What 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes would say about American democracy today
Hobbes believed that life would be 'nasty, brutish and short' without a strong government
Seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes has the reputation of being a bit of a curmudgeon.
He is most famous for his bleak description of human nature — that without the rule of law's corrective force, life in the state of nature would be "nasty, brutish and short."
McGill University PhD student Vertika (no surname) believes that a deeper reading of Hobbes's understanding of anxiety will help us better contend with anxieties felt within our democracies today.
"Anxiety was a significant concept for Hobbes," said Vertika, who points out that Hobbes understood anxiety to be an unpredictable vacillation between emotions.
"There's hope and despair on the one hand, and then there's courage and fear on the other hand," said Vertika.
"Anxiety is about many things that could possibly happen in the future. The vacillation between different passions creates this kind of agony. It's almost as though you want to know the end. Like, it's like a mystery is playing and sometimes you're just like, 'just tell me what's going to happen!'"
Anxiety: the good and the bad
Hobbes wrote Leviathan — his towering work of political theory — in 1651.
He was writing at a time of significant upheaval in 17th-century England.
It was probably the bloodiest and most volatile time in its history. An estimated 200,000 people lost their lives in the country's civil war, with supporters of the monarchy fighting those who supported parliament and democratic rule.
In the midst of it, King Charles the 1st was beheaded.
"Hobbes's most important goal is peace and security. He hopes for a state in which human beings can be safe to pursue their own visions of the good," said University of California Berkeley political scientist Kinch Hoekstra.
Hoekstra points out that anxiety for Hobbes is a double-edged phenomenon.
"It makes us look forward to the future and try to plan out what we're going to do with our lives," said Hoekstra.
"We look forward to tomorrow and think, how can we do something today such that our tomorrow will be different or better? But Hobbes also thinks that there's a difference between being prudent, and 'over prudent.'"
[M]an, which looks too far before him in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long and not on by fear of death, poverty or other calamity, and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep.- Thomas Hobbes,
Hobbes had his doubts about democracy as being an ideal structure to maintain the peace.
"The reason why he was skeptical of democracy, it's because the wealthy, the powerful, take over and the concerns of the common people are almost ignored," said Vertika.
And Hoekstra thinks the current political situation in the United States right now is a case in point.
"Hobbes would be very concerned about the politics of contempt that we see," said Hoekstra, adding that "it's very hard to reinstate the conditions of peaceable coexistence with others once we feel like they've shown that they believe that we are in some way lesser than or inferior," Hoekstra explained.
"I think both sides feel that the other has been injurious and contemptuous and that there's a kind of underlying battle for the soul of American politics in a way that is probably not going to be resolved anytime soon."
Download the IDEAS podcast to listen to this episode.
*This episode was produced by Nicola Luksic and Tom Howell, as part of our series, Ideas from the Trenches.
Guests in this episode:
Vertika is a political science PhD student at McGill University.
Kinch Hoekstra is a professor of political science and law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes (2016).
Bethany Albertson is an associate professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, and the co-author of Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World.
Shana Gadarian is a professor of political science and associate dean for research at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.
