Week 1, Module 1

"And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." - Chapter  13, pg 89

It's probably one of, if not my favorite line in all of the political theory I've consumed. It answers a lot of the "why" questions people have about human nature and our modes of behavior. In my mind, it is also the crux of Hobbes' Leviathan and very much in line with the underpinnings of realist thought. Why does man seek security? Why do nations? It's all right there.

Let there be no doubt in Hobbes' painstaking attention to detail and process (method, if you will). He begins his rumination with sense, imagination, language,  reason, everything he uses later on to expound upon his ideas. Each successive chapter sheds more light on where he is coming from, laying the foundation so that it is near impossible that anything be missed or misinterpreted. We essentially get "man" from the ground up. Man imbued with sense and memory, gains prudence through experience, reason through method, and science through understanding of consequence. It goes on, explaining passion (life is motion), power, dignity, until we finally have this portrait of man that we can now put in the state of nature and understand where he's coming from.

It is this understanding of man that Hobbes begins to apply to the bigger picture. We know man is concerned for his security first, and so is willing to place impediments on his liberty to ameliorate those concerns, namely through contracting and, eventually, forming a commonwealth, living under a sovereign, etc. Each step of the way Hobbes adds another layer without ever actually getting away from the idea underscored in the above quote.


Sidebar:
One of the things I like most about Hobbes is his bringing the focus down from the heavens back to earth, very much following Machiavelli's example as the discipline shifted from ancient to modern. Science and reason (the way and the pace, respectively), will deliver the end, benefit to mankind.



"For who is so stupid both to mistake in Geometry, and also persist in it, when another detects his error to him?" (chp 5, 35)

Included this for the humor, couldn't help myself. Just about every social media argument in a nutshell.