Un-Conventional Speech: The Hobbesian take — 8/10

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is the second half of our post on Donald Trump’s RNC speech. It focuses on the Hobbesian aspect of the speech.

I couldn’t get over the overt Hobbesian tone of Trump’s convention speech. Suzanne told me to keep it in my pants, but I figured I should post about it. So, Fear in Philosophy head researcher Serge Engine and I combed through the transcript of the speech to find quotes that highlight Hobbesian ideas. The three excerpts below were picked because they are great jumping off points for our discussion of Hobbes.

“I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.”

This quote, from early in Trump’s address, hits on Trump’s use of Fear as well as the Hobbesian idea that the Sovereign’s power is supported by his ability to keep his subjects safe.

First, the Fear – The first sentence assumes that crime and violence is a problem that needs to come to an end. The second sentence promises that he is the man to make it happen. “Safety will be restored” implies that America is currently unsafe. In Hobbesian terms, this is the “diffidence” that Hobbes cites as a natural characteristic of Man in Chapter XIII of the Leviathan. “Diffidence” is similar to insecurity, and insecurity creates Fear. Diffidence has a connotation of “distrust” along with “insecurity,” and so creates the dynamic by which we come to fear people in the State of Nature.

And now, the Sovereign – I’ve written before about Hobbes’ belief that this Fear in the State of Nature creates a State of War. Hobbes believed that Man was first and foremost concerned with self-preservation, so that State of War thing couldn’t work forever. So people would come together to form the Social Contract. The Social Contract would create a Sovereign who is given total authority to limit people’s liberty’s for the sake of security. In Chapter XVIII of the Leviathan Hobbes claims that the sovereign is bound by the Social Contract to promote security and safety, and that failing to do so is just as unjust as a subject rebelling against the sovereign. Isn’t Trump saying the same thing here? The third and fourth sentences above assert that government exists to promote security and that it is required by the Social Contract.

Trump is painting himself as the candidate more capable of fulfilling this requirement of the Sovereign’s. I don’t know if Trump knows his Hobbes, but this is a clear example of Hobbes’ ideas showing up in Trump’s rhetoric.

——-

“Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

“The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.”

If the first quote tells us we have things to fear, this quote tells us “what” and “who” to fear. Here, as he has done over and over again, Trump points at immigrants as the cause of our Fear. This is an example of ‘norming’ (refresh your memory here). Norming is the process that associates certain groups with the State of Nature. The State of Nature is not a physical place, but our Fear of the State of Nature exists in the modern world because certain groups have come to represent the idea of the State of Nature. In this quote, illegal immigrants clearly personify the State of Nature.

Take a look at Trump’s language here. Illegals have been “released…into our communities” and are “roaming free.” Putting aside that this is language usually used to describe animals, it struck me as similar to Hobbes’ writing about the modern State of Nature in the Leviathan. He says that locking our doors and carrying arms when we travel is evidence that we are guarding against the State of Nature. He describes the State of Nature as lurking in the dark, etc.

Trump’s campaign is all about ending any feelings of Fear that Americans have regarding their physical security and their cultural identity. But to campaign on this, he must convince voters that real threats to their security exist. This is why the Hobbesian model is so useful here. The Hobbesian Sovereign is created when people are motivated by Fear to create the Civil Society. Trump knows that the Trump Administration can only be created if people are motivated by Fear to vote for him.

 ——-

“…We will also be a country of law and order.

“Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.”

…

“My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order.”

…

“I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our country.

I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job done. In this race for the White House, I am the Law and Order candidate.”

I’ll discuss this set of three quotes together, because they all touch on the same Hobbesian theme, which Trump captures in the phrase “law and order.” Trump stressed law and order throughout the speech, and it’s clear that he intends to enforce the laws harshly. He argues that “weak leaders” have let crime and violence go unchecked, and that he can fix it with a little Law and Order. Pair that with his blatant disrespect for judicial authority and willingness to ignore the Constitution in his policy proposals, you have a candidate who believes in trading Liberty for security.

Sound familiar?! It’s Hobbes. In signing the Social Contract, each person agrees to transfer all of the Liberty they possessed in the State of Nature into the figure of the Sovereign. This is what Trump is asking of voters. Give up your right to travel freely in name of fighting terrorism. Crush freedom of the press in the name of personal gain. Brush off your right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment with Law and Order as a goal. Trump argues that these are necessary to ensure the security of our country, and he believes that we should be willing to sacrifice our rights in order to achieve them. This is the Hobbesian belief as well. Hobbes said that humans would give up any right to gain security (Trump’s success at overpowering a group of liberty-loving Republican primary opponents tells me that Hobbes is on to something!).

The Trump-Hobbes dynamic is so strong here, but Suzanne says people get the picture. So I guess I’ll leave it at that for today. In a few days a new post will be up and Trump won’t be the topic for the first time in a couple of weeks.

My thanks to “Fear in Philosophy” head researcher Serge Engine for finding gems in the coal mine we call the World Wide Web.

Un-Conventional Speech: a language analysis–7/28

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 1st part of a 2 part posting about Donald Trump’s RNC speech. Today focuses on the language used in Trump’s speech. The second part will focus on selected quotes from the speech and apply our sites trademark Hobbesian analysis. Enjoy!

It’s had a few days to settle, but it’s still unsettling. Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was ‘dark’—that’s the word the media seized on to describe it the next day. It described an America in which crime was out of control, foreign policy was failing around the world, and economic policy was hurting American workers. And it was full of Fear. Trump made it very evident that he believes in an America that resists shifting social norms and embraces the ‘norming’ process that attaches certain groups to the State of Nature. His speech was a high profile exhibition of fear-based politics, and our Hobbesian view is a perfect fit to explain it all.

I’m not a linguist, but Trump’s speech was striking for its total lack of any rhetorical flair. It rarely appealed to the audience’s emotions, it didn’t use lofty language, it stuck to a no-frills style to deliver Trump’s message. I wanted to see how the speech compares to other convention speeches, so the Fear in Philosophy research team led by Serge Engine analyzed the text of the speech using a software called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The software isn’t free, and Suzanne controls the checkbook around here, so I used a free sample page that they made available which does a basic analysis of texts. So, I entered the text of Donald Trump’s 2016 RNC acceptance speech, Mitt Romney’s 2012 RNC acceptance speech, Barack Obama’s 2008 DNC acceptance speech, and Obama’s legendary 2004 DNC keynote. The analysis measures usage of ‘self’ pronouns, social words, positive and negative emotion words, “cognitive words,” articles, and big words. The numbers in all the charts below are the percentage of words from that speech that fit that category.

Let’s provide some context before we analyze Trump’s speech. Mitt Romney was the GOP’s most recent nominee, so his acceptance speech should provide a valuable comparison.

A statistical analysis of Mitt Romney’s 2012 RNC speech.

An analysis of President Obama’s 2008 DNC acceptance speech.

 

The LIWC analysis on the left shows that Romney used nearly 4 times as many positive words as he did negative words. The acceptance speech should serve to unite and excite people behind the candidate, so offering a positive message makes sense. To judge the other variables, we need to compare with another text, so on the right are the numbers on President Obama’s acceptance speech from 2008:

 

In every category, they are nearly identical! Romney used more positive words relative to negative words, but not overwhelmingly. Let’s take these as examples of ‘typical’ convention speeches, and now look at two atypical speeches.

Barack Obama’s keynote address from the 2004 DNC.

An analysis of Donald Trump’s speech at last week’s Republican convention.

First, Obama’s 2004 convention speech. At the time he was an unknown Illinois state senator campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat. John Kerry, the Democrats ’04 nominee, was an early booster of Obama and he gave Obama a prime time, keynote speaking slot on the Tuesday of the convention. The speech was well received and has been remembered as an all-time convention speech–swept Suzanne off her feet. The specs are on the left.

 

One obvious divergence between this speech and Obama’s 2008 speech stands out:  This speech has 5 times as many positive words as it has negative. This is consistent with the speech’s reputation as an uplifting coming-to-America story and rejection of divisive politics.

And now for the main event! Take a look now at how Obama’s speech contrasts with The Donald’s address from last week:

This speech expressed far fewer positive emotions than Romney’s RNC speech in 2012, and far more negative emotions than any speech we analyzed above. By my count, there were only 18 negative emotion words in Obama’s 2004 speech, contrasted with 106 in Trump’s speech. The ratio of positive to negative is given as 1:1 here, but anyone who watched the speech knows that this doesn’t really capture the extent of the pessimism, cynicism, and Fear that characterized the speech. For example, Trump sought to align himself with “law and order” (used 4 times), which is not a negative phrase on its face, but in context of the speech and the speaker it is clear that it is a euphemism for “security at the expense of civil liberties” (a hallmark of the Hobbesian sovereign!).

Additionally, the lower percentage of cognitive words stands out, and it seems to confirm my sense that Trump’s speech kept it simple on purpose. Perhaps this was intentional to appeal to his base of voters without a college education, but I can’t say for sure. On the other hand, Trump used the most big words of these four speeches (big words to compensate for his small hands?).

One other interesting note that I picked up on:  Trump used the phrase “oath of office” four times, and it seemed to me that he was intentionally repeating the idea that he will take the oath of office in January. He might do this to make the idea of a Trump presidency more concrete, or to convince voters that he is serious about this campaign.

My theory is that as a savvy television star, he understands that a statement is truer every time it gets repeated, because people are more familiar with it. There is a famous saying in advertising that a consumer has to see an ad at least six times before it can be effective. For this article, Fear in Philosophy’s intrepid research team (a.k.a. me and my colleague Serge Engine) came up with this gem authored by Thomas Smith in his book, Successful Advertising, published waaaaay back in 1885 (no, Suzanne, I don’t mean 1995). It describes what happens every time a person sees an ad again.

Where are you regarding Trump? Most Americans have gotten at least to number 5. Many people, are sitting at 6, 7, or 8 and will not go any further. Lots of people are at 9 or 10. Regarding #11, how ‘bout those tax returns, Don? #14 and 15 represent the people who gravitate to Trump because they, too, want to Make America Great Again. Some people have progressed all the way to the end, drinking their authentic snake oil like it was Kool-Aid. To those people:  check the date—it expires November 8^th.

Terrorists, Walls, and Trade. Oh my! How Trump uses Fear – 7/18

 

After a few posts on this site, I can’t avoid him any longer. He’s on the front page of every newspaper, he’s yelling into every camera, and he’s denying citizens their right to a coherent Twitter feed (follow me @Fear_Philosophy). He is Donald Trump, and his campaign is the embodiment of the fear-based worldview this site is all about. He is the closest thing to a Hobbesian Sovereign American politics has. So, as the Republican National Convention gets going tonight, this post will break down three of Trump’s most famous talking points from this campaign and try to show how he has used fear to support his position.

THE WALL

Yes, “The Wall” with capitalized first letters. This is only a campaign issue because Trump made it one. Most people know that a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would be “an impossible, impractical symbol of fear.” No one is sure if Trump knows how impractical it is, but he clearly knows how to harness the fear it appeases. He uses the idea of a border wall to rally his supporters with an Us vs. Them message. Walls are the ultimate metaphor for separation, isolation, and division–just ask Robert Frost or Pink Floyd. Trump is promoting The Wall because he sees that some Americans perceive that the people who cross the border are challenging the status quo in America. Whether they really are is not actually Trump’s focus; he is simply capitalizing on people’s fear. In this context, Hispanic immigrants represent Hobbes’ State of Nature and The Wall is a defense mechanism by which Trump supporters seek to exercise their Hobbesian right to self-preservation.

Trump seems to believe that keeping immigrants out will preserve jobs and maintain the character of our society, and that is justification enough to build The Wall. In Hobbes, the sovereign’s main purpose is to provide security to his subjects. Building walls is a strongman’s way of displaying strength and security to people.

TERRORISM

Trump has proposed a ban on Muslims traveling to and from the United States because of the potential for terrorists to sneak in. This policy uses many of the same fear tactics as The Wall. It is a method of physically keeping out the people who have come to represent the State of Nature in the minds of Americans.

This topic is a great place to discuss civil liberties and Hobbes. Hobbes thought that when we formed a society under a social contract, we cede all of our rights to the sovereign in exchange for protection and security. Proposing a ban on Muslims is Trump taking this idea and running with it. Preventing otherwise legal travel is clearly a violation of civil liberties, but Trump justifies it in the name of national security. He has also suggested that the government monitor mosques to weed out terrorists. Obviously, this shows blatant disregard for the Fourth Amendment. It may seem appropriate given the terrorist attacks that have plagued the world recently, but if Muslims’ civil liberties can be overridden, why not yours? The Hobbesian sovereign has no problem limiting rights and freedoms in the name of security.

FREE TRADE

Waaaaaay back during Republican debate season last fall, Trump gained “huge” leads in polls of Republican voters largely by hammering President Obama, Bill and Hilary Clinton, and other politicians on free trade. He claimed “China is killing us on trade” and promised to stop American companies from outsourcing by negotiating more favorable trade deals than past leaders have done. He has derided President Obama’s signature free trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as a bad deal for Americans. He wants people to fear that American is losing its place as the world’s foremost superpower. Americans feel uncertain about their economic future because of global competition and massive, nationless corporate interests that leave the American worker to worry whether his job will be outsourced. Trump points to China as the source of this uncertainty.

He wants people to view China as the cause of any economic hardship in America. He has positioned China as the State of Nature figure now, and he wants to use tariffs, “negotiations,” and protectionism as the defense mechanism to ensure security. In our modern world economic security is no different than securing one’s own life in Hobbes’ State of Nature. Like any good Hobbesian sovereign, Trump is claiming he can quell the fear that comes with uncertainty.

And that’s the Hobbesian quick take on a few of Trump’s positions. Expect these themes to come up throughout the Republican Convention this week. Leave a comment and tell me what you think about Trump’s use of Fear!

Fear and ‘Brexit’ –7/7

On June 23 the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, an unexpected result that puts the future of the European Union and British politics up in the air. It has called into question the EU’s role as an institution of post-war unity. It has flung Britain’s economic future up in the air, and no one knows where it will come down. The UK’s political leaders are falling left and right, right when they need some direction. If Britain follows through with this vote, they will lose some of the economic advantages that come with being part of the EU, potentially hurting the very voters who supported the ‘Leave’ campaign because of economic anxiety. What could drive a nation to such an extreme decision?

On this site, the answer is always Fear.

Brexit is a middle finger to the establishment. It is a rejection of the bureaucrats and politicians who operate detached from the concerns of regular people. It’s been said in other places, but this sounds a lot like Trump voters. Trump supporters and ‘Leave’ supporters also have in common a strong concern for their economic future. They are worried that their children will not be as successful as they have been. They are worried that their job is moving to China. The recent wave of right wing populism has given this segment of the population a channel to express themselves, and they are lashing out.

Now, Fear comes into play. The people who have this economic anxiety need a place to direct their anger and fear. In the UK and the US, immigrants are a primary source of this fear. One reason for the rejection of the EU by British voters is the open borders policy between EU members. This affects two key areas of voter interest:  economy and national security. The ‘Leave’ campaign put forth a narrative that immigrants were coming to Britain and taking jobs, depressing wages, etc. Leaving the EU is an attempt to repel foreigners from the British economy. In Hobbesian terms, immigrants represent the State of Nature, and when people feel threatened they will defend themselves against the State of Nature. In our modern world, discriminating against others is a major mechanism by which we protect ourselves from the State of Nature.

Secondly, national security is another reasoning driving the fear of immigrants. Statistically, many recent immigrants to Europe are Muslim. Many people worry about terrorism and feel that the EU immigration policies make Britain susceptible to terror attacks. Really, it is about national autonomy. The EU seeks to collectivize the potential of European nations. Brexit seeks to regain its autonomy over its economy and borders. Britain wants to protect itself from the State of Nature on its own terms.

Ultimately, the UK voted for Brexit because voters felt that their national identity was under threat. They became convinced by politicians who exploited these fears that leaving the European Union would make Britain more secure, more prosperous. I can’t say whether that’s true, but I can say it was motivated by fear.