The Gist:

For Hobbes it boils down to fear, mainly a fear of premature death. At the core of his argument is self-preservation- choosing to leave the freedom that comes with the state of nature for the tranquility that comes with knowing that there is a system in place that will protect our lives. In order to establish this system we must renounce our rights to be governed by the Laws of Nature in exchange for SECURITY. Therefore, ‘reasonably’, we all voluntarily transfer our rights within the “Law of Nature” framework to the state in the hope that in exchange we will receive “some Good”. With transference comes obligation and the covenant or contract is born. The second we surrender our rights to the State it is implied that the state will have a definite obligation to its subjects and anyone who chooses not to partake has defaulted back into a state of nature. In addition, covenants are based on mutual trust, once the seed of suspicion that any parties within the covenant may steer away from the contract it immediately becomes void and again we revert back to the laws of nature.

THOUGHTS

The State of nature = “condition of Warre of every man against every man”

                In Chapter XIII, Hobbes points to the arena of international relations as an existing state of nature (see [63]):

“… in all times, Kings, and Persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their independency, are in continuall jealousies… having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another… and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.”

“The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there  is no common Power, there is no law: where no law, no Injustice.”

Where does this leave International Human Rights? – Goes back to some of the issues we discussed last week in class.

Covenants are based on mutual trust; a covenant/contract like the Universal declaration on Human Rights taking place in this state of war is intrinsically riddled with mistrust between contractors. Furthermore, the UN as a ‘common power’ becomes problematic as a covenant/contract has to be understood as “something to come; and which is judged Possible for him that Covenanteth, to performe.” Human Rights as a concept that has yet to be effectively defined and accepted universally, as an endeavor or obligation becomes something to be suspicious of  even if just in doubt of feasibility by signatories—“And therefore, to promise that which is known to be Impossible, is no Covenant.” He follows by stating that if the object of a covenant is deemed impossible after the establishment of the covenant then it is the obligation of the common power to perform as much as is possible. But again, it boils down to trust, and trust in the power of the UN to perform obligations is faint.

Hobbes and his obsession with Mechanics

Anyone who reads Leviathan can see that Hobbes is very concerned with definitions. He goes into painstaking detail so as to avoid any misunderstandings and reduce individual subjectivity to the absolute minimum. Agreement needs to be founded on mutual acceptance and understanding, this can only be achieved through shared language. Language in the Leviathan is very mechanical in nature; every word serves a specific purpose and should be understood as such by all:

“… a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed.”

Last class we discussed the importance of definitions and saw how many of the declarations and constitutions became ‘entangled in words’. My last blog also came to this conclusion. However, last week I failed to understand Language as a double edged sword. See “No covenant with Beasts”.

“To make Covenants with bruit Beasts, is impossible; because not understanding our speech, they understand not, nor accept of any translation of Right; nor can translate any Right to another: and without mutuall acceptation, there is no Covenant.”

In this case, language becomes exclusionary—it establishes who is entitled to rights and who is unworthy, for to be entitled to a Right, we must first understand what a “right” is in the first place.  

Discussions on State of nature and the place of the Social Contract can be broken into a very entertaining binary for debate: Anarchism vs. Authoritarianism.  What does the Human race require? And what does the Human Race continuously reproduce?

Authoritarianism:

Surely in our context as UBC students, without certain institutional projects built by the political and economic elites, we would not be sitting where we are.  One easy example is that many of us afford tuition based on the government subsidization of higher learning in Canada, unlike in the US where students have to be either a) owning class, endowed with a trust fund, or extremely fiscally prudent b) putting themselves into serious debt, or c) extremely gifted and getting hefty scholarship funding.  So for young Canadians, many can afford Schooling based on government subsidies or because they agree to a social contract of banking when taking out loans. Because surely we must pay back the bank.

Another question.  Would Latin American Studies as a discipline even exist without hierarchy? So many of us with affinity for the Americas, or that are just political junkies getting a fix off the surplus of social instability and rhetoric from ruling ideologues of nations, we would not have such things to entertain ourselves if it were not for the phenomena of state formation, state resistance, and authoritarian tendencies.  Latin America is a perfect example of using social contract as a means to a self-interested ends, which is for many people their raison d’etre, their razón de ser.  Be it state sanctioned, racially upheld everyday, or by stranglehold of economics and movements of capital, social contracts are used to perpetuate social and moral poverty.

Anarchism:

The closest thing the western world has seen to anarchy in action has been market oriented.  Isn’t that sad?  Experiments with an ”anything is possible” attitude in modern times doesn’t operate on principles of autonomy and self sufficiency amongst people doing their shared everyday necessities to survive, but rather anarchy has been experimented with only fiscally, in terms of throwing money around and pursuing economic projects that will theoretically self-regulate. Ha!  What does this tell about human nature today, all enlightenment era debates aside?

I’m going to agree with Hobbes on something, that life is Brutish, nasty, and short.  Most people don’t make it this way, only the few that use social contracts as social discipline.

One theme I found to be very interesting in these readings was the discussion of property and the rights to self preservation. While these were mentioned in several places, the one that first jumped out at me was John Locke’s “On Property.” For he essentially discusses the act of labour to extract resources from the land as being the defining factor of having rights to those resources.

At first, I found this to be very problematic in an imperialistic since. It truly seemed like a justification for colonialism because what you could physically take you could have, and that is more or less how colonialism seemed to operate. However, towards the end of the article, he makes claims that those who extract more from nature than he actually needs, to the point that resources go to waste, were “traditionally” shamed by society for taking more than his fair share. Which seems to be quite a statement about not being greedy or over materialistic, and therefore makes his argument much less colonizing.

All of this is thought provoking when thinking about “modern” human rights issues. One thing that often comes to mind is that there are not many firm resource rights. For instance, there isn’t a very concrete or explicit right to clean drinking water. It does also seem to be that one may take whatever resources they can manage to obtain. Yes, there is legal framework to some extent, but more and more that framework seems to benefit wealthy people/companies with the right connections, not indigenous people who need the land for subsistence.

The idea of companies being able to manipulate governments and resources better than your average person brings forth Paine’s statement that “to say that government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed: but this cannot be true.” He goes on to say that governments can “arise out of or over the people.” In terms of land rights and indigenous rights it seems to be that government has arisen “over” the people. There are governments that these people were not necessarily part of forming, which now control most of the indigenous people’s lives with or without their say.

I would argue that in modern times being part of the state or being governed by the state is not at all a negotiation, but something you are simply born into. You are given citizenship to the country in which you were born (more or less) and then you have to live within that country’s system, or its place within the global system of governance without any personal choice in the matter. Obviously, you can switch citizenships in some instances, but doing so is not too common. People essentially don’t have agency in choosing their fate based on their country of origin or on their social status within that country.

People’s lack of agency speaks to Hobbes’ point on bonds being built by fear. In present day Hobbes’ ideas on power being a main agent for holding people in bonds to government seem to be the most correct. There does seem to be a lack of agency (depending on social strata), and a fear of stepping outside government forces.

What a fascinating character De Gouges most had been!! You can easily grasp her boldness, passion and courage through this declaration, where she uses a strong (and at times sarcastic) language in a time when speaking so robustly was dangerous, especially for a woman.

I enjoyed her witty introduction asking men if they can be just, showing her claim that men have deprived women of common rights, mocking their right to even ask a question.  De Gouges has been considered one of the earliest feminists in history. She believed France could be more prosperous and less corrupted if citizens (no matter the sex) were given the same rights and were equality participatory in the public scene.

Her intelligent parallel between nature and society added logic to her statements. Centuries later and I still believe nature holds the balance, showing us how male and female complement each other, creating what she called “harmonious togetherness.” If nature is showing us the way, how can we still, in 2011, question our similarities and disqualify our differences? Times have changed, but women in many parts of the world are still deprived of basic human rights; and I wonder, how much more time or proof the world needs to understand that with fair treatment we accomplish more as an international community than with gender inequalities?

Her rebellious act against the recently established constitution in France addressed all aspects missing in this document regarding gender roles and social equality. The constitution, from what I have read, neglected to consider issues such as legal equality in marriage, the right of a woman to divorce her husband if he assaulted her and a woman’s right to property.  She clearly questions traditional morals and the role of women in society vs. that of prostitutes. I could not believe she was promoting one of the first red districts, assigning specific areas for prostitutes to work!

As a reflection of the time, she regarded beauty as an asset and as a way women could be superior to men, but I find this argument weak for the claims she made. Our “charms” should include wisdom, although she did point out the need for national education, not available at that time.

I am not sure how adoption was handled during the 1700’s, and I am intrigued. But I found her observations about adoption and illegitimate children progressive and modern.

De Gouges was executed years after this declaration for her political activism, but she is highly regarded in France still today. She was certainly judgmental in her analysis, assuming women had no rights because they did not want them or asked for them more profusely. However, I believe she wanted to empower women to take a more active role in their everyday lives instead. Can I travel through time and have tea with her? I bet she was fascinating to talk to.

Having read most of the texts of this weeks reading, the one that prominently grab my attention was De Gouges Declaration of the Rights of Women. The text is valuable not only because having been written in 1790 still has prescient demands that have not been met yet, but also because it is written in the language and manner of most of the declarations of the time. One of the first impressions upon reading the texts is that it is written in the language and logic of the Enlightenment, through the questioning of the conclusions that those who promulgated the rights of the man and the citizen had used. She has taken to the logical conclusion the arguments of the Declaration of the right of the man and the citizen and question why the liberty and justice that was meant to be restored to men is denied to women.

What she does is to invite people to observe nature and see how throughout nature sex is equally distributed. So it follows, or so her argument entails that to the same extent that the two sexes are equally distributed through nature, the same should occur in the new political arrangement of France. For, if the argument that lies beneath the enactment of the Rights of the man and the citizen is that there are inalienable rights that are bestowed on people by nature, women should also have the same rights as men, for there is no rational argument that can leave one of the sexes without the same rights. In other words, if it is truth that “liberty and justice consists on restoring what belongs to others” and that process of restoration is what occurs at the enactment of the rights of rights of men and the citizen, there is no rational argument to withhold equality for women.

She also mentions the hypocrisy with which men “have raised their exceptional circumstances to a principle” because in an age of Enlightenment, science and critical evaluation of tradition, they insists on commanding a sex, which in is full intellectual capacity. Those exceptional circumstances to which she makes reference is the fact that the Enlightenment is meant to move beyond prejudices and established truths towards the emporium of logic, reason and proof, but instead of looking at the issue of equality with a critical eye, men have decided to raise their peculiar circumstances to a principle, justified in no other way, than in the tradition from which they were meant to move away.

There is also the fact that the text is so revolutionary and yet so common. Particularly in article III where she argues that the essence of the nation “is nothing but the union of a woman and a man…” Perhaps she is too much a daughter of her time, perhaps I am reading her arguments with the eyes of another time, but she does not even conceive the possibility of same sex couples being also at the foundation of the nation.

Perhaps for the actuality of the arguments and the fact that most of them remain unfulfilled, perhaps because today King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections this texts was the most relevant of them all.