Enlightenment

I have to say, Hobbes as a very specific view on what is good. He says that the safety and security of the people is top priority of the government and should be carried out thusly through the forces of fear and terror. But I think that his view is on what it the best for the government. First of all where does the government get its power? It comes from its people. Not its assets, or its land but from its people, so it would be smart to guard its people if they are its main source of power. So I see just from this that what Hobbes says is the government protecting its people is actually the government protecting is source of power, a far more selfish motive than previously stated. Secondly Hobbes also says free thought and freedom to voice opinion is bad because it incites war and leads to the insecurity of the people. But is civil war? It is a war of a country on itself usually about unrest with the current government. So it could be possible that the government isn't trying to prevent civil war for the safety of the people, but perhaps trying to stop it for the safety of itself. Again another self preservative action made by the government. I see that Hobbes' Enlightenment is a lot about keeping a country in line and preserving one's power as opposed to running a country in the best interest of the people is ultimately what is most important. But it could also be said that the people's will is not correct action, meaning to acting on the will of the people would be a poor choice and lead to the degradation of one's country.

I disagree and agree with Hobbes that reason can lead to the community drawing apart. I agree because when people think of themselves wiser and able to govern better it can lead to communities drawing apart. Reason can also be a good thing because without reason when deciding who to be president they might not be able to tell who the better choice is to be president. If nobody believes they are better then it would be really hard to tell who the best choice would be. I think that for the most part Hobbes is right about reasoning, but it also can be a good thing.

Speech

I agree with Rebecca that there is both good and bad in every one of Hobbe's reasons why humans cannot live socially. For example, Hobbe's believes that freedom of speech is something that is degrading towards human nature and will cause our society to collapse. It is true that when people speak out at the government or something else it can cause many problems. Though without speech life cannot move forward. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech started a fire in the people to stop being racist towards African-Americans. Hobbe's says that all people want peace and security. All people includes African-Americans, and when MLK gave his speech he was creating peace and security for them. That is one example of how speech can do good in the community, though Hobbe's thinks it is wrong.

I find my self siding with Rebecca and Meghan. I think that the points that Hobbes made about reason and speech is more important than the points he made about competition. Competition, i do agree, is an important quality to have in a state, however it isn't as much as a necessity as reason and speech is in my opinion. Through reason people can develop skills and ideas and present them through speech. Everyone part of the community they live in should be aloud to speak their mind and judge what they think is right and wrong in their society.

Importance of Speech

I also would have to agree that speech is one of the most important factors in human nature. We have the ability to have our own thoughts and voice our personal opinions to others. If we didn't have the opportunity to express our ideas then we wouldn't have such a unique way of life. Since everyone has their own views and opinions it helps us to understand how others think. Speech seems to go hand and hand with reason because when we share our ideas with society we have to explain why we agree or disagree with certain arguments. If we didn't have the ability to speak then it seems as though we probably wouldn't have came up with some of the inventions or advances that exist today. The reason for how these things have come up is because people’s ideas are shared with others and are able to be agreed upon. Speech is used in everyday life, without it we would not be able to work together. We wouldn't be able to communicate and it would create confusion, disruption, and disorganization.

Speech

I agree with Meaghan's statement on speech. I agree with the fact that it's necessary to have speech incorporated in a human society, but that doesn't mean that it can't lead to negative things. More than less the ability of speech is a benefit to the human society, but it can also take lead down a horrifying path.

Speech is a benefit because it allows people to have the freedom of speech, and gives them the ability to voice their own ideas and opinion. This can also be a bad thing because when people disagree, it more often then not leads to an argument. This has the potential to escalate to a worse and worse level until it eventually comes to the point of disaster. Whether it's fighting, causing crime, or even causing poor opinions of one another, it has the potential to result negatively. Thankfully, arguments don't always lead down a negative path though. Arguments can be friendly, which causes the argument to be a constructive learning experience for the people involved.

Overall, speech is a benefit to the human society, and as long as it doesn't lead down a negative path, speech increases the speed of the development of society.

I, in fact, agree with both Rebecca and Meaghan's points. Although, there are not just two important reasons that Hobbes uses in supporting his idea of why mankind is unable to live sociably. Along with the idea of competition and the idea of people communicating, I have found that Hobbes' second statement where he introduces the idea of comparison. Although Hobbes point about comparison is short and sweet, I believe it is highly important. People constantly compare themselves with others. This ties back to what people have touched upon with competition, everyone compares themselves and on some occasions to be better than others.

Hobbes and Human Nature

I agree with Rebecca about how speech is important to society where it is both good and bad. Where it is good because of the way life has come to be with all the development in people to become on what it is today. The bad thing is that it will cause conflict between other people who are also speaking their idea causing disagreements and maybe argument on what they said. I think that speech is connected to reasoning because for all of the developments, people have back up their idea with one another. Freewill is also connected to speech and reasoning because if a person have freewill, then they are able to show their ideas and talk without feeling scared. People have a choice to either listen to one another if they agree. But there is a bad side to it if they don't agree with another person. They can do something bad like sabotaging the other group or they might not do anything about it and think it is just wrong. There could be a good and a bad result to having freewill just like Rebecca said about being able to have speech. I think that Hobbes' ideas of freewill does not show that it is sometimes good for people in society and gives people a chance for their own doing.

The Necessity of Speech

I agree with Rebecca's statement that although competition is a very important factor in both promoting and degrading a natural state within humans, there are other points made that are equally important as well. Along with human reason, which she pointed out, comes speech. Humans have the ability to express their opinion to each other and to voice it publicly. Without this ability, humans would not be able to function together in a society. They would not be able communicate their ideas and opinions to each other therefore not being able to come up with new ideas. If people did not agree with something, it would create chaos if people could not express their feelings about it. Fighting and possibly war would break out because of lack of communication. It is necessary for people to be able to have the right to have their voice heard, in order for a community to work together properly.

I agree with Rebecca's point, and her argument about reason. Although Hobbes covered several other points of why humans can't coincide peacefully with one another, I believe reason is definitely one of the most important. Think about this: a king (or queen) of a nation institutes a law or rule that makes the majority of his people unhappy. This new restriction, made by the king, is completely tyrannical and oppressive. So oppressive, in fact, that it causes the people to revolt against their unfair leader and free themselves from his dictatorship. If they had not done so, they would have indefinitely suffered through years of hardship. Now, think about what would've happened if the people lacked the ability to reason. The blatant truth that their ruler was out of control and guided by a power-hungry craze never would've occurred to them. In this case, reason could be considered a good thing. However, there are many other scenarios and situations where the ability to reason could easily be considered a problem. Reasoning allows man to question other people and ideas. For the man of ill-will, it presents a vast opportunity to violate law and be dangerous to his fellow man.

A lot of this conversation has been about competition. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on some of the other five points Hobbes listed.

Personally, I believe all of the things Hobbe's listed are both good and bad for different reasons- there is a lot of gray area and it is difficult to point out a single issue and confidently say, "This is good" or "This is bad."

Think about reason. Hobbes says that humans cannot live together peacefully because of it; because we can reason, make our own decisions and form our own opinions which leads to disagreement. But without reason, we'd be vegetables (for lack of a better term.) There would be no invention, no skills, no logic, nothing. We would b acting like cavemen without it. When thought about this way, the ability to reason has both good and bad qualities. It leads to war but we would not be here without it.

Do you guys think any of the other things Hobbes listed have both good and bad in them? And if so, is one more prominent than the other?

Competition

Before our class on Friday I thought that competition was bad from reading Of Commonwealth, but during Friday's class my opinion shifted. I absolutely agree with Caroline and Katie when stated that competition shouldn't be looked down upon. Competition appears around everything including academics, athletics, politics, and even social lives. Competition drives people to perform to their fullest potential, and work to improve in whichever area it's focussed on. Of corse on occasion it can become out of hand, create hatred and jealousy towards one another, and only result for the worse, but even when such happens it still drives people to improve. From what I've learned about competition throughout the past few days I've realized that along the way poor things may occur, but in the end it only results in improvement.

Hobbes and competition

I absolutly agree with you caroline when you say that competition should not be frowned upon because it is part of human nature. Also, it helps us by making us want to be better which helps our country be better but you have to think about competition also as a really bad thing. We see competition everywhere. Especially in school even though we don't realize it. This kind of competition is like girls or boys trying to dress better or look better and they can also be very mean about it and put other people down. I believe it is a bad thing because we may not realize it but competition harms people in ways we don't even know. By trying to look your best and be your best you could be putting somebody else down and you are doing more harm then good.

Hobbes and Human Nature

I agree that we need competition in the world for people to find a strong leader that will lead the government. Which means that I agree with Hobbes idea of competition. Another part that I disagree with Hobbes idea of comparison among each other will cause an altercation between each other. I think that when people compare the ideas of one another, they may think which one is the best of all. But in fact, if the people use the best ideas of another people it will be a new way of thinking. It not going to work with everyone because each person have different personalities than the person who is coming up with the idea. In a way it connects to competition in finding the best idea. But after a while, when someone comes up with the idea, they are not going to get much fame because it is for the common good so it is not worth it to fight who is better. I believe that the idea of comparison is not bad for society, it is only going to help. But there could be a problem if one person think they are better than anybody else and that person does not want to listen to their ideas. Then you just can't help it, but to just not tell your thinking to them because they don't want to be inform in what you know and they may not know. So most of society have comparison between the each other but I don't agree with Hobbes on comparison and how it cause people to not live together in peace.

Competition

I have been thinking a lot about why competition was one of the aspects that Hobbe's considers bad. In class we were talking about where you can find competition in the world. We came to the conclusion that competition is everywhere and it is inevitable. We find competition in school, sports, economy, and politics. Competition is apart of human nature and should not be frowned upon. For example if there was no competition for the presidential election we would not end up with the best president possible for this country. Competition brings out the best in people by showing how hard one is willing to work and how much one wants something. Yes, competition may get out of control causing one to do something immoral, though thats just part of being a human and we cannot change that.

I found myself thinking a lot about Maggie's question. To quote her, "...I was little and our teachers and parents would always tell us that it is good to be different. Also, they would say being different just means you have something unique about yourself that makes you special in your own way. So, is Hobbes telling us the opposite by saying that competition is wrong? Does he think that everyone should be the same and not be individuals?"


I want Maggie to define "the opposite" just so we are clear on the definition here. But because she didn't, I'll just assume that by "the opposite," she meant that Hobbes believes we should all be the same or relatively similar so none of us stand out. 


I want to answer her question by saying no. I don't think Hobbes believes we should all be the same. Besides it seeming relatively impossible to accomplish, it's just not built into our nature to act just like one another- we simply all have different personalities. HOWEVER, I think Hobbes believes something similar that could be easily confused with "being the same." Hobbes doesn't necessarily want us to BE the same, but simply to have some of the same beliefs. We've talked in class about how all humans share their want for two things- peace and security. This is what unites us and enables us to write a social treaty that everyone will agree with. People that share the same belief will make easier or eliminate all together at least two of the six reasons Hobbes believes humans cannot live together peacefully.


First, this covenant- if all people within a certain community had the same beliefs on what is necessary from the people and from their leader, it would be astronomically easier to write a social contract. There would be little room for debate as to what is in it/what it covers because everyone would have the same opinions.


Second, competition- say Team Red and Team Blue are playing a soccer game against each other- they are competing because they want different things. Team Red wants to leave with the trophy and wants Team Blue to go home empty handed. Team Blue wants to leave with the trophy and wants Team Red to go home empty-handed. They both have wants that counteract each other and that's where the competition starts. Now, consider this- the Red team wants the trophy because they wanted to give it to a hobo with whom they became friends with. This hobo really liked shiny things and the Red team wanted to give the trophy to him out of the kindness of their hearts. The Blue Team happened to befriend the same hobo and also wanted to give this hobo a shiny trophy, so they were working very hard to get it for him! Suddenly the Red Team and Blue Team discovered they both each playing for the trophy to give to the shiny-thing-deprived hobo, and, wow! The competition between them has now diminished significantly because they realized they were both playing for the same thing. Now that they have the same goal in mind, it doesn't matter so much who wins the game because the hobo will get the trophy either way. Ignoring the fact that two soccer teams were just played by a hobo in this example, I just pointed out in my unnecessarily long-winded story the fact that humans tend to not compete so much when they have the same ultimate goal in mind. Which is why I believe Hobbes thinks it would be best if humans had the same opinons on certain subjects. 

Government

Hobbes talks about one sold government run by one or a small amount of people. In this I see an upside and down side. Like we talked about in class with this type of government the people would have no power and no much say in their nation. Though I belive this is wrong I can see how it be better in some ways. Like I think someone else said with people having all the power we would end in caous. People have differnt poit of veiw and like hobbes also said always belive they are the ones who are right. This can cause argument and cause people to sepatrate and eventuly even lead to wars. Takeing this power from them removes all the chance of disagreement and fight over in within the government. removeing the chance to disagree could be the only way to prevent lots of difficultys within a country or government.

To answer Colby's earlier question, I think that if the U.S. found itself without a government than we would absolutely start to follow the same pattern of countries that are overwhelmed with war and chaos. The U.S. already has a high crime rate as it is, however it is steadily reducing each year with a strict government style. If the government had no presence at all I believe we would find ourself in the same situations as Rwanda and maybe even Darfur depending on the period of time we are without a government.

I agree with Jason and his disagreement with Hobbe's. Jason mentions that Hobbe's thinks competition leads to new and different thoughts and ideas and how Hobbe's thinks that is bad. This made me think back to when I was little and our teachers and parents would always tell us that it is good to be different. Also, they would say being different just means you have something unique about yourself that makes you special in your own way. So, is Hobbe's telling us the opposite by saying that competition is wrong? Does he think that everyone should be the same and not be individuals?

Now reading what other people think I agree with Katie that competition is a good and bad thing. In my first post i said why competition is a good thing, but now i am realizing that competition is also a really bad thing. I agree with Katie that competition brings out the bad side in people. when people try to outdo do other people they can use them or intentionally hurt them. I think Hobbes is right and wrong about competition i agree that competition can lead to envy and hatred but also i think it can lead to good because people are not being lazy and are working hard.