Thomas Hobbes
“Nasty, brutish and short” was the way Thomas Hobbes described the life of a free man. Every man for himself. As a Political Science major these are the words that has impacted me the most. All though Hobbes paint a rather dark picture of the human nature, he laid down the basics of how we live our lives today. I, like so many else - take it for granted that we are born free. That we are all equal.
Hobbes stated that all humans are mentally and physically equal. No human life can be valued more than others. This is the foundation of how we live our lives today. I take it for granted that I can vote in political elections, I take it for granted that I’m a free person who can go to college, I take it for granted that law system will always defent my rights.
Many would probably argue that this is not science. But I would beg to differ. Today we have science that can prove that we are, in fact - all equal. But without the groundwork of political thinkers like Hobbes, science could very easily be misused to prove something different.
So that’s how Political Science made me aware of what I used to take for granted, freedom.
To be born free into a world of brutish people makes me wonder to what cost has “freedom” been won so that the proverbial ‘we’ can be born free? I think that it might be a bit narrow in the complete analysis of what it means to be able to think you have had the privilege to be born into a society where opportunities for education and success are in fact equal. Scientific facts that can explain that every human is biologically equal should have maybe been the light bulb that ended slavery, discrimination, employment gaps, or the need for affirmative action initiatives. Unfortunately, I feel that humans are a bit more on the brutish nasty sort as Hobbes proposed. I do think that we are born into a scientific world where we can use scientific findings to legitimize ideals for the better of society. However, you allude to the opposite as being a fallacy to do great harm in lets say eugenics movements in where science was used to propel unjust realities as a fact to propel others freedoms to succeed as well. I think to take the issue of freedom further we all must ask to what means are people, following the Hobbsian nature of humans, able to create this freedom for select groups of people.
ReplyDeleteI love the interest in this topic you have, to me it is one of the most interesting points of political difference between our systems of governing today. Unfortunately the ways that we paint human nature have been shown in the lengthy article by Lewontin to have disastrous results if we interpret human nature wrongly. While a grim picture is painted of human nature by Hobbes the simplicity and derivatives in logic are what make it the simplest form of explanation for us and it also has the least assumptions, making it the most perfect form of human nature when stacked against Ochum's Razor. The true virtue in it is that the theory allows governments to set themselves up as the "Leviathan" not against our will but because we consent to it. If the "Leviathan" of government grows too restricting at any time we can unify against it and overthrow it, our founding fathers in their infinite wisdom however saw how bloody constant revolution against the system could become through the american revolution, subsquent french revoloution, and previous upheavals against the monarchy in England. This is why they set up the system in which there are checks and balances and also the ability to amend that which has previously been written into law, ours is not a law set in stone but set in motion.
ReplyDeleteI think it's fascinating to note that science through much of its history was popularly used to justify racism. From Ceasar Lombroso to the eugenics movement to J. Philippe Rushdon and Charles Murray science has been used to justify racial hierarchies. Science is often used to justify the morality of the moment. Science today is rapidly proving race to be a blunt and largely meaningless concept but it is also revealing amazing diversity within the human population. Our society has ascribed moral, legal, and human equality to all people, but I think the science has worked to justify that rather than bring about the change.
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