ha sconfitto democrazia e sicurezza che, con la paura e i diritti è diventata oggetto di inquietanti antinomie: si calpestano i diritti per garantire la sicurezza ma con quelle violazioni si creano paure e torna la violenza del Leviatano
Negli ultimi vent’anni la globalizzazione ha cambiato radicalmente la vita economica, politica e sociale dei popoli e degli individui, senza che il diritto ne abbia seguito e disciplinato l’evolversi.

Jacques Derrida nei suoi seminari su «La Bestia e il Sovrano» (Jaca Book, 2009, p.61) ha fatto un esempio illuminante, chiedendosi quale sarebbe stata la reazione allo sventramento delle Torri Gemelle del World Trade Center dell’11 settembre 2001, se l’immagine non fosse stata registrata, filmata, indefinitamente riproducibile e compulsivamente trasmessa in tutti i Paesi del mondo. Il ritorno a Hobbes, dove lo Stato, il Leviatano, altro non è che una macchina per far paura e la paura è l’unica cosa che motiva l’obbedienza alla legge, induce a concludere che «siccome non c’è legge senza sovranità (…) questa chiama, suppone, provoca la paura».
Il pericoloso filosofo del diritto tedesco, Carl Schmitt, amato oggi sia a destra che a sinistra, precisava che «Protego ergo obligo è il cogito ergo sum dello Stato». E questo principio era stato uno dei fondamenti dello stato nazista.
Ma lo Stato attuale nella sua dimensione politico-mediatica ha strumenti per la creazione di paura e quindi di esigenze di protezione o addirittura di omologazione con la Gewalt, cioè la violenza, ben maggiori di quanti se ne potessero immaginare. La cronaca quotidiana, purtroppo, mi esime da qualsivoglia esemplificazione. Mi basterà citare il Patriot Act e Guantanamo, perché sono forse fra gli esempi più clamorosi della sconfitta del diritto di fronte alla paura. Tant’è che il presidente Obama ha recentemente dovuto contraddirsi smentendo la promessa di chiudere Guantanamo.
La verità è spesso manipolata in nome della sicurezza. È così che la costruzione della categoria degli enemy combatants ha tolto a costoro, dopo l’11 settembre, ogni diritto a un giusto processo, ad una normale istruttoria, all’assistenza di un avvocato, ad un regolare dibattimento. Purtroppo neppure la Corte Suprema, altre volte ben più attenta, nel caso Hamdi versus Rumsfeld (124, S.Ct. 2633 , è riuscita a garantire quei diritti a chi viene definito enemy combatant, anche se si trattava di un cittadino americano: il tutto in nome della sicurezza. Sempre identica è la conclusione: la violenza del Leviatano per proteggerti dalla paura (questa volta dei terroristi) colpisce sempre chi non è in grado di difendersi: dai minori, agli immigrati, a tutti i diversi che le società attuali tendono sempre più ad escludere.
Né è possibile sottacere che l’impero della violenza, e quindi quello omonimo della paura, è diventato planetario e trascende ormai la Gestalt del Leviatano. La letteratura apocalittica è immensa. Mi limiterò qui a citare solamente tre testi recenti che ne danno un quadro complessivo, abbastanza preciso, ancorché forse non completo.
Il primo è l’ultima opera di René Girard («Portando Clausewitz all’estremo», Milano 2008, 312) il quale dimostra come la violenza e le guerre nel mondo siano portate all’estremo e come l’accelerazione della storia crei nel genere umano una inconscia angosciante corsa verso l’apocalisse. Precisa Girard in conclusione che «il riscaldamento climatico del pianeta e l’aumento della violenza sono due fenomeni assolutamente legati (…) e questa confusione di naturale e artificiale rappresenta forse il messaggio più forte contenuto nei testi apocalittici». E ovviamente la globalizzazione ha reso la sorte dei minori più precaria, poiché – ripeto – la violenza si scarica sempre sui più deboli.
Martin Rees, il cui saggio «Our Final Century» (London, 2003) lascia poche speranze di sopravvivenza, entro la fine di questo secolo, non solo per il pericolo delle armi atomiche, al quale siamo fortunosamente scampati nel secolo scorso, ma per gli altrettanto gravi pericoli ai quali ci sottopongono ora le biotecnologie, piuttosto che gli errori, sempre più frequenti, negli esperimenti scientifici e nelle tecnologie di vario tipo. E ciò, indipendentemente dalle ulteriori osservazioni di R. Posner («Catastrophe», Oxford, 2004), sui rischi catastrofici delle malattie pandemiche, piuttosto che sulle possibili collisioni astrali e via discorrendo. Con una popolazione mondiale che, secondo i calcoli di Levy-Strauss, nel 2050 ammonterà a più di 9 miliardi di individui, difficilmente sfamabili ma soggetti a rischi di carestia. L’ultima copertina del settimanale The Economist intitola “How to feed the world” (come sfamare il mondo), per giungere alle stesse conclusioni. La sottovalutazione della portata di questi rischi non riduce certo la loro costante riproposizione nei media e il conseguente aumento collettivo dello stato di paura e di angoscia.
A questi rischi apocalittici si è ora aggiunta una grave crisi economica mondiale che nelle sue ricadute sull’economia reale e in particolare sulla disoccupazione aumenta in tutti i paesi la sensazione di instabilità e di minaccia alla sopravvivenza. La crisi ha dimostrato i limiti di un’ideologia basata sulla ricerca individualistica della ricchezza che ha portato all’autodistruzione del sistema in una recessione economica mondiale che colpisce soprattutto i paesi più poveri. Per di più, in un sistema dove vige la forza, chi è destinato a perdere è sempre il più debole che è sprovvisto di forza contrattuale, l’unica alla quale un’ostinata volgare ideologia continua ad attribuire valore anche agli effetti risolutivi della crisi. L’autoregolamentazione e il contratto sono nuovi idoli del mercato globale che ha clamorosamente fallito.
Senza contare che lo stesso sviluppo economico orientato sempre più verso il consumismo ha provocato un fenomeno brillantemente descritto di recente da Robert Reich («Supercapitalismo», 2009). La spinta all’estremo della concorrenza fra le imprese, al fine di ridurre sempre più i prezzi dei prodotti, per conquistare i consumatori, ha necessariamente portato alla riduzione dei costi, laddove era più facile e cioè come sempre nei confronti dei più deboli, vale a dire i lavoratori. Questi si sono visti via via sottrarre i diritti che avevano faticosamente conquistato. Insomma, l’interesse del consumatore ha avuto la meglio sui diritti del cittadino e così la concorrenza ha sconfitto la democrazia e la sicurezza.
Quella sicurezza, che con la paura, e i diritti è diventata oggetto di inquietanti antinomie: si calpestano i diritti per garantire la sicurezza, ma con quelle violazioni si creano paure e così in un circolo vizioso torna la violenza del Leviatano.
Allora la soluzione sta altrove: cioè sopra il Leviatano, sopra gli stati, cioè nel rispetto dei diritti umani e in quei principi che stanno sopra e al di fuori delle norme imposte dal Leviatano.
È pur vero che, come ci hanno insegnato sia N. Bobbio, sia M. Ignatieff, i diritti umani, nella loro pretesa di universalità, sono assolutamente storici e neppure assoluti. Alla loro base, tuttavia, nella diversità delle culture, esiste un minimum senza il quale le società non potrebbero sopravvivere. È in quel minimum che si sconfigge il loro supposto relativismo ed è in quel minimum che oggi G.B. Vico riconoscerebbe il senso comune insito nella facoltà dell’ingenium propria a tutto il genere umano, ed alla sua naturale propensione alla giustizia. A quella giustizia, alla quale il filosofo napoletano riconduceva altresì la «sapienza volgare» dei popoli primitivi. Uno dei maggiori esponenti di questa corrente di pensiero è, attualmente, il filosofo americano Ronald Dworkin.
Si tratta insomma di massime generali, di standards, pur difformi dalle norme positive, il cui contenuto si ritrova nei principi soprattutto costituzionali e poi anche morali di comune accettazione, rappresentati da quel minimum di cui ho sopra parlato. Ed è questo il momento dell’incontro fra diritto ed etica, a fini di giustizia e lontano invece dalle equivoche e fuorvianti formule di codici etici o della responsabilità sociale, o peggio ancora morale, delle imprese.
Il contenuto di questi principi, di questi standards è estremamente vario e complesso. E forse non è un caso che a tali principi, i cosiddetti global legal standards, anche l’Europa stia lavorando per evitare che ci sia la replica della crisi che ha sconvolto l’economia mondiale.
I principi devono essere accettati dai vari paesi, secondo le modalità e le strutture del diritto internazionale. Essi serviranno altresì a decidere gli hard cases, cioè i casi difficili dove la norma manca o è lacunosa. Mi basta qui citare la straordinaria sentenza della Corte suprema degli Stati uniti nel caso Roper versus Simmons del 1° marzo 2005. Si trattava di giudicare sulla pena di morte sentenziata a carico di Christopher Simmons per un assassinio da lui commesso quando aveva 17 anni. E’ noto che l’art. 37 della Convenzione dell’Onu sui diritti dei minori del 1989 stabilisce, tra l’altro, che: «Né la pena capitale né l’imprigionamento a vita senza possibilità di rilascio devono essere decretati per reati commessi da persone di età inferiore ai 18 anni». Ma è altrettanto noto che gli Stati uniti e la Somalia sono gli unici due paesi al mondo che non hanno sottoscritto la Convenzione. Ebbene, la Corte Suprema, nella sua magistrale sentenza, concluse che: «È corretto che noi si consideri il peso determinante dell’opinione internazionale contro la pena di morte nei confronti dei minori, consistente in larga misura sull’instabilità e labilità emozionale dei minori che può essere spesso fattore del crimine». E così la pena di morte non fu applicata, perché, secondo l’estensore, il giudice Anthony Kennedy, sarebbe stata, tra l’altro, contro gli evolving standards of decensy. La decenza diventa criterio interpretativo e principio fondamentale del diritto! Il riferimento all’opinione internazionale nell’interpretare la Costituzione americana è stata poi oggetto di ampie discussioni, che alla fine hanno confermato il principio statuito dalla Corte suprema.
Vorrei, come finale meditazione, concludere che in presenza di alluvioni normative e amministrative scoordinate e sovente contraddittorie da parte dei poteri legislativi ed esecutivi non solo italiani od europei, ma di tutto il mondo, l’orizzonte del diritto si può aprire soltanto se i giudici sia interni, sia internazionali, di qualunque categoria, in tutti i paesi democratici, continueranno impegnando la loro dignità e indipendenza, a rivendicare con vigore i principi delle libertà democratiche e della giustizia, sia con valutazioni corrette della realtà, sia con riferimento, quando necessario, agli standard di civiltà per bloccare la violenza e le iniquità del Leviatano.
Mi piace allora terminare con l’ultima frase scritta da Ronald Dworkin ne «L’impero del diritto» (Milano, 1989): «L’atteggiamento del diritto è costruttivo: il suo scopo, nello spirito interpretativo, è quello di far prevalere il principio sulla prassi per indicare la strada migliore verso un futuro migliore, mantenendo una corretta fedeltà nei confronti del passato. Infine, esso rappresenta un atteggiamento fraterno, un’espressione del modo in cui pur divisi nei nostri progetti, interessi e convinzioni, le nostre esistenze sono unite in una comunità. Questo è comunque ciò che è diritto per noi: per gli individui che vogliamo essere e la comunità in cui vogliamo vivere».

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Malgré ses nombreux arguments en faveur de l’absolutisme, Hobbes est souvent caractérisé comme un penseur libéral. Que pensez-vous de cette caractérisation?

En prenant conscience de ses nombreuses propositions défendant l’absolutisme (exemple : « le souverain d’un État (…) n’est pas sujet aux lois civiles » ), je considère qu’il est problématique d’affirmer que Hobbes est un penseur libéral. En défendant l’idée de donner un pouvoir total à l’État, les libertés individuelles sont certainement brimées, dans le modèle hobbesien et il devient difficile de le qualifier de libéral en restant cohérent. Cependant, je n’hésiterai pas à postuler qu’il est un ancêtre du libéralisme. Je pense, par contre, qu’il est tout à fait un penseur bourgeois.
Mais faisons d’abord le lien entre Hobbes et le libéralisme.
Un tel postulat nous demanderait de définir avant tout ce que nous entendons par libéralisme pour examiner ce dernier à l’aune de la pensée de Hobbes. Je définirai donc le libéralisme comme cette philosophie politique qui repose ontologiquement sur l’idée que la distinction entre l’État et la société civile est un moment indépassable. Autrement dit, le postulat de base libéral refuse l’idée d’une domination totale de l’État sur la société et met en valeur l’importance d’une liberté individuelle. Cette séparation naturelle entre État, la société civile et l’individu peut se manifester sous différentes formes, autant par le biais d’un marché autorégulé (Adam Smith) que par celle de la séparation des pouvoirs (Montesquieu).
À la lumière de cette définition sommaire, les germes du libéralisme qui se retrouvent dans le Léviathan ressortent davantage. D’une part, l’approche de Hobbes semble être influencée par la tradition nominaliste. Je définis le nominalisme comme une doctrine philosophique qui définit toutes communautés politiques comme une simple collection d’individus. Dans ce sens, la société et l’État ne sont que des congrégations d’individus. Cette doctrine fut, en mon sens, la condition de possibilité de l’émergence du libéralisme. Je rappellerai que pour Hobbes, l’homme est un être en mouvements et ce qui est la cause de ces mouvements est le désir. À l’état de nature, l’homme est essentiellement motivé par ses désirs et l’intérêt privé est ce qui engendre tous les désirs et tous les mouvements. À l’état de nature, nous sommes des égaux pour Hobbes, puisque nous avons tous les mêmes facultés. Cela dit, si nous sommes deux à désirer un même objet, et que nous sommes égaux, nous ne pouvons que devenir des ennemis. Nous devrions alors soit nous éliminer, soit assujettir notre adversaire. C’est dans ce sens que l’homme, à l’état de nature, est dans un état de guerre de tous contre tous. Ce que ceci signifie implicitement est qu’à l’état de nature, les hommes sont en compétition les uns avec les autres pour acquérir les ressources limitées. « La vie humaine est solitaire, misérable, animale et brève » Mais cette solitude force l’homme à se fier que sur lui-même pour tous ses besoins, autant sur le plan de la sécurité que pour assurer ses besoins vitaux tel que se nourir.
C’est parce le besoin de sécurité et de coopération survient que les hommes vont donc transférer leurs droits sur toutes choses à l’État, qui est une personne artificielle qui a le pouvoir d’agir au nom de tous. Le dépositaire de cet État est le souverain ( que ce soit une personne ou une assemblée) et a pour mandat d’assurer la cohésion et la sécurité du groupe à tout prix. Autrement dit, les individus transfèrent leurs droits de s’entretuer à l’État. La légitimité de ce souverain est incontestable à la condition qu’il assure leur sécurité. La finalité de ce transfert de la souveraineté du sujet est la paix. « Les passions qui poussent les humains à la paix sont la peur de la mort, le désir des choses nécessaires à une existence confortable et l’espoir de les obtenir par leur activité. »
Autrement dit, c’est par souci de préservation de soi que l’humain transfère ses droits à l’État. C’est un calcul rationnel fondé sur l’intérêt individuel qui permet cette décision. Et s’il advenait que le souverain demande au sujet de se suicider, ce dernier a la liberté de désobéir. Ce droit de refuser l’ordre du souverain, dans ce cas spécifique, est justifiable dans la logique hobbesienne parce qu’obéir à l’ordre va contre la raison originelle du transfert des droits du sujet au souverain : la possibilité pour le sujet de survivre.
Cela dit, on peut voir clairement que la dynamique de la pensée de Hobbes se situe à deux niveaux : le sujet en relation avec l’État. Bien que Hobbes argumente en faveur d’un régime absolutiste, il est clair qu’il prend ce chemin dans l’optique où il cherche à protéger le sujet de l’état de guerre de tous contre tous. Dans cette optique, il ne perd jamais de vue la raison pour laquelle le pacte entre les hommes se fait et que l’État émerge : c’est à dire l’instinct de préservation de soi chez l’humain, ou encore, une motivation égoïste ou individualiste. La séparation insurmontable entre la société civile et les individus par rapport à l’État, qui, je le rappellerai, est caractéristique du libéralisme, est donc très présente. Qu’est-ce que le Léviathan si ce n’est pas une personne artificielle qui a pour mandat de gérer les différents intérêts dans le corps social? Et qu’est-ce que l’État libéral dans le monde contemporain si ce n’est pas un organe de gestion qui maintient dans le social une logique pluraliste? Si Hobbes n’est pas nécessairement un libéral, on peut tout de même voir dans sa pensée de nombreux éléments qui font de son oeuvre un moment de médiation fort entre le nominalisme et l’émergence du libéralisme. C’est dans ce sens que je soutiens que Hobbes est un ancêtre du libéralisme.

***********
Cela dit, si je vois en ses réflexions des germes de libéralisme, je postule tout de même que sa pensée et sa conception de l’être humain est particulièrement bourgeoise. Il n’est pas question ici de la bourgeoisie en tant que détenteur des moyens de production tel qu’entendu dans la pensée marxiste, bien que cette caractéristique peut tout à fait s’appliquer au bourgeois dont nous parlons ici. Il est plutôt question d’une manière de s’inscrire dans le monde et de se situer par rapport aux autres. J’aimerais citer ici Arendt à cet effet.

Il n’est pas un seul modèle de la bourgeoisie qui n’ait pas été anticipé par la magnificence hors pair de la logique de Hobbes. Il donne un portrait presque complet, non pas de l’Homme, mais du bourgeois, analyse qui en trois cents ans n’a été ni dépassée ni améliorée. « La Raison[...] n’est rien d’autre qu’un Calcul »; « Sujet libre, libre Arbitre [sont] des mots [...] vides de sens; c’est-à-dire Absurdes. » Être privé de raison, incapable de vérité, sans libre arbitre – c’est-à-dire incapable de responsabilités — l’homme est essentiellement une fonction de la société et sera en conséquence jugé selon sa « valeur ou [sa] fortune [...] son prix; c’est-à-dire la somme correspondant à l’usage de son pouvoir. » Ce prix est constamment évalué et réévalué par la société, l’« estime des autres » variant selon la loi de l’offre et de la demande.

Bref, le bourgeois est un individu qui voit en tout être humain une force ou une puissance potentielle qui cherche de l’expansion dans l’espace. Il doute donc a priori de tous les gens qu’il rencontrera et cherchera à comprendre à quel point les autres sont puissants autour de lui. Un tel mode d’être, s’il se généralise dans la société civile, mène à une atomisation du social.
Cela dit, si la logique libérale classique n’est pas nécessairement bourgeoise, la liberté individuelle qu’elle postule poussée à son extrème peut certainement mener à une philosophie tout à fait bourgeoise. Dans ce sens, on peut voir comment la dimension bourgeoise de la pensée de Hobbes peut s’entrecouper avec la logique néo-libérale du monde contemporain.

I remember when I first realized that the notions I had regarding politics and social affairs could most closely be called Anarchy.  I was in one of my Spanish literature class (to my delight my second major, Spanish, was filled with all the exciting peripheral fight-the-power ideas that I had been so disappointed to learn that my original major, English, lacked), taught by my favorite professor, an Argentine.  He lectured about three recent political structures:

1st – The Nation/The People - The Nation is ruled by a government that represents the will of The People.  Top-down.

2nd – The Leader/The Masses - Coming from Argentina my professor was especially familiar with Peronism and this form of organization.  The Leader is one who sweeps to power through the overwhelming support of The Masses .  Not empowered by the national sovereignty such as Rousseau talked about…but instead representing a more coarse group outside the structure of government, one that fills government with its exploding will.  Also top-down.

3rd – The Multitudes/Sporadic Potential – He said this was what truly excited him.  The Multitudes combine to create Sporadic Potential which in turn affects the direction of decisions and policies.  Bottom-up. 

Many in my class, especially one young woman, were furious about his teachings.  She called him a communist.  But what I realized was that his political leanings were something even more taboo, which he was understandably loathe to openly admit – an anarchist.  And for the first time I understood Anarchy and it slotted completely into my misgivings about power, government, corruption and subjection.  It all made so much sense then…although this realization made me distressed and uncomfortable at first. 

 As I read further I came to realize that Anarchy had been developed over centuries, and was not as scary as I had once thought.  It seemed that above all other political theorists, the Anarchists had the most beautiful vision of human potential, the most heartrending devotion to what so many others scoff at.

The following conversation stems from an excellent post on one of my favorite blogs on WordPress, Speak Now Peace Works.  It was specifically in response to the post Positively Deviant, which talks about the success observed when ideas come from within groups instead of from outsiders providing guidance, however well-intentioned. 

It was a good opportunity to try and elaborate further on what, for me at least, Anarchy is.  It also raises some very difficult questions that an ideal conception of the world with sporadic, independently-functioning beings would have to address.  But those are the topics for further posts…

• That is why I am mostly an Anarchist!

People can solve their own problems, if we give them a chance. The human brain is more amazing than any machine could ever be…

I believe in bottom-up solutions always and hope that these ideas catch fire throughout the world!

Great to see you have been writing a lot lately, this is one of my favorite stops while my brain is fried from staring at reports and contracts, ugh…

As a student athlete throughout my high school tenure, I would always hear coaches mutter the phrase, “This is not a democracy, this is a dictatorship!” It would always come after some comment from a player about why we do this or that, maybe a suggestion, and even sometimes, heated moments between the player and the coach. Much unlike a democratic leader, Thomas Hobbes’ sovereign leader was a single ruler who all obeyed. In hindsight though, are athletic teams really run without democracy? Does the coach hold a position much like that of Hobbes’ sovereign? A sovereign leader in sports has been proven to work the best.

Widely regarded as the greatest coach of all time, Vince Lombardi has been known for his hard-nosed, anything-to-win mentality. If any one coach were considered to be an absolute sovereign, many could argue that he be just that. It was Coach Lombardi that once said, “The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert” (Vince Lombardi Quotes). This speaks so closely to many of the things that we have learned about being the sovereign. As Professor LaVaque-Manty brought up in lecture, Hobbes’ sovereign is “absolute and indivisible” (LaVaque-Manty). Much like what Vince Lombardi brought to his teams, Lombardi made sure that the gap between him and his players were much the same, making sure to never let the team or his power, be divided. The sovereign’s power is also “nonforfeitable and unimpeachable,” (LaVaque-Manty) which many coaches modeling Lombardi’s ways try to maintain. Coaches are in total control of the team and no one within that team is going to challenge his/her power, much like the sovereign with its people.

Hobbes defines the sovereign at the end of Ch. 17 as

“one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and common defence” (Hobbes).

Basically, a sovereign authority leads a society, in which all individuals in that society cede their natural rights for the sake of protection. If a good coach were not to act strictly to that description, then he is not a good coach at all. Coaches should act with ‘great multitude’ and use the strength of the individuals on their team to make peace among them and defend the team. Coaches like Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Dean Smith, etc. have never put the individual ahead of the team and because of that, they were able to do what was best for their respective teams: win.

All teams, and especially the successful ones, have had a good leader at the helm. It has rarely ever been the case where a winning coach runs the team in a democratic manner. Athletic teams vary much from that of government and many of the most successful coaches have shown that democracy is no way to run a team. A coach that closely resembles that of Thomas Hobbes’ sovereign has the highest chance of leading a successful group of players.

Works Cited

LaVaque-Manty, Mika. “The Hobbesian Commonwealth.” Political Science 101: Intro to Political Theory. University of Michigan. Aud. B Angell, Ann Arbor. 12 Oct 2009. Lecture.

“Vince Lombardi Quotes.” Brainy Quote. 1009. Brainymedia, Web. 18 Nov 2009. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/vince_lombardi.html>.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. 123-302. Print.

“Psychology as we know it didn’t suddenly appear on the intellectual scene.  It is impossible to say just when it began, or who was responsible for it.  Instead, we can only point to a number of currents that take us from philosophy and the natural sciences into something recognizably psychological.  This chapter looks at two of these “primordial” currents — associationism as the beginnings of a cognitive theory, and the introduction of quantification in the forms of psychophysics and intelligence testing.

Associationism

Associationism is the theory that the mind is composed of elements — usually referred to as sensations and ideas — which are organized by means of various associations.  Although the original idea can be found in Plato, it is Aristotle who gets the credit for elaborating on it.  Aristotle counted four laws of association when he examined the processes of remembrance and recall:

1.  The law of contiguity.  Things or events that occur close to each other in space or time tend to get linked together in the mind.  If you think of a cup, you may think of a saucer;  if you think of making coffee, you may then think of drinking that coffee.

2.  The law of frequency.  The more often two things or events are linked, the more powerful will be that association.  If you have an eclair with your coffee every day, and have done so for the last twenty years, the association will be strong indeed — and you will be fat.

3.  The law of similarity.  If two things are similar, the thought of one will tend to trigger the thought of the other.  If you think of one twin, it is hard not to think of the other.  If you recollect one birthday, you may find yourself thinking about others as well.

4.  The law of contrast.  On the other hand, seeing or recalling something may also trigger the recollection of something completely opposite.  If you think of the tallest person you know, you may suddenly recall the shortest one as well.  If you are thinking about birthdays, the one that was totally different from all the rest is quite likely to come up.

Association, according to Aristotle, took place in the “common sense.”  It was in the common sense that the look, the feel, the smell, the taste of an apple, for example, came together to become the idea of an apple.

For 2000 years, these four laws were assumed to hold true.  St. Thomas pretty much accepted it lock, stock, and barrel.  No one, however, cared that much about association.  It was seen as just a simple description of a commonplace occurrence.  It was seen as the activity of passive reason, whereas the abstraction of principles or essences — far more significant to philosophers — was the domain of active reason.

During the enlightenment, philosophers began to become interested in the idea again, as a part of their studies of vision as well as their interest in epistemology.  Hobbes understood complex experiences as being associations of simple experiences, which in turn were associations of sensations.  The basic means of association, according to Hobbes, was coherence (continguity), and the basic strength factor was repetition (frequency).

John Locke, rejecting the possibility of innate ideas, made his entire system dependent on association of sensations into simple ideas.  He did, however, distinguish between ideas of sensations and ideas of reflection, meaning active reason.  Only by adding simple ideas of reflection to simple ideas of sensation could we derive complex ideas.  He also suggested that complex emotions derived from pain and pleasure (simple ideas) associated with other ideas.

It was David Hume who really got into the issue.  Recall that he saw all experiences as having no substantial reality behind them.  So whatever coherence the world (or the self) seems to have is a matter of the simple application of these natural laws of association.  He lists three:

1.  The law of resemblance — i.e. similarity.

2.  The law of contiguity.

3.  The law of cause and effect — basically contiguity in time.

David Hartley (1705-1757) was an English physician who was responsible for making the idea of associationism popular, especially in a book called Observations of Man.  His emphasis was on the law of contiguity (in time and space) and the law of frequency.  But he added an idea he got from the famous Isaac Newton:  This association was a matter of tuned “vibrations” within the nerves!  His basic ideas are very similar to those of D. O. Hebb in the twentieth century.

James Mill (1773-1836) also elaborated on Hume’s associationism.  The elder Mill saw the mind as passively functioning by the law of contiguity, with the law of frequency and a law of vividness ”stamping in” the association.  His emphasis on the law of frequency as the key to learning makes his approach very similar to the behaviorists in the twentieth century. But he is most famous for being the father of John Stuart Mill.”

The History Of Psychology, Part 3: The 1800’s

Dr. C. George Boeree

© Copyright 2000 C. George Boeree

Ali.♥

Eu tenho aqui feito uma crítica cerrada ao Tratado de Lisboa e ao leviatão europeu em si, mas penso que os meus dias ― e os vossos também ― de liberdade estão contados. Acontece algumas vezes dizerem-me que sou “maluquinho”, mas acontece também que passado um ano ou dois, aqueles que me diziam “tolinho” acabam por me dar razão ou, no mínimo, por “meter a viola ao saco”.

A União Europeia baseia os seus princípios de cidadania no conceito elitista e não-democrático de “vontade geral” de Rousseau, a que fiz referência aqui.

Na carta dos direitos fundamentais da União Europeia, podemos ver a elencagem normal e politicamente correcta dos direitos e garantias, e depois vemos no artigo 52:

O “interesse geral” invocado é, sem tirar nem pôr, a “vontade geral” de Rousseau que tanto fascinou os jacobinos franceses e a revolução francesa. Isto significa que em nome da “vontade geral” do corpo político elitista europeu ― que ou não foi eleito directamente pelos cidadãos, como é o caso do Conselho Europeu, ou se foi eleito é um simples proforma, sem poderes legislativos ou de fiscalização, como é o caso do parlamento europeu ― todos os direitos e garantias podem ser restringidos ou mesmo abolidos em nome do poder plenipotenciário dessa “vontade geral” exarada no corpo político e por este exclusivamente representada, e ao arrepio da vontade dos povos.

Porém, a dita Carta vai mais longe. No seu artigo 54, diz o seguinte:

Isto significa que a mais ninguém, à excepção do corpo político que se auto-intitula como sendo o “representante da vontade geral”, é permitido criticar ou colocar em causa, nomeadamente, o artigo 52. Não só as liberdades e garantias podem ser coarctadas a qualquer momento e de forma “legal”, como qualquer crítica ou acção política que coloque em causa essa restrição das liberdades é considerada ilegal.

La llamada “revolución copernicana” supuso la primera humillación a nuestro orgullo de especie. Coincidió en el tiempo con el auge del “humanismo” renacentista; el tratado de Copérnico Sobre las revoluciones de los orbes celestes (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium) apareció a mediados del siglo XVI y no muchos tiempo antes había escrito Pico della Mirandola el Discurso sobre la dignidad del hombre, quizá el mejor compendio de la visión humanista. “Humanista” se denominó en el Renacimiento al cultivador de los studia humanitatis, disciplinas que, como filología o historia, pasarían a denominarse “humanidades”, centradas en las lecturas de autores clásicos grecolatinos con el fin de proporcionar una formación semejante a la de la antigua paideia. Lo específicamente moderno del humanismo consistirá en su orientación a la reflexión moral sobre el ser humano en tanto que microcosmos o universo a escala reducida. Dicha condición microcósmica del hombre, a mitad de camino entre lo más alto y lo más bajo del universo, entre la perfección sobrenatural a la que admirativamente tiende y la degradación en la naturaleza puramente animal que constituye para él un riesgo permanente, había sido subrayada por varios en el Renacimiento, desde Nicolás de Cusa a Marsilio Ficino o nuestro Juan Vives, quienes resaltarían su carácter de “nudo” (copula mundi) de aquellos dos extremos y hasta su proteica facilidad para transformarse en una cosa u otra; pero nadie se acercó a formularlo tan atinadamente como Pico en su mentado Discurso, donde el sumo Hacedor, tras crear el mundo y repartir sus dones entre todas las criaturas con la única excepción del ser humano, se dirige a éste hablándole en los siguientes términos:

No te he reservado, ¡oh Adán!, un puesto fijo ni una hechura propia, ni una misión determinada, para que de ese modo puedas instalarte en el sitio, adquirir la fisonomía y desempeñar la tarea que tú mismo elijas. A los demás seres les he asignado una naturaleza constreñida por las leyes que dicté para ellos, pero a ti te he dejado la definición de esa naturaleza de acuerdo con la libertad que te concedí. Te coloqué en una zona intermedia del mundo para que desde ahí pudieses contemplar con la mayor comodidad cuanto hay en él. Y no te concebí ni celestial ni terrenal para que, cual artista de tu ser, te esculpas de la forma que prefieras. Y de tu voluntad dependerá que te rebajes a los seres inferiores e irracionales o trates de elevarte y regenerarte en los superiores y próximos a la divinidad como los ángeles.

Sin embargo, fue la colonización de América lo que supuso el nacimiento de la Edad Moderna, y no la culminación de la Edad Media, como quería Hegel en sus Lecciones de filosofía de la historia. La ambigüedad de la Edad Moderna no es menos que la del propio hombre moderno y en ella se dan por igual cita su innegable potencial civilizatorio y su capacidad de explotación. Las grandes potencias europeas comenzaron su expansión imperialista, cuyos respectivos Estados nacionales fraguarían al calor de los avances todavía balbuceantes de las ciencias y la técnica junto con la incipiente consolidación económica del capitalismo. Desde un punto de vista polítco, es casi un tópico obligado contraponer a este respecto en los albores del Renacimiento las figuras contemporáneas de Maquiavelo y Moro. Mientras el primero de ellos instaurará en El Príncipe la fría mirada -un tanto cínica- del realismo político, la Utopía del segundo alienta una mirada harto más cálida -en ocasiones velada por melancólica ironía- que suministra argumentos de crítica a la realidad desde un punto de vista ético. Más que ambigüedad, lo que vendría a registrarse es una tensión entre ética y política que afecta tanto al realista cuanto al utopista.

El pensamiento de Kant heredará todas estas ambigüedades y tensiones de la Modernidad que se dejarían cifrar en la bien conocida contraposición entre las afirmaciones: “el hombre es un lobo para el hombre” (homo homini lupus) que Hobbes toma de Plauto y la de “el hombre es algo sagrado para el hombre” (homo homini sacra res) que el iusnaturalismo del siglo XVIII repetirá siguiendo a Séneca.

En torno a “el mal radical”, Kant sostendrá, a lo Pico della Mirandola, que el hombre no es un ángel, mucho menos un dios, y tampoco una bestia, no digamos un diablo, si bien puede inclinarse hacia un extremo u otro en función de su libertad. Y aunque no deje de ser en dicho punto más un hijo de la Reforma protestante que del Renacimiento, se distanciará sin embargo de Lutero allí donde éste -desde la perspectiva de potentia Dei absoluta del voluntarismo teonómico- no dudaba en asegurar que “lo que Dios quiere no lo quiere porque ello sea justo y Dios esté obligado a quererlo, sino que antes bien ello es justo porque lo quiere Dios”, de donde lisa y llanamente se seguiría la aniquilación de la autonomía de la voluntad del ser humano como sujeto moral en aras de la omnipotente voluntad divina.

Y en la línea de Pico, pero desde la Ilustración y no ya desde el Renacimiento, proseguirá su apología de la dignidad humana -tras sentar que “el hombre no es una cosa y, por lo tanto, no es algo que pueda ser utilizado simplemente como medio, sino que siempre ha de ser considerado como fin en sí” y que “la moralidad es aquella condición bajo la cual un ser racional puede ser un fin en sí mismo [...por lo que] la moralidad y la humanidad, en la medida en que ésta es susceptible de aquélla, son lo único que posee dignidad”- mediante estas palabras:

Ni la naturaleza ni el arte albergan nada que puedan colocar en el lugar de las acciones inspiradas por la moralidad y la humanidad, puesto que su valor no estriba en sus efectos que nacen de ellas ni en el provecho o la utilidad que puedan reportar [...sino] presentan a la voluntad que los ejecuta como objeto de un respeto inmediato, no requiriéndose más que la razón para imponerlas a esa voluntad en lugar de procurar granjearse su favor por otras vías, lo cual supondría por lo demás una contradicción tratándose de deberes [...y] semejante valoración permite conocer la importancia del recurso al criterio de la dignidad, colocándola infinitamente por encima de cualquier precio y con respecto a la cual no cabe establecer comparación ni tasación alguna sin, por así decirlo, profanar su santidad.

“Welcome to a World Without Rules.”  This was the quote that was placed on the The Dark Knight movie poster.  This quote alone already gives off a general idea of what the movie will be about, total and complete chaos.  After closely analyzing the film The Dark Knight, I came to realize that the city of Gotham and the characters in it follow Hobbes theory of the state of nature.

In the movie, The Dark Knight, there are two main characters, Batman and the Joker, and they both know that without a leader/protector in the city of Gotham, the city will fall apart.  Batman stands as the protector and hero of Gotham city, making sure everyone follows the law, and seeking out those who don’t.   In the movie, Batman wanted to step down from his leader position (in order to be with a woman named Rachel) but he couldn’t; this is because he knew that if he stepped down and the city had no one as a leader, it would turn to chaos.  Batman’s enemy, the Joker, is a crazy and psychotic man who wants nothing more than a city of chaos.  In the movie, the Joker says, “Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos.”  Joker, as well as Batman, knows that in order for the city to turn to chaos its authority figure must be destroyed; this is why Joker made it his goal to get rid of Batman.  With him no longer around, there would be no one to protect the city, and thus it would become chaotic.  This idea mirrors Hobbes constant state of war during the state of nature theory.  Hobbes states that “during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man”.   The state of war that Hobbes speaks of mirrors the state of chaos that the city of Gotham would fall into without Batman.

Hobbes says, “Fear makes natural man want to escape the state of nature.”  Fear is a very prominent emotion that lies in Hobbes’ work.   He claims that the only way to escape the state of nature and begin a civilized working society (commonwealth) is through fear.  Hobbes also says that fear must be used in order to maintain the society, and without it, the society will fall apart.  In the movie The Dark Knight we can find Hobbes’ different values of fear within the two main characters, Batman and the Joker.   Joker is the bad guy in the film, destroying and killing everything and anything in sight.  This constant destruction and reign of havoc that the Joker poses creates constant fear within the people of Gotham.   The fear makes the civilians feel like their life is in danger and makes them look for a common authority figure that will put an end to it.  Batman stands as the other value of fear in the movie.  Batman instills fear into the people of Gotham in order to prevent them from doing wrong.   The city will not fall apart as long as people have fear of being punished for doing something against the law.  Joker represents the state of war that exists in the state of nature, and Batman represents the sovereign that maintains a civil society.

Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas
McGill University

Tuesday, 17 November, 1-2:30pm (rsvp)
Dimitris Vardoulakis, ‘Melancholic Sovereignty: Reading Hobbes through Hamlet‘
New Chancellor Day Hall, rm. 202
(Faculty of Law; 3644 Peel St.)

maybe we will have a few moments to sit back and stretch our paws.

The Saints agree: “everyone having God is happy” (Augustine), “ultimate felicity consists only in the contemplation of God.” (Aquinas)

We know that Augustine once thought himself happy in his Godless, hedonistic youth; and that he famously begged for more time to sow his oats and adjust to the idea of a more sedate life of “contemplative felicity.”

Since this isn’t yet the Atheism course, I propose now (for the sake of argument, at least) to grant the premise: some God-intoxicated persons are made happy, in a good way, by their faith. More power to them, so long as they don’t attempt to disrupt the happy pursuits of the happily faithless. (In fact, I won’t be inclined to challenge the happiness-making potential of religion in the Atheism course either, just the exclusionist approach of those zealots who’d happily leave us humanists “behind.”)

“Happy in a bad way” would involve the self-righteous, proselytizing, soul-consigning, fire-breathing, “exclusive path of salvation” attitude we saw exemplified in front of our Student Center recently. People who are happy because they’re not going to hell, but to hell with you and me– people who are happy, in other words, that they’re not you and me– don’t get my moral support. But those religionists who recognize, with William James, that it’s not God but more life that motivates most of us (religious or not) to pursue happiness, deserve some reciprocal acknowledgement and acceptance from the Godless. [Loyal Rue, reflecting on gratitude in Religion is not about God, makes a similar point.]

The Augustine quote above seems perfectly compatible with pluralism and the possibility of happy non-belief; but that’s misleading. Elsewhere he insists: “No man can be happy who knows thee not.” Aquinas, in his statement, seems clearly unreceptive to the proposal of peaceful coexistence with those whose happiness is not religiously contemplative. But why suppose that we must pronounce Ultimate Felicity For All? Can’t Aquinas just speak for himself? But maybe that’s not how you get canonized.

I’ve never been accustomed to thinking of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and his “Leviathan”  State as a prescription for happiness. But if you found yourself whisked out of a “war of all against all” and into the protective (if smothering) arms of civilized authority,  I suppose you might be expected to feel an initial flush of felicity. “Flourishing,” though, in the self-directed, potential-reaching sense, might then be harder to come by.

Bishop Butler (1692-1752) is on solid ground: “Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects, which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.” And benevolent, neighborly love is so suited. We’re not Hobbesian savages by nature. (But… do we need a Bishop to tell us so?)

Seems like an opportune moment in our course, and (with Thanksgiving bearing down on us) in the season to raise the question: can secular, irreligious, even un-spiritual folk, be happy? (I’m on record, and not just on my own record, as saying yes, indeed. Not only am I now officially outed as a happy pragmatist, I’m a spiritual humanist too.)

Can religious and irreligious people each be happy in their own ways, side by side, without feeling mocked, threatened, ridiculed, villified, insulted, or scorned? Can we live and let live? Can’t we all just get along?

Can these guys concede the possibility that some others– not all, but some– might actually have defensible (though possibly not good) ”reasons for believing”? And can the rest of us learn to “thank goodness” for our lives and our happiness? [Dennett text] [Ronald Aronson, "Thank Who Very Much"] [Matthew Chapman]

As I have read through many of the posts regarding Hobbes on this blog, I am overwhelmingly confronted by the negative connotations associated with his thoughts on society. Many people believe that the power given to the sovereign under Hobbes’ commonwealth would result in the sovereign taking advantage of the populace in order to satisfy their own personal goals. In addition, a common opinion regarding Hobbes’ is his condoning of an absolute system of political rule is that such a system is ineffective due to the multitude of experiences and opinions of the subjects under the ruler and the need to evaluate each situation independently. Although these thoughts do have basis in the real world under other scenarios, they are misguided and do not apply to Hobbes, as is shown in the text.

One of the most common misconceptions surrounding Hobbes’ view of a commonwealth is the nature of the sovereign and the resultant exploitation of their subjects. Many people suggest that the sovereign consists of only one powerful person with absolute power. The text, however, shows that Hobbes actually leaves the definition of the sovereign to the society that made the social contract: “When the representative is one man, or more: and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the commonwealth a monarchy: when an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular commonwealth… Other kind of commonwealth there can be none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power [indivisible] entire.” (Wootton, Hobbes, 180). If a society feels that their safety is better placed into the hands of a singular, capable man, then the commonwealth that they create will be a monarchy. If they feel that they are safer in the hands of a group of representatives, then the commonwealth that they create will be a democracy. Since society is the body that holds the true power and the sovereign simply is the executor of society’s laws, it is up to society whether or not the sovereign they put into power is a democratic one or not. And in the case of a democratic sovereign, the public controls the succession of the sovereign and can therefore place a check on the usage of power of the sovereign. It is in this vein that a highly efficient and legitimate form of government would be a sovereign of a body of legislative representatives drawn with equal representation from a commonwealth whose duty it is to both enforce and create the laws under direct check from the populace of the commonwealth.

The basis of the laws that the sovereign holds control over is another topic that brings misconception. Although it is true that Hobbes does not advocate for great political power to the individual subject within a commonwealth, Hobbes does in fact advocate for great civil power to the individual subject within a commonwealth. As Hobbes describes in his discourse on the liberty of subjects, the social contract is a product of the free will of the subject and as a result, the government is also a product of the free will of the subject. Therefore, it follows that the greatest liberty is in the following of the laws of the commonwealth. It is true that the laws of the commonwealth can be extremely limiting and anti-liberal depending on the system of government that the public sets up. The social contract that set up the government is dependent on the safety of the public. If it is in the best interest of the public to have limited freedoms, then they have no choice but to accept it. However, if it is in their best interest to have freedom, then the sovereign has revoked the social contract and therefore has no power. As many great thinkers have pointed out throughout the eighteenth century, such as Rousseau, Kant, and More, freedom is security and it follows that a sovereign must provide freedom in order to maintain a social contract. As Hobbes points out, “The safety of the people, requireth further, from him, or them that have the sovereign power, that justice be equally administered to all degrees of people; that is, that as well the rich and mighty, as poor and obscure persons, may be righted of the injuries done to them… a sovereign is as much subject as any of the meanest of his people.” (Wootton, Hobbes, 237). Therefore, the sovereign, whether a monarch or a political body, must provide civil power in the form of freedom.

The ideas of Hobbes are often pigeonholed to become ideas of oppression and absolute power, but through a careful analysis of the text, it is clear that Hobbes does not advocate such a form of government. Instead, he advocates for the maintaining of a social contract to hold peace and security in place, as these are what he believes to be the central desires of humanity. In today’s society, Hobbes’ ideas would not work perfectly due to the possibility for reduced civil power and the inability to leave a commonwealth under those circumstances. Still, I believe that many of Hobbes’ ideas are practical and can be applied to modern politics.

The girls
of the 1920s were
little more than willow wisps;
all legs, arms, and torsos,
only a motion of limbs and
pale thin embodiment.
Bowlers,
and short hair,
flapper dresses,
boys at their sides,
neon, satin, sequins, and utopian
Art Deco lives.

They were all too young to realize the horrors
the technologies
they invested with messianic robes,
too old to hear their parents’ cries.
From farmsteads,
they came to the big from
the small, never understanding they only ever traded
one enclosure for another.

Anyone who has tried to live in a big city –
now or then –
knows what I mean.

My limbs move in ever-narrowing
circles,
squeezed in on all sides by an
amalgamated mass of
bodies.
This is my salvation and my
poison.
The city is my God.
His angels are a host of automobiles,
carrying the living dead
from neighborhood to neighborhood,
but anyone can see there’s no space
for anyone anymore: the cities
are filling up, the graveyards
are filling up,
Hell is filling up.

But I’m not different:
another pretender in a city of fakes,
you the flighty flapper
I followed here from parts unknown,
shuffling the same worn deck of cards and wishing for
that lucky hand to play, thinking of
the girls of the 1920s,
and the cities that will be
our graves.

Throughout history, disasters have tended to bring people together and cause a feeling of community between people who normally wouldn’t say two words to each other.  However, there is one kind of disaster that does the opposite and actually mimics Hobbes’ idea of a state of nature: epidemic.

In Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, a major plague strikes Athens during the war killing 1/3 of the population of Athens.  Thucydides explains how the citizens began to give up hope and trust in the oracles.  He also says unaffected people were afraid to visit the sick who in turn, “died with no one to look after them.” (Thucydides 154)  These conditions clearly mimic Hobbes’ idea of state of nature.  People abandoning all beliefs and being concerned with nothing but their own preservation is indicative of the true nature of humans.  There were some people who were exceptions to this and helped out the sick with no concern for their safety, but a vast majority of the populace was merely concerned with their own health.  Thucydides also comments on the chaos brought upon by the plague saying that it caused, “the beginnings of a state of unprecedented lawlessness.” (Thucydides 155)  Instead of the cooperation of people, citizens were committing crimes with no fear of sentencing because of looming death and acting with no regards to the law. 

In Rebecca Solnit’s “The Uses of Disaster”, she says that the interruption caused by disaster can, “provide a satisfaction so profound it transcends even disaster’s devastation.” (Solnit, 32)  Generally people do not feel satisfied or a sense of community during or in the aftermath of a plague.  Most of the time, people are avoiding each other in order to not get sick. During an epidemic, people become less concerned about their neighbors’ safety and more concerned with their own well-being.  Solnit also talks about how large groups of people come together to help the victims of a major disaster.  This is the opposite of what would happen in the event of an epidemic.  The coming together of a large amount of people would most likely make the disease spread faster and to more victims.  Ailing people are actually encouraged to stay away from others in order to keep the disaster to a minimum.

On campus today, it is easy to see the affects of a pandemic on society.  When students are spotted with medical facemasks, others make sure to steer clear for fear of catching the H1N1 flu.  We are more concerned with not getting sick ourselves than helping sick individuals.  The affects of H1N1 on campus are a very small-scale example of the conditions an epidemic would cause on society.  Students aren’t running around the street breaking laws and giving up their beliefs but there is a definite attitude change as to how willing they are to help others.

Most large-scale disasters cause people to join together and form communities to help others.  Epidemics and plagues work in the opposite way causing people to separate from one another and revert back to a small-scale Hobessian state of nature.

Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner. Introduction and Notes by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Books, 1972.

Solnit, Rebecca. “The Uses of Disaster: Notes on bad weather and good government.” Harper’s Magazine October 2005. 31-37

The state of human nature has been a heavily hypothesized topic of political thought throughout history. Philosophers from a multitude of historical time periods have spent a great deal of effort attempting to define the truths of human nature. It can be argued that the opinions of various influential political thinkers, including Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, present a binding ideological commonality that humanity has an innate tendency to act on selfish motives. However, I do not believe it is possible to develop a stagnant definition of the reality of human nature. The tendencies of mankind, I believe, are prone to continuous change and therefore capable of being catalyzed by more than a single natural force. Through the analysis of the social evolution of mankind, tied together with the dissection of various social ideologies offered by prominent political thinkers, I will present an argument in defense of the idea that the nature of social theory, a key element of political thought, is one of infinite change rather than finite universalities.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke both present social theories centered on the unchanging belief that man is selfish. Hobbes, in his work titled Leviathan, states “the object of man’s desire, is not to enjoy only once, and for one instant of time, but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire,” (Wootton, 149). This statement reveals the idea that human action is driven by a selfish tendency to always act in ways deemed as beneficial to the preservation of oneself. Locke, although he argues that man possesses the natural abilities of reason and tolerance, insists “self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends,” (Wootton, 289). This means Locke also believes selfishness to be a universal and unavoidable characteristic of mankind. These two men, writing during periods of intense violence spurred by a revolutionary mood in the history of England, felt man was capable of action based only on selfish motives. The divided nation of England presented a world that was easily viewed as one in which acting selfishly was the only appropriate way to achieve self-preservation.

Although Hobbes and Locke present a universal and unchanging definition of human nature as they define their own social theories, modern philosopher Rebecca Solnit argues, through her observations of various human reactions to disasters, that humans are capable of acting selflessly. She claims that the phenomenon of “surprising human kindness and good sense” occurs time and time again when disaster strikes (Solnit, 33). The observations that persuade her to defend this idea are mainly of disasters that have occurred in time periods and places where a social structure has been firmly established. Her argument illuminates the potential reality that modern humanity, upon descending into a state of nature, subconsciously finds it beneficial to its own preservation to work together and assure that old social structures will be erected once again.

How is it that Rebecca Solnit is able to present factual observations that can be seen as contrary to the social theories of Hobbes and Locke? I believe the answer to this question lies within the idea that social theory is organic. External forces, which occur randomly over the course of history, stimulate substantial human reaction. This can be seen in both the violent reactions of Englishmen during the English Civil War and the responses of modern humanity to the challenges presented by disasters. These human reactions to external forces, I would argue, cannot be defined by one common catalyst. That is, I believe humans will act according to the unique situation in which they find themselves. The people of England acted selfishly throughout the 17^th century because it was in their best interest to preserve themselves through the use of violence. However, the populations analyzed by Solnit found it more beneficial to act in a selfless manner in order to preserve their lives through maintaining a social structure. I would argue that this is because a substantial portion of modern humanity is not fully capable of prolonged sustainability without receiving help from an established society.

In conclusion, I would defend the social theories of all the philosophers discussed above on the basis that humans acted, during specific and unique time periods, according to the theories presented. However, I would disagree with all of these thinkers on the basis that they present their social theories as finite definitions of human nature. I believe it can be argued that human nature is based on responding to external forces. Therefore, given both a specific time period and the reality that new external forces are always arising, human nature is constantly evolving. This means that social theory, because it is the study of human nature, is also infinitely changing.

Why is this important to the topic of Political Science? Political philosophers have consistently used social theory as a base from which they establish further political assertions. Therefore, presenting an understanding of human nature is an essential piece of the creation of a political theory. As argued above, human nature, and by association social theory, is constantly changing. This means that political theory is also an open-ended science. For example, the development of Communism, I would argue, would not have been possible without the occurrence of both the Industrial Revolution and the worldwide movement to embrace a Capitalist social and economic structure. In other words, Communism, as a political theory, was created as an answer to a newly arisen state of human nature created by a human response to external change. Therefore, human nature, because it is constantly evolving as it responds to new external forces, allows for the infinite construction of new political theories.

Works Cited:

Wootton, David. Modern Political Thought – Readings from Machiavelli

to Nietzsche. Second Edition. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing

Company, Inc., 2008. Print.

Solnit, Rebecca. The Uses of Disaster – Notes on Bad Weather and Good

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I’ve today went to the Museo de la Nacion in Lima, Peru. (Have i forgotten telling you i’m in Peru? Well, i had the best reason ever!) Anyway, the visit is awesome, in my forthcoming post about how maths is silly there will be a photo of me there with a quipu. Lots of Precolombino things there, but what was completely breathtaking was the exhibit about Terrorism.

As it turns out, Terrorism in Peru is the word for civil war, or more precisely to a kind of civil war that developed here in the 80s and 90s. Two left-oriented groups, the Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA created a lot of unrest and violence. I do not know nearly enough about such events to comment about anything, but i have a few musings about violence, war, and our lives.

One of the things is that connection between the Sendero and drug traffic. It points to a very interesting (and often overlooked, maybe on purpose) link between war and the economy.

Those people were not a few overly zealous group of students, they were a full-blown paramilitary organization. And that means they needed financing. In fact, any organized violence act must be very careful to allocate its resources properly. Even for example a classical terrorist act, which distinguishes itself for its independence from occupation tactics, needs some hefty basic materials.

We can downplay that and just say that war requires some basic economical basis, just as everything else. But we can also take war to be primarily an economic activity. Economy at its bottom is the management of energy. And violence is at its bottom the use of energy. In a very direct sense they are inextricably connected.

So for example, if you have a society that has a steady production and a decent level of savings, you can exert more violence in a more controled way. Obviously, but… Maybe society is just a technique to amass this power — as opposed to all these moral and naive things we use to say like democracy or human rights. Maybe all the amenities of so-called civilized living are just lubricant to a machine that basically serves other very different purposes.

That is obviously not a concrete thesis, but it is supposed to be enough of a disquieting idea to make one wonder. But there is yet another possible, and strange, connection to war that can be glimpsed in en Museo de la Nacion. Amongst the Incas, there is evidence of two kinds of war, complete with different fortresses and weapons. One was normal secular war, and they also had the ritual war, aimed at capturing people to serve as human sacrifices. And so maybe war is related to religion, and ultimately to our idea (and our experience) of the sacred.

The sacred is not that which is beyond the material world — this is a biased and unreliable explanation of the religious experience. Religion has always been tightly connected to how people live their lives. The actual precise definition of sacred is that which must not be touched. Thus, it is first a material thing, but a material thing that we, through material means, must subtract from the day to day life.

It is also, and in some ways because of it, something that gives meaning to the day to day life. The sacred is that which we can believe in.

If so, we must understand war not as the failure of society, as Hobbes do, but as a crucial, albeit not desirable, trait of it. We must wonder why and how war is part of society.

On the terrorism exhibition, one thing that was striking was how no one seemed to be right. There was no faction at all in which you really would trust. The militia seemed to be imposing some crazy ideals without really much discussion, and the military on the other hand seemed to be imposing a tired and obviously cruel status quo without any discussion at all. And though all of them claimed to be working to the benefit of others (the people, the nation, whatchacallit) they also just curiously happened to kill lots of civilians, all of them.

And maybe that is the real problem of things, that it is so easy to be criticising and moralize the issue, it is so easy to call names, it is easy to think that we are above it all, personally.

But it also seems, from the same exhibit, that they were all fighting for things they believed in. They were after meaning, they wanted a better world for you and me and everyone. It is a shame that, for those particular guys, this meant killing each other. But let’s not forget that fighting for what you believe is something that makes us human, as in, better than ourselves.

So, assuming no one wants to be Agent Smith — that is to say, everyone wants “a better world” — and also assuming that war is a part of society and not its disease, does it even make sense to talk about “better world”? Is there any form of progress that is even possible? And even if there is progress in those issues, can it ever get to a point where we could actually be proud of this world we’re living in?

Those are not only important questions. They are questions that lie in wait at the very heart of our self-becoming as society. If we can’t understand the very dangerous ambiguity that war involves, we might be damned to just keep repeating the same mistakes.

Again, it is very easy to fall into simplisms here:

• on one hand there are those who forsake violence, adopting a naive pacifism that simply refuses to see how deeply ingrained violence is embeded in our very ideals of peace;
• and in the other there is the assumption that every pacifist is kept by a hard man in congress, but this accepts a stupid lack of standards, which is a form of blindness to our very dreams.

War is more than violence. A war only happens when someone (or a people) is willing to put his very physical safety at risk in order to fight for something. War says that something is so important that without it, life is not worth the effort. It might be land, freedom, or money, but more and more as we get further down this whole modernity route, more and more war can be just about what we are choosing to believe in. War can be about ideology.

And to make it all more interesting, we are getting better and better at making war. Which means that our mistakes will cost highly. We must understand. We always did, but from now on the lack of understanding will become extremely dangerous. What’s even more, understanding brings control, which, besides being a form of better violence, is also a better form of building.

Taking war as this complex event that happens at all those different levels, taking war as this fight for whatever is more important to us than everything else, taking war as this deep experience that we must face with understanding and courage, maybe we can avoid the trap — always so close and so tempting — of allowing our fight for what is important to be the very thing that blocks us from that.

We are those strange, beautyfull, violent but also caring, cruel but also able to dream, those confusing and confused, sometimes brave but sadly so often fearful, small furless creatures. Being able to do war — in all its forms, from all-out genocide to dirty family business — is both what makes us free and what chains us.

And for what it counts i prefer free.