alt Hacker NewsAs an ex historian I love how this famous 350yo work of political philosophy is just sitting at #7 on HN with absolutely no context on why it was submitted.
The great debate of political philosophy coming out of the 17th century was between Hobbes (anarchy is horrible, humans aren’t nice to each other, best to give up your freedoms to a strong sovereign/state for protection) and Locke (liberty is best, people are reasonable, limit government). I will say that like most of us I probably side more with Locke but as a pessimist about human nature I find Hobbes’s argument fascinating too.
Replies
Beautiful comment. Thanks for sharing. "Homo homini lupus" comes to mind, used by Locke in De Cive ("on the citizen") [1]. Cive, root Civis, is where the word civilization comes from.
While Hobbes is dark, he is giving an interesting explanation of how political power actually work, so that even when people are not nice, they can act in a civilized way.I only read a small parts of it and some summaries, from what I understand the crux of the argument doesn't necesserily force democracy or autocracy(although he seem skeptical of democracy) rather it explains the concept of sovereignity, even in a democracy. I once quoted Leviathan in a course assignment to explain why Gandhi's method is effective :)
While I always wanted to like Locke's arguments more, they always felt the weaker of the two, and frequently seemed to need to plug god into the gaps.
Is there a middle ground argument? Something along the lines of humans are horrible to one another unless there is a social state that provides reasonable protection, at which point we can afford to be nice?
Wouldn't it make more sense to want less government and more freedom if one doesn't trust people?
Found your comment mightily insightful, so may as well ask:
Can you recommend a handful of similar “historical” works that you’d consider a must-read (or simply just darn interesting).
Thanks!