It fascinates me that Hobbes was able to produce such progressive arguments in the 17th century. The idea that the state must possess complete power in order to benefit society is something that people today really try to digress from for fear of corruption and chaos. But that wasn’t what Hobbes was focusing on, necessarily. I think what he was trying to get at was that a good government (in his eyes, a monarchy) minimizes factors that can lead to discord; a good government isn’t divided amongst itself, which can lead to separate agendas, which in turn will lead to civil war.
I am one that vouches fully for basic human rights – the right to live, the right to choose, etc. – so when I read a synopsis of the Leviathan, I was almost deterred from actually reading it. However, Hobbes’s argument made sense to me. If we are talking about the greater good – one that benefits a whole and not just individuals – then a monarch (with good intentions) is the best option. Then I thought about individualistic vs. collectivistic countries (such as America, Canada vs. Singapore, Japan) and rethought my initial argument: is individualistic culture really more beneficial as a whole?
I remember in AP Psych last year reading about how collectivist societies are actually happier than individualistic societies simply because they all work towards common goals. Furthermore, they feel like they can rely on the strength of the population, whereas the last time I believed in the strength of a population was when I got sick (I actually believed in the strength of the population of white blood cells inside me. Ahem).
Moreover, I read a tweet this morning while I was creeping somebody that said, “We blame society, but we are society” and I think that pretty sums up Hobbes’s argument (and what Crawford was trying to reiterate): that we can’t keep placing faults in the things we chose to implement due to our own inability to govern ourselves.
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