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.
Follow
I think what you say in the first paragraph is right on for what Hobbes is concerned about. And when you think about it, we should be concerned about it too–if the government we live under were so torn by conflict that there was not a clear authority, a clear way to put a stop to conflict, a final answer, then there would be no effective governing. Some would follow one side, others another, and things would get pretty chaotic. We have disagreements in our political leaders, of course, but there is always a procedure for stopping them and coming to some kind of decision. And even if not everyone is happy about it, they go along with it until such time as the issue can be discussed further and possibly a new resolution occur. That’s not too terribly far off, I think, from the sort of thing Hobbes was talking about (and why he preferred monarchy…because there is clearly one person who gives the final word).