Hi. This is Leo Volont.
This is Part
One of my Seven Part Series
Democracy a Bad Thing
this chapter is “The Social Contract”
In this episode we discuss the Social Contract Theory
Focusing on Thomas Hobbes and his very dark Natural State of Man and how
Authoritarian Government can ride to the rescue. We put Hobbes into his Social Political
Context of the 17th Century in which Authoritarianism proves just
the thing they need to pave the way to the 18th Century’s Age of
Enlightenment where it all comes unravelled again.
You can read along from my Blog which you can find by
searching leo volont blog.spot or the
name of my Blog is “Leo Volont Spirituality Dreams Religion, History, Politics,
etc… “ and this title will be close to the top in the queue. Note that the Number in my hat is the
paragraph number you can use to find your place on my Blog. It also helps me to keep this Video Shoot organized.
(1)When appraising Democracy as a system of Government we
need to evaluate it in terms of how well it does the job of governing. Then the problem arises where many people
believe that government, that is, any system of government, is inherently bad in proportion to its
demonstrated ability and capacity to actually
govern. They envision a continuum
between Good and Evil and equate Freedom with the Good and they equate
Evil with any restriction of
Freedom. They can’t imagine anything
else besides government ever
restricting their freedom and so all Evil is attributed to government. They only have derogatory terms for effective
government: they call it “tyranny” and
“dictatorship”. If some Democracy
somewhere does manage to get a large majority mandate then even there the
typical “free Democracies” of the World sneer and accuse it of “authoritarianism”. We get the ironic paradox whereby Democracy
is considered ‘good’ in proportion to how badly it actually does the job of
governing. Checks and Balances that lead to institutional paralysis are listed
as Democracies primary virtues, but if the same Checks and Balances were found
in private enterprise or even in the running of a charitable hospital they
would be considered as the grossest inefficiencies, as wasteful as the vice of
profligacy. We get quotes like
“Democracy is the worst form of government in the World except for all the
others”, but, again, this shows the conservative private sector’s
predisposition to assign degrees of Evil to government in proportion to how
well and completely it can govern, and, yeap, that involves the government’s
capacity to exercise control and to restrict private freedoms in order to
maintain the Public Good. You can't
protect the sheep without cracking the whip on the wolves.
(2)Now, yes, I realize I will be fighting against a strong
headwind of popular opinion if I attempt to present Authoritarian Government as
Good, and list as Bad what it is that weakens effective Authoritarian
Government, and that Democracy is therefore bad because it is horrible at
actually doing what governments should be able to do. But allow me to go ahead and try anyway.
So, okay, why is effective Government a good thing?
I don’t need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for any of this. Theory of government has been thoroughly
discussed and by better minds than my own.
A good place to start would be with a review of the Social Contract
Theory of Government. What I remember from my readings of History is that
Thomas Hobbes kicked off the debate with the publication of his book
“Leviathan” in 1651. But perhaps we can
use a little review of 17th Century European History so that we can establish
some kind of meaningful context for our discussion of the Social Contract
Theory of Government.
(3)Yes, Hobbes was still writing as the English Civil War
was still smoldering, still erupting
into flames once in a while. Hobbes had
been a Loyalist and advocated for absolute centralized government. He didn't need to be especially imaginative
or a very creative thinker. He only had
to keep his eyes and ears open. Hobbes
had grown up as a contemporary to Louis
the 13th of France and his very influential Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu
who lead the way towards centralizing power in France and popularizing the idea
of giving absolute power to the monarchs.
But perhaps the biggest 'Rock Star' at the time had been
Louis the 14th. Hobbes would have known
him as a still young King busy fighting the Fronde Civil wars, firstly to
suppress his Parliament and secondly to put his Barons in their place. Tired of constant civil conflict the people
of France generally supported the King, presaging Hobbes' argument that the
best guarantee for Peace is a strong central power. France was then rising to the zenith of its
power and influence and the English could hardly have failed to notice. England’s own experiments with
Parliamentarianism had lead to its Civil War and so Hobbes may have been
impressed at the time by the contrast of English failure against French
success.
(4)But with the 18th Century we would get what is referred
to variously as the Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment where the Social
Contract Theory was extensively tinkered with. The Powers that Hobbes would
give to Authority to protect the Peace and Order of Society, the Great Thinkers of the Enlightenment would
claw back bit by bit, clause by clause,
until by the 19th Century we were all well on our way into the Age of Democracy
that would bring in its wake all the ensuing Wars, Civil Wars and Revolutions
economical, social and political that now leave the World on the brink of extinction.
But, yeah, just to get it straight in our minds, let's look
at the basic terms of Hobbes argument for Absolute Government? His view was that in a pure state of nature
each man could advance to the limits of his own personal power up to the point
where he would be opposed by the powers of others, and it would be those kind
of clashes between competing self interests that would create a state of War of every man against all
others. Life under these conditions
would be “solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short”. The remedy for such an abysmal state of
affairs would be for all to agree to submit their claims and disputes to some
absolute authority, whether that be a man or a council of men.
Given the Social and Political context at the time, with
both Britain and the Continent plunged into wars and civil conflicts we can
understand the general wish to make sacrifices for the sake of Peace Sweet
Peace. In addition to the Civil War in
England the Continent was occupied with the Wars of the Spanish Succession and
Germany in particular had its raging 30
Year War and Peasants Rebellions. So,
yeah, the 17th Century was a huge mess and people were eager for remedies. An
Authoritarian Crack Down would have been the answer to their prayers.
(5)Well, it was like the Universe actually listened to
Hobbes. The Anarchism of the English
Civil War was rejected and the Kings were Restored. Europe, never completely quiet, was in a
state of relative peace when compared to the chaos of the decades before, and
French Hegemony created a bit of breathing room for everybody. Well, you know how they say "Within
Every Blessing there lies a Curse", well, the relative Peace made it seem
like the World was really okay again.
Everybody was like "Why Did We Ever Think There Was A Problem? That Thomas Hobbes Was So Dark and Cynical, Wasn't He?" So within two generation the Intellectual
Elite and the Enlightenment Philosophers decided they could take Peace for
granted, that Peace that had only been imposed upon them by Royal
Authoritarianism. Their Logic must have
been something like 'The Umbrella keeps us so dry I guess we don't need the
Umbrella anymore", but in this World of ours it’s always the Raining
Season. So, tear up the Social Contract
and Up the Revolutions!
Part Two Coming Soon.
We will discuss the salient transformative elements in the 18th
Centuries Age of “Enlightenment” that were the
necessary preludes to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Democracy
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