Something that has always puzzled me about Hobbes:
In what way does the writing he does profit him? In
what way does the fact of his being a writer, philosopher, generator of ideas,
support and validate the philosophy he writes about?
Selma
It's a long time since I've read any history of
thought, but I can see Hobbes' "organic automaton" (OA)fusing into several
concepts that emerged later. I believe that Hobbes himself argued that to
make life less nasty, brutish and short, his OA had to give up some of his
self-centeredness, and merge his interests with those of others, thus giving
rise to something that might be called the state and the rule of law. This
could have given rise to J.J. Rousseau's idea that the power to rule was
conferred upon rulers by the people themselves and not something of divine right
(if I have it right). This could then have led to things like Thomas
Paine's "Rights of Man" and the emergence of the modern liberal state. If
my history is at all accurate, I believe that Paine's thinking had a large
influence on the American Constitution.
I believe the OA would also have played a role in the
emergence of modern economic thought. The OA behaved in his self-interest,
and initially this would have involved grabbing whatever he could away from
other OAs. However, he might soon have realized that this was not the best
way to go about things, so he may have recognized, dimly at first but with
growing certainty, that if he drew the water and let someone else hew the wood,
both would be better off. Out of this may have come, eventually,
notions like enlightened self-interest and specialization and the division of
labour, but I really have no idea of just how it all connected.
But perhaps what is most important about Hobbes, if I
have it right, is that he believed people to be rational and essentially
material in their interests. It would seem that he believed that man's
fate was in the hands of man, not God. By the time he was born, the
Renaissance had led to new ways of thinking about man's place in the
universe. Newton was born not too long after Hobbes, and the compulsion to
explain everything, including economic and social behaviour, in
rational, scientific and essentially mechanical terms followed.
It's still with us today, though its been much softened by the realization of
how terribly irrational man can be and how mysterious and unmechanical the
universe really is.
Hope this helps, but more than that, I hope I have some
of it right.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 11:27
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Hobbes
Something that has always puzzled me about
Hobbes:
In what way does the writing he does profit him?
In what way does the fact of his being a writer, philosopher, generator of
ideas, support and validate the philosophy he writes about?
Selma
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 10:49
AM
Subject: [Futurework] Hobbes
Having glanced through it rather quickly when
it was first posted, I’ve just reread Stephen Straker’s piece on
Hobbes. I must say I’ve never felt comfortable with Hobbes’
articulation of man in the "state of nature". It depicts man as
solitary, acting only to satisfy himself, being nothing more than an
"organic automaton". Personally, I don’t think it was ever like
that. First, we have always lived not by ourselves, but in groups, and
groups were always governed by codes of behaviour. Second, groups
interacted, and this again required codes of behaviour. Only in
extreme cases would inter-group actions lead to physical strife.
Third, since whenever it was that we became fully human, we have had an
enormous capacity for invention and projection, including the invention of
supreme beings that provide a supernatural overly to how we must behave and
original states of being that remind us that we have behaved much better in
the past. Gods and Gardens of Eden are ancient and have existed since
time immemorial. Stories that govern morality, part myth but also part
history, have been told and retold for many thousands of years. Noah’s
flood is an example.
I caught a glimpse of how ancient some of these
stories may be back in the 1970s when I attended a hearing in the
small community of Aklavik in the Mackenzie Delta. One of the
elders of the community, a Gwich'in Indian, was trying to explain to the
presiding judge about how his people relate to their land. His story
was essentially about man’s courage in the face of a great flood that killed
many people and animals and created several great rivers, the Mackenzie, the
Yukon, the Porcupine and the Mississippi among them. I happened to be
sitting next to a geologist who knew the geological history of the region,
and I asked him whether the story might have had any basis in reality.
He answered in the affirmative, saying that, toward the end of the
last ice age, a huge wall of ice that had confined a enormous amount of
meltwater suddenly gave way and flooded the whole of the Porcupine Basin.
I asked him how long ago that might have happened, and he said perhaps
eight to ten thousand years ago. A thing told and retold over the
millennia to remind people of who they were, where they came from, and how
they should behave.
Yet, having said the foregoing, I must admit
that Hobbes may have a point. Last night I watched a TV special on the
role of journalists, mostly embedded, in the invasion of Iraq. Many of
the scenes suggested a complete breakdown of civil institutions and of
personal morality. The American soldiers the journalists were
traveling with were clearly frightened, and their only thought was 'to get
the motherfuckers before they get us'. They were jubilant when they
knocked out an Iraqi position, killing several people. Given their
superior fire power, it was not a fair fight, but of course fairness was the
last thing in their mind. Other scenes depicted Iraqi civilians
carrying off loot, much as Hobbes’ "organic automaton" would have carried
off loot. But there were some scenes that suggested that Hobbes may
not have had it right, scenes of medical staff in hospitals desperately
trying to look after the wounded and dying under impossible conditions, and
the faces of women who mourned but refused to break down because they had
seen all this many, many times before over many thousands of years.
Ed
Weick
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