The State of Nature isn’t real—er, well, it isn’t a physical place. But does that mean it isn’t real? Biological arguments that claim there is genetic inequality between races of people (and thereby justify discriminatory practices in law and society), have been universally discredited by modern science. We know and accept that race has no bearing on intelligence, etc.—it is literally only skin deep. So certainly, race is not true in the world, but I contend that it is real. Everywhere we turn today race is an active part on the social conversation. We see it in law, where a federal judge has ruled that Cleveland, Mississippi needs to desegregate the public school district. We see it in politics, where Donald Trump recently accused a federal judge of bias because the judge is Hispanic. We see it in Black Lives Matter and Rachel Dolezal. We see all around us that race affects social interaction and legal decision making.
Similarly, the State of Nature isn’t true—no one believes that the lawless state described by Hobbes actually exists anywhere in the world, or that it ever did—but nonetheless it is real. When Trump rails against immigrants and Muslims, he is pegging them to the State of Nature. When local governments make efforts to gentrify poorer neighborhoods, they are pushing the State of Nature out of sight. Countless instances of discrimination, xenophobia, and the like can be attributed to society’s fear of the State of Nature.
The real-but-not-true explanation works for both race and the State of Nature, and it is important to notice that they are not separate entities. They are closely tied through a process called the ‘norming’ of space and bodies. It has nothing to do with Norm MacDonald or Norm from Cheers. It is the process by which society has fused the State of Nature with racial minorities, foreigners, religious minorities, women, and the poor. Here’s how it works:
Historians agree that even Thomas Hobbes himself didn’t believe that the State of Nature was once the actual state of mankind. He acknowledges as much in Chapter 13 of the Leviathan.
“It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so over all the world…”
Here, Hobbes addresses his critics, and admits that a war of all against all never happened. This sets up the State of Nature as a hypothetical tool that supplies a theoretical framework for explaining why people form society and submit to laws. But wait there’s more! Check out the rest of the paragraph, and notice how the additional context gives new meaning to the first quote.
“It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so over all the world, but there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner as I said before.”
Now it appears that Hobbes is saying “the State of Nature never existed everywhere, but the savages in the Americas definitely live in it.” Reading this, it isn’t a stretch to if the State of Nature didn’t exist everywhere, and it exists in the Americas, then Hobbes is inferring that Europe never experienced the State of Nature. This sets up a situation where Europeans can claim superiority to other cultures because they have always been above the State of Nature. In Hobbes’ day, England and the other European powers were in the nascent stages of the Age of Exploration, and Europeans had never encountered such unfamiliar cultures. Hobbes decided these cultures must be inferior. Arguing that European culture was superior also provided a convenient justification for imperial colonization, which so often involved conquering and exploiting the native populations. Europeans could now say that they have the credentials to bring ‘civilization’ to the savage people of the Americas.
Now, the crucial process of ‘norming’ begins. When society perceives the State of Nature, it tends to assume that the physical space is bad or inferior (norming space), then by extension associates the physical space with the peoples who live there. This is the norming of bodies. Society comes to associate the fear and dislike that they have for the State of Nature with people from those places. As the physical places associated with the State of Nature have disappeared, the people from those places have been normalized as embodiments of the State of Nature. As history would have it, the places considered to be the State of Nature were the colonies of European powers in the Americas and Africa, the inhabitants of which happen to be nonwhite.
This has led scholars like Charles Mills, author of The Racial Contract, to argue that modern power structures in society are inherently raced systems. Western history is a raced history, our power structures reflect that, and society needs to acknowledge this. Through the events of history and the bias-affirming structure of law and society, certain groups have been normed to represent the State of Nature, and because we fear the State of Nature, the established power structure will inevitably work to against those groups.
Mills says in The Racial Contract that it is just a happenstance of history that “whiteness” became the dominant force in society. Our fear of the State of Nature can manifest in any group that is perceived to challenge the norms of society. People are constantly seeking security, Hobbes says, and outsider groups threaten that security. Hobbes argues that our impulse to secure ourselves against the State of Nature is natural. In a world where the State of Nature s normed onto certain groups, our defense against the State of Nature takes the form of discrimination and bias.
Fear in Philosophy 