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.

‘Norming’ and the modern State of Nature–6/9

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.

 

What’s the DEAL with the State of Nature?!–5/26

Seinfeld was a show about nothing. The State of Nature, as Thomas Hobbes saw it, is also a show about nothing. He argues that there is no way for people to develop anything physical or cultural in the State of Nature, leaving them with nothing except their person to defend. In the quote below, from Chapter XIII of the Leviathan, Hobbes lists all the things that could not exist in a State of Nature.

In [the State of Nature] there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Leviathan, Part 1, Chapter XIII, paragraph 9)

That’s a whole lotta nothing. Hobbes feels that in the State of Nature, people would be constant enemies, so they could never develop relationships, share ideas, or build communities. This is no way for humans to live, and Hobbes said that we would come to together to form the civil society to escape this.

An aside:  This is probably the most famous paragraph Hobbes ever wrote. The final line has been paraphrased over and over, and is often misunderstood to be Hobbes musing on the nature of human existence. More accurately, it is how Hobbes describes life in the every-man-for-himself war that perpetually exists in the State of Nature. Nevertheless, it is the line that permanently typecast Hobbes as the pessimistic foil to John Locke’s utopian State of Nature.

Back to the main event:  Why couldn’t people ever join together in the State of Nature? Self-preservation. Hobbes says we have an unlimited right to self-preservation. In the State of Nature we have no allegiances, no obligations to our fellow man, no laws, no incentive at all to cooperate with other people. If, for example, I built a shelter, I would never share it with you because your existence is a threat to my self-preservation. In fact, we both have a right to kill each other in order to get the shelter. In Hobbes, self-preservation is the only right we have in the State of Nature.

But wait! Couldn’t forming alliances with other people actually work toward self-preservation (teaming up to defeat a more powerful enemy, perhaps)? It could, but even if these alliances did occur in the State of Nature, they would quickly dissolve and the participants would turn on each other as soon as the goal was accomplished. Why? Because of what Hobbes calls “diffidence.”

There are “three principle causes of quarrel.” The first is competition, as humans as naturally competitive; the second is diffidence, which is important to this post; and the third is glory, since humans are concerned with reputation. Diffidence is the reason men cannot form alliances in the State of Nature. The word has changed meaning somewhat since 1651. Today it refers to a lack of self-confidence, shyness, etc., but Hobbes used it to mean “distrust of others; insecurity in one’s possessions.” This insecurity is critical to understanding fear in Hobbes.

We are in constant fear of having our possessions taken, so we proactively conquer others to prevent that. Hobbes notes the centrality of fear to the State of Nature in the quote at the beginning of this post. He lists all the things humans couldn’t create in a State of Nature, then concludes, “and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death.” He states that constant fear in the State of Nature is the worst part of the State of Nature. With no Social Contract, people live in a unending war in which we constantly fear having our possessions taken by force, so all of our actions seek to prevent attacks by others. Therefore, fear is the driving force behind all actions in the State of Nature. Check out this syllogism to sum it up:

1. The State of Nature is a State of War
2. The State of War is a State of Fear

Therefore: The State of Nature is a State of Fear

Finally, let’s get down to brass tacks. How is all this useful in analysis of the world today? This site will use Hobbes ideas about the State of Nature to explain current events. Although we don’t live in a state of Nature, Hobbesian ideas about fear are still relevant. A basic tenet of the analysis on this site will be that the State of Nature is active in the world today and that fears of immigrants/minorities/women/whatever are driven by an underlying fear of the State of Nature. Here’s why:

In the modern world, no one physically lives in a State of Nature. BUT we know that we have formed a society to get away from the State of Nature. So, when something conflicts with the social organization that we are comfortable with, we try to suppress it. In the State of Nature we would use force, but now we use tactics like politics, law, discrimination, and social norms. We are trying to defend our society because we fear the State of Nature. This is my ultimate contention that will recur across this site:  that fear of the State of Nature is an explanation for discrimination based on race/sex/nationality/sexual orientation/economic class.

In today’s world, society uses discrimination as a defense mechanism. We want to defend our “possessions” (in the form of culture, jobs, tax dollars, whatever), but instead of by force as in the State of Nature (although sometimes by force) we use discrimination.

The State of Nature is nothing concrete, it is whatever it is perceived to be. It has no set place, no actual members, no physical presence. Nothing to point to directly. That is partly why we attach the State of Nature to outsider groups. It is largely a human construction that has no true being. Nevertheless, the State of Nature is real and active in our world, driving the plot. For a ‘show about nothing,’ it’s really something.

 

Leave a comment on this post and tell me what you think about fear as a cause of social actions and about the State of Nature lurking in society.

 

COMING MONDAY:  Is Hobbes racist? and the mechanism by which we ascribe the State of Nature to ‘other’ groups