{"id":562,"date":"2009-02-10T19:54:06","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T00:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=562"},"modified":"2009-02-10T19:55:19","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T00:55:19","slug":"hobbes-and-public-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2009\/02\/10\/hobbes-and-public-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobbes and Public Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In chapter 13 of Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes drops this bomb on us:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Political theorists might not be that sanguine about Hobbes, mainly because he&#8217;s such a bummer!  But our society seems to buy this underlying premise.  Hobbes&#8217; main point is that, at our core, we are motivated by acquisition of wealth, power, status, etc.  This pursuit drives politics and as such, we need a &#8220;strongman&#8221; to maintain order, or we will become mired in a war of &#8220;all against all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The extent to which we accept this premise as valid shapes how we approach policy problems.  Is this a universal maxim?  Are there times and places during which &#8220;awe&#8221; is not necessary to organize a society?  Are there other incentives that maintain social order that are not based on fear?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In chapter 13 of Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes drops this bomb on us: During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. Political theorists might not be that sanguine about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1050,1051,1052],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hobbes","tag-leviathan","tag-publicpolicy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}