Due to my observations of a general disinterest in the readings from Hobbes and Locke, I must, as a student of Political Science, make the case for their importance. These readings, like those Descartes, are largely responsible for the modern conception of the self. It is easy to read over arguments belabored by Hobbes and Locke with conclusions like “all men are equal,” because today ideas like these ingrained in society. Why then, would Hobbes and Locke waste their (and ours) arguing about something that is so obvious? It logically follows that Hobbes and Locke had to make such extensive arguments because their conclusions were once not so obvious.
Hobbes and Locke were writing XVII Century during a time of divine and absolute monarchies when the king had a God given right to rule. Pause. Today there is no way we consider anyone to have a “God given right” to rule.” But why doesn’t someone have a right to rule over someone else? This clash regarding the right to rule is hysterically and portrayed in the following excerpt from Monty Python’s Holy Grail:
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the
[angels sing]
her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur
from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I,
Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical
aquatic ceremony.
The radical difference between government then and now has to do with the idea of consent outlined in Hobbes and Locke. As stated in Locke, “[m]en being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of a another, without his own consent”(197). According to Locke, if humans were without government they would all govern themselves. That is to say, merely by living, humans are making a choice and therefore governing themselves. This means that all humans have the right to self-governance because all humans would resort to self-governance if left alone. This in turn means that in a legitimate government, the individuals are only allowing a government to rule—those governing do not actually have a right to rule.
This notion of political liberty was (and is) as influential and important as the notion of spiritual liberty outlined in Luther’s On Christian Liberty. According to the definition of political rights by Hobbes and Locke almost every government in existence was illegitimate because the king was only able to execute his will by force and not by any actual consent by the governed. In the same way Luther described every Christian as a priest and king and so rejected the hierarchy of the Church, so Hobbes and Locke described every person as politically equal and so rejected the legitimacy of divine and absolute government. The modern perception of the self, especially in the United States is due to Hobbes and Locke and their influence on the founding fathers.
6 comments:
Thank you for showing me why this is such an important reading for shaping my ideas on "the social contract" (and Monty Python). But there is one idea you state that leaves a small thorn in my side. Hobbes seems rather obsessed with the idea of transferring rights, in that when I vote (or even in Hobbes' mind when I just live in America) I am transferring the right to govern my self over to some power who others (maybe even me) have considered fit to do that job. And I wonder, with the nod to Luther, why (if men have not the right to rule or decide things for other men--like a priest or king) why did his system still have preachers? And also, Hobbes speaks of no possibility of reneging after the contract is signed. So once we did agree to have a common-wealth, we can't go back. Just because we would have done something different doesn't mean that we didn't do something else.
Maybe I don't understand your qualm about Luther, but are you saying why are there preachers if everyone is equal? If so, I rould reply that preachers don't rule others. Preachers don't have divine authority over other believers, which is exactly the point Luther was making in "On Christian Libery." Preachers are there as sources of knowledge or advice or what have you. Like we said in class last week, not everyone is equally has well studied in the bible, therefore it makes sense to listen to scholars and then decide for yourself what you believe.
In so far as your comment on Hobbes, I agree, he is missing a key point. I chalk this up to being some of the earliest modern political thought. Locke builds on Hobbes and finally includes the idea of being able to leave a government and start a new.
What I was saying with the preacher/Hobbes connection is that in both senses (voting and listening to/following a preacher) we give up a certain right with each (self-government and self-interpretation). By following a preacher, I am making a contract with him. Or actually it would be a covenant (if we are to be Hobbesian about it all). For if the people are unread in the Bible, how will they be able to disagree with an interpretation of the Bible. This is just like a citizen voting for a presedential candidate for his economic plan. The citizen, in most cases, doesn't truly know the inner workings of the American economy and has to pick one. I guess what I'm hinting at is the idea that any ignorant man who listens to a man even slightly more learned than he already transfers his right to interpretation by default.
I don't think you necesarily transfer all of your right to interpretation. The preacher is more of a guide. If all Lutherans forfeited all of their rights to interpretation over to their preacher then every Lutheran would believe the same exact things. But, good luck finding two Lutherans, or two people of any religion, in the same church that agree on every aspect of their faith. People take what their preacher, priest, rabbi, parents, teachers, etc. teach them and then change it according to what they experience.
I completely agree with your evaluation of the contributions of both Hobbes and Locke to the contemporary construct of what it is that the relationship between individuals and their respective governments. I was tempted to write individuals and the governments that reign over them, but I immediately deleted the comment; Hobbes and Locke introduce government as a bottom-up phenomenon, clearly shaking the foundations of the top-down institutions of the time.
One implication that i find to be particularly fascinating about this concept of the sovereign self is that governments should indeed be afraid of the innate freedom of their constituent populations. It not just that the government rules over its people, or even that the government governs its people by consent, but also that in some respect, people reign over government. A government is only deemed legitimate so long as its constituent members consent to be governed. What are the implications of such constituent masses being unsatisfied with the conduct or characteristics of the government itself. Such an idea of citizens deriving legitimacy in revolt through innate faculties of freedom and self-preservation is truly fascinating.
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