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How Thomas Hobbes is helping destroy America
worldnetdaily.com — For those in doubt...this will answer many of your questions about how we got into this mess of relativism and "me"ness. This mess has been a long time coming and will be with us for a long time to come. But take heart! This is all part of the process as foretold in the scriptures. Frustrating? Yes! But it proves that God IS truth! Kevin
ikbrooks- 7 diggs
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- ginger007, on 05/31/2008, -4/+5It is refreshing to read and know that there are people out there who can say what I wish I could put on paper. thank you so much.
- ginger007, on 05/31/2008, -4/+4I have noticed that very few liberals respond to intelligent articles like this one. I guess they don't know any intelligent comebacks to the truth.
- kayala, on 05/31/2008, -4/+4Or they have no use arguing with willfully ignorant morons.
- ikbrooks, on 05/31/2008, -3/+4That is how it is done. Attack the individual when you cannot dispute the points they make. You are pathetic. Facts are tricky things for those who live in a lie. And correct diction would be...they see no use in arguing with willfully ignorant morons. You twit!
- wadge22, on 06/01/2008, -1/+2I guess I'll give it a go and see what happens. My bet is it won't be a reasoned reply and that is why not too many people try rational responses to this sort of thing.
Three biggest problems with this article:
-It doesn't have much of a point to it (our current system, allegedly strongly influenced by Hobbes, is no good)
-It relies on a very dubious assumption and makes little attempt to support it (the people who are causing our problems are doing so because they're such big fans of Hobbes' work)
-At the only point where it comes close to any kind of relevance (in trying to connect Hobbes to current social issues, specifically homosexual marriage), it displays even less knowledge of Hobbes' work than in the rest of the piece (Hobbes didn't advocate strongly for personal rights at all, in fact he was pretty much a strong conservative, and is usually contrasted directly to Locke, the "liberal" and rights advocate)
More importantly, though, the article reads like an anti-intellectual rant. Is the author saying that students of philosophy shouldn't be reading Hobbes, the mascot for the age of reason? Is he saying we shouldn't be studying philosophy at all for fear of promoting immoral world-views?
The two things I remember about Hobbes from two years of college philosophy courses are that he was the opposite of Locke (people are bad v. people are good, chaos v. inalienable rights), and that he was one of the first (since the Greeks) to practice philosophy separate from the Catholic Church. Nobody was enshrining his bleak views, and we mostly focused on how he inspired and enabled future thinkers. I, for one, appreciate what the age of reason and the enlightenment that followed it brought us, and don't really want to regress to the stifled intellectual climate of the middle ages. - JenniferInMO, on 11/13/2008, -0/+1@ikbrooks: it seems to me that kayla was responding to ginger's slam of liberals.
- ironsides, on 05/31/2008, -4/+4Ginger,
I have answer to you comment. The reason that these delusional freaks that you gracefully labeled, "Liberals" rarely respond is because they are merely complex tissue of somatic erotica. The "Here and Pleasure Now People." For a very nice Post WWII analogy of Hobbes off-spring read the chapter entitled: Like Trees in November, from Watership Down, by R. Adams. He gives a concise analogy of what Mr. Hobbes world really looks like. Was death ever so honored?
On a more ancient perspective read the book of Job. Notice Job's wife, her attitude of "Curse your creator and die you fool!" permeates the pages. Wonder what ever happened to her soul?
For a less-encouraging contemporary view, take a look on-line in any US collage/university Humanities Dept. Read the course overviews...If you have a soul, you should be depressed! With the exception of private religious schools "Old Hobbesy" is a worshipped idol.
There is a gentic fingerprint whereby you might identify these freaks. When they attack ideas it is only momentary. That is because they only live in the here and now...for the moment! Poor wretched freaks have no perspective of history let alone know whom or what spawned them. However, they will attack their adversary at every personal level known to mankind. This is percisely because they are fullfilling their own self-hating destiny themselves. They must engulf any light that stands before them.
This delusional pandemic problem is once again coming forth on stage. When you have a nation half-filled with these freaks there is trouble of certain. 1918, 1930-40's and Asia afterwards are great historical models of what Hobbes' Fruit has brought forth for man. How have any of those models elevated mankind in any shape or form that is good?
Have you ever worked with those who have mental disorders? Ever try talking someone out of their delusion(s)? Unfortunately for the innoent, the only way to cure evil blood-lusting delusional maddness is with force, or simple give-in and become those necessary to gas. - ikbrooks, on 05/31/2008, -4/+2Good one my friend! Good one!
- TheGroje, on 06/01/2008, -0/+4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
From Wikipedia:
"Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and the passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world."
From WND article:
"Starting with a mechanistic understanding of human nature and their passions, Hobbes theorizes what life would be like without government, a condition of humanity later philosophers called a "state of nature." In that state, each person would have a right, an entitlement to everything in the world."
Wikipedia:
In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of societies and legitimate governments. Leviathan was written during the English Civil War; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.
WND:
In "Leviathan," Enlightenment political philosopher and atheist Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) sets out his doctrine of the foundation of societies and governments of men. "Leviathan" (1651), written just after the Thrity (TG: sic) Years War (1618-48) and during the English Civil War, argues for the necessity of a strong central government as a balance against man's predilections toward anarchy and civil war.
Wikipedia:
... inevitably leads to conflict, a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes), and thus lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (xiii).
WND:
... inevitably devolves into anarchy – a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes), an existential existence where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Wikipedia:
To escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract.
WND:
To avoid this state of perpetual war, men in the state of nature agree to a social contract,
Wikipedia:
society is a population beneath a sovereign authority,
WND:
whereby society as a collective entity under a sovereign authority
Wikipedia:
...cede their natural rights for the sake of protection.
WND:
...cedes to this sovereign (the State or the monarchy, as Hobbes prefered) certain natural rights for the sake of protection.
So I wonder at this point... did Washington write the Wikipedia article, did both originate from a common source, or is it Memorex? Either way, if you're interested in the WND piece, it's worth reading the (original?) article on Hobbes at Wikipedia for a more in-depth study.- congresssucks, on 06/01/2008, -0/+3Interesting.
- goldenrule4, on 06/01/2008, -2/+1either way, it is true.
- JenniferInMO, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2The point is that he embellished and used bits and pieces of the Cliff Notes version without apparently understanding the philosophy of Hobbes.
- kayala, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3Did you really expect anything approaching journalistic integrity from a rag like WorldNutDaily?
- JenniferInMO, on 11/13/2008, -0/+1I cannot contain myself here. The writer of this post is quoting some nutjob who wrote a book attacking, 10 books, one of which was Hobbes' Leviathan. I didn't read the original book being reviewed here, but if it is anything like the know nothing who wrote this piece it is nothing but trash.
Okay, the writer of this post read the Cliff Notes version of Leviathan reduced it to a "singular" premise and claimed it was the inspiration for the liberal years of the 60's, 70's and the "liberal" rulings of the Supreme Court. What was the "inspiration" for the "liberal years" as he puts it is ironically the same philosophies and schools of thought that our Founders shared.
What he fails to mention, and I assume he has no clue about is that several Enlightenment philosophers and thinkers such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke and Hume influenced our Founders and Framers. A reading of just about any philosophy such as Karl Marx, Hobbes, Machiavelli or John Locke or any others can be taken literally or to the extreme, especially if read in a vacuum. The beauty of our founding documents is that they were drafted by men who valued thought. They studied and were influenced by many of the great thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment as well as theologians and classic philosophers.
It is with the full body of knowledge and their enlightened minds that they structured our unique form of democracy by drafting our founding documents, including our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Sooo, now our Founders and Framers were wrong?
WND spews out right wing propaganda and lies by the hour, but this article pisses me off. It is an attack and a complete misrepresentation of one of our history's great thinkers.
I have always loathed this statement, but when someone attacks the very foundation of our democracy I have no choice but to blurt out ... LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT, BABY! Because I for one will never allow anyone from within our outside of this country to try to change the most basic and profoundly just structure of government ever created on this planet.
This guy is either an ignorant fool with no appreciation for all that is good and solid about America or this is the new attack of the religious right. Where are all the people who usually scream LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT at the point in an argument where they cannot respond with reason? Where are they? They need to be screaming it right here!
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