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10-26-2009, 03:52 PM
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#1
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Hobbes, freedom, monarchies, Hayek, Pinochet, Thatcher...
This article is a fun read if you're interested in political philosophy at all.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091019/robin/single |
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10-26-2009, 03:54 PM
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#2
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Fatuus Parvus
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Quote:
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Hobbes clearly opposed the "democraticals," as he called the parliamentary forces and their followers. Quentin Skinner's contention in Hobbes and Republican Liberty is that Hobbes expended a considerable sum of his philosophical energy in this opposition and that his greatest innovations derived from it. His specific target was the republicans' conception of liberty, their notion that individual freedom entailed men collectively governing themselves. By unfastening the links between personal freedom and the nature of political power, Hobbes was able to argue that men could be free in an absolute monarchy--or at least no less free than they were in a republic or a democracy. It was "an epoch-making moment in the history of Anglophone political thought," says Skinner, resulting in a novel account of liberty to which we remain indebted--unhappily, in Skinner's view--to this day.
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10-26-2009, 03:57 PM
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#3
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Fatuus Parvus
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Quote:
Imagine a man with the keenest appetite for wine, racing into a building on fire in order to rescue a case of it; now imagine a man with the fiercest aversion to dogs, racing into that same building to escape a pack of them. Hobbes's opponents would see in these examples only the force of irrational compulsion; Hobbes sees the will in action. These may not be the wisest or sanest acts, Hobbes acknowledges, but wisdom and sanity need not play any part in volition. They may be compelled, but so are the actions of a man on a listing vessel who throws his bags overboard in order to lighten the load and save himself. Hard choices, actions taken under duress--these are as much expressions of my will as the decisions I make in the calm of my study. Extending the analogy, Hobbes would argue that the surrender of my wallet to someone holding a gun to my head is also a willed act: I have chosen my life over my wallet.
Against his opponents, Hobbes suggests that there can be no such thing as voluntarily acting against my will; all voluntary action is an expression of the will. External constraints like being locked in a room can prevent me from acting upon my will; being on a chain gang can force me to act in ways I have not willed. But I cannot act voluntarily against my will. In the case of the mugger, Hobbes would say that his gun changed my will: I went from wanting to safeguard the money in my wallet to wanting to protect my life.
If I can't act voluntarily against my will, I can't act voluntarily in accordance with a will that is not my own. If I obey a king because I fear that he will kill or imprison me, that does not signify the absence, forfeiture, betrayal or subjection of my will; it is my will. I could have willed otherwise--hundreds of thousands during Hobbes's lifetime did--but my survival or liberty was more important to me than whatever it was that may have called for my disobedience.
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Last edited by Peregrinator : 10-26-2009 at 04:01 PM.
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10-26-2009, 03:59 PM
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#4
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Fatuus Parvus
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On the other hand, as Skinner shows in a set of elegant passages, Hobbes thought that if freedom is unimpeded motion, it stands to reason that we are a lot freer under a monarch, even an absolute monarch, than the royalist and the republican realize (or care to admit). First and most simply, even when we act out of fear, we are acting freely. "Feare, and Liberty are consistent," says Hobbes, because fear expresses our negative inclinations; they may be negative, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are our inclinations. So long as we are not impeded from acting upon them, we are free. Even when we are most terrified of the king's punishments, we are free: "all actions which men doe in Common-wealths, for feare of the law, are actions, which the doers had liberty to omit.
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10-26-2009, 04:00 PM
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#5
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Fatuus Parvus
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Quote:
If we read Skinner's footnotes more carefully, we see that the Hobbesian spirit also haunts the contemporary right. Hobbes's idea of freedom pervades libertarian discourse, and Leviathan casts a long shadow over the conservative vision of a night watchman state--where the government's primary purpose is to protect the citizenry from foreign attack and criminal trespass; where people are free to go about their business so long as they do not interfere with the movements of others; where contracts are enforced and security is ensured.
Libertarians will blanch at that association: whatever resonance Hobbesian ideas may find in their writings, the Hobbesian state is a good deal more repressive than any government they would ever countenance. Except for the fact that it's not. As Greg Grandin points out in Empire's Workshop, Milton Friedman met with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1975 to advise him on economic matters; Friedman's Chicago Boys worked even more closely with Pinochet's junta. Sergio de Castro, Pinochet's finance minister, made the observation, reminiscent of Hobbes and Berlin, that "a person's actual freedom can only be ensured through an authoritarian regime that exercises power by implementing equal rules for everyone." Hayek admired Pinochet's Chile so much that he decided to hold a meeting of his Mont Pelerin Society in Viņa del Mar, the seaside resort where the coup against Allende was planned. In 1978 he wrote to the London Times that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende."
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10-26-2009, 04:00 PM
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#6
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Soothing jacuzzi bath
torchthebitch is offline
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Sean!
Quote:
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It took Margaret Thatcher, of all people, to explain that to the libertarian right. As Naomi Klein recounts in The Shock Doctrine, when pressed by Hayek to pursue Pinochet's brand of shock therapy more aggressively, Thatcher responded, "I am sure you will agree that, in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable." It was 1982, and British democracy being what it was, Thatcher had to go slow. But then came the Falklands War and the miners' strike. Once Thatcher realized that she could do to the miners and trade unions what she had done to President Galtieri and his Argentine generals--"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous to liberty"--the stage was set for the full Hayekian monty.
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10-26-2009, 04:02 PM
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#7
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Fatuus Parvus
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Quote:
"Despite my sharp disagreement with the authoritarian political system of Chile," Friedman would later claim, "I do not regard it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean Government." But the marriage between free markets and state terror cannot be annulled so easily. As Hobbes understood, it takes an enormous amount of repression to create the type of men who can exercise their "Liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another" without getting stroppy. They must be free to move--or choose--but not so free as to think about redesigning the highway. Assuming an all-too-easy congruence between capitalism and democracy, the libertarian overlooks just how much coercion is required to make citizens who will use their freedom responsibly and not ask the state to alleviate their distress.
It took Margaret Thatcher, of all people, to explain that to the libertarian right. As Naomi Klein recounts in The Shock Doctrine, when pressed by Hayek to pursue Pinochet's brand of shock therapy more aggressively, Thatcher responded, "I am sure you will agree that, in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable." It was 1982, and British democracy being what it was, Thatcher had to go slow. But then came the Falklands War and the miners' strike. Once Thatcher realized that she could do to the miners and trade unions what she had done to President Galtieri and his Argentine generals--"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous to liberty"--the stage was set for the full Hayekian monty.
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10-26-2009, 04:03 PM
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#8
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by torchthebitch
Sean!
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Ahahahahaha! There are a number of folks here who will see things they don't especially like in this thread... |
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10-26-2009, 04:04 PM
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#9
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what's new, fuck bubble?
rosco rathbone is offline
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You'll sometimes see people saying that the slaves should have resisted more strongly if they didn't want to be enslaved.
__________________
What words for what then? None for what then. No words for what when words gone. For what when nohow on. Somehow nohow on. Samuel Beckett Worstward Ho
There is yet one man by whom we may enquire of the LORD; but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me; but always evil.
-2 Chron. 18-7
a suckubus collects semen from sleeping men
"I'm a CERTIFIED LATE NIGHT TECHNICIAN AT DOING ALL KINDS OF MAJOR AND MINOR WORK, VALVES BEING ADJUSTED AND TORQUING DOWN YOUR ROCKERS TO GET YOUR PISTON & RODS STROKING LIKE A BIG BLOCK 426 HEMI MOTOR!!!"-Big Busty Vanessa
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10-26-2009, 04:07 PM
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#10
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rosco rathbone
You'll sometimes see people saying that the slaves should have resisted more strongly if they didn't want to be enslaved.
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Yup...and it's an oft-repeated maxim in BDSM circles that bondage is a gift to the bound...that way the sub doesn't require any self-discipline...The freedom of slavery. |
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10-26-2009, 04:14 PM
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#11
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Soothing jacuzzi bath
torchthebitch is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrinator
Ahahahahaha! There are a number of folks here who will see things they don't especially like in this thread...
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Quote:
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... and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous to liberty"--
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An interesting comment on her mindset. |
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10-26-2009, 04:15 PM
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#12
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by torchthebitch
An interesting comment on her mindset.
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I thought so also. |
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10-26-2009, 05:05 PM
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#13
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Literotica Guru
KingOrfeo is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrinator
I thought so also.
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Or a comment on her command of effective prose style -- as her statement implies that what is "dangerous to liberty" is not the "enemy within" but the fight against it.  Freudian?
__________________
IX. The Courtyard
It was the city I had known before;
The ancient, leprous town where mongrel throngs
Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs
In crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore.
The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered at me
From where they leaned, drunk and half-animate,
As edging through the filth I passed the gate
To the black courtyard where the man would be.
The dark walls closed me in, and loud I cursed
That ever I had come to such a den,
When suddenly a score of windows burst
Into wild light, and swarmed with dancing men:
Mad, soundless revels of the dragging dead -
And not a corpse had either hands or head!
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10-26-2009, 05:10 PM
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#14
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Celibate
JohnnySavage is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrinator
Ahahahahaha! There are a number of folks here who will see things they don't especially like in this thread...
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I predict this thread will over-load the Google as the internet intellectuals get off work when the day-shift quitting bell goes off and they head home with their lunch pails and alter-egos in hand. |
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10-26-2009, 05:23 PM
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#15
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOrfeo
Or a comment on her command of effective prose style -- as her statement implies that what is "dangerous to liberty" is not the "enemy within" but the fight against it. Freudian? |
I think that might actually be what she meant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnySavage
I predict this thread will over-load the Google as the internet intellectuals get off work when the day-shift quitting bell goes off and they head home with their lunch pails and alter-egos in hand.
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I think so. |
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10-26-2009, 05:25 PM
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#16
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what's new, fuck bubble?
rosco rathbone is offline
Join Date: Aug 2002
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"I've read The Road To Serfdom three times and blah blah blah"
__________________
What words for what then? None for what then. No words for what when words gone. For what when nohow on. Somehow nohow on. Samuel Beckett Worstward Ho
There is yet one man by whom we may enquire of the LORD; but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me; but always evil.
-2 Chron. 18-7
a suckubus collects semen from sleeping men
"I'm a CERTIFIED LATE NIGHT TECHNICIAN AT DOING ALL KINDS OF MAJOR AND MINOR WORK, VALVES BEING ADJUSTED AND TORQUING DOWN YOUR ROCKERS TO GET YOUR PISTON & RODS STROKING LIKE A BIG BLOCK 426 HEMI MOTOR!!!"-Big Busty Vanessa
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10-26-2009, 05:42 PM
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#17
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rosco rathbone
"I've read The Road To Serfdom three times and blah blah blah"
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...and Spinner doesn't know what he's talking about... |
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10-26-2009, 05:44 PM
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#18
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Celibate
JohnnySavage is offline
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I like Selma Hayek
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10-26-2009, 05:45 PM
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#19
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnySavage
I like Selma Hayek
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I dunno her, but I'd do her. |
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10-28-2009, 03:50 AM
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#20
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Bump for the morning crew.
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10-28-2009, 06:39 AM
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#21
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On Strike!
Frisco_Slug_Esq is offline
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C&P!
C&P!
C&P!
Not a replacement for thinking...
iBeen there, done that.
__________________
I invented i, the square root of neutral 1.
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10-28-2009, 06:40 AM
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#22
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On Strike!
Frisco_Slug_Esq is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rosco rathbone
"I've read The Road To Serfdom three times and blah blah blah"
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You forgot to bring the Wiki cherries...
__________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein |
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10-28-2009, 06:43 AM
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#23
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On Strike!
Frisco_Slug_Esq is offline
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I Kant reason with Hobbes when he insists the gun can do something...
i
__________________
I invented i, the square root of neutral 1.
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10-28-2009, 08:16 AM
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#24
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What the fuck, over.
tactful is online now
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Posts: 7,378
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnySavage
I like Selma Hayek
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrinator
I dunno her, but I'd do her.
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Yes, a hump for Selma Hayek, er
I mean bump, bump, for Selma Hayek.
__________________
Tact: is for people who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic,
it's the art of telling someone to go to hell,
in such a way, that they look forward to the trip.
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10-28-2009, 09:57 AM
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#25
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Fatuus Parvus
Peregrinator is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frisco_Slug_Esq
C&P!
C&P!
C&P!
Not a replacement for thinking...
iBeen there, done that.
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Remind me next time you quote the Federalist Papers that you're not thinking.
What did you think of the article? |
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