Feasting in the Jungle Aug 5th

Dear Topos,

Even in the jungles of berries, bamboo, and bounties galore I will never forget the deep love – the mutual love – which Colorado gives to me. Sense arriving in Asheville NC we have harvested and eaten nettles, dandelions, apples, grapes, service berries, blue berries, black berries, elder berries, and more gone forgotten. That is not to mention the melons, and vegetables unbounding which we gleaned from gardens. (Gardens which nonetheless are poorly cared for – dried out, un-harvested, weeds abounding – because people do not take to heart that even a garden in the jungle is a man made phenomenon and must be cared for as such, unlike the jungles around them which explode whether you wish it or not). To survive by hunting and gathering from this land is not unthinkable even for me who is like a baby in this place. The green life has so much power in this place that the city government seems to have given up keeping it under control. One can harvest fruit from any place – private or public – with little, if not no, trouble from the city. In Denver, where wild food is scarce, it is not uncommon for the city or private owner to get all up in arms if one is caught picking fruit from a specially place “landscaping” tree, or a vine growing over the fence of some private land owner. Upon arriving at my friends house in Asheville one of the first things I commented on was how lucky they were that the city was not getting after them for the weeds in their yard. There is no such thing as weeds here. Everything is jungle, not weeds. My last day in Denver was spent arguing with our old landlord about, among many things, the “weeds” in our yard. In Denver there is a law that no plant life can be over 6 inches tall in the “hell zones” (the strip between the road and the side walk). The hell zone is the abject (neither subject nor object – neither yard nor road – neither private nor public). There is no abject here because the plants themselves overwhelm the binary tensions. Vines over state. Vines over greed.

I miss the work it takes in Colorado to find and grow food. One cannot digest that food as one does food stamp food. At my parents home in Montrose CO we hall water from a half mile away to feed our garden what it need to feed us. I’m no grandma so I can’t tell you stories of times past when hard work was a virtue and we had to dig 20 feet down every week to find water to keep us alive. But time and space are bound up and zooming through space skips time a bit. So I think I can tell you about places where berries grow from your finger tips, water pours from the skies, and fire flies dance in the night. Yet, without work, there is no utopia. Hannah Arendt speaks of work as the activity which produces the durable. While labor is always being used up – food, cleaning – work lasts beyond its purposed end. The Rocky Mountains of Colorado are durable as that made by work. In order to live there one must work to create a durable home. The Appellation Mountains are old and their work has come to an end. Now they give their fruits freely.

Stay cool and take pride in your work.

- Terese

ps Topos means place in Greek. Yes I am writing to you place...

Jurgen Habermas, Technology and the Prompt Global Strike system

Jurgen Habermas, Technology and the Prompt Global Strike system
Philosophical Problems in the Social Sciences
Terese Howard
5/12/10

On April 22, 2010 – less than a month ago – an article in the New York Times caught my eye: “U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes.” The article explained,
“In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal” (Singer and Shanker, New York Times).

Why and how has the U.S. gotten to the point at which it is developing this new military technology? How did technology develop such that this is possible and how have the State and capitalism, through technology, been a part of that process?
In order to address these questions I turn to Jurgen Habermas’s socio-political and philosophical critique of technology. Habermas (1929-present) is a renowned critical theorist and former director of the influential Institute for Social Research in Germany. Following in the tradition of critical theory Habermas draws from Hegel and Marx in critique of the dominating logic of capitalism. However, Habermas deviates from these thinkers and most critical theorists by maintaining a role for capitalism in society and shifting the locus of political revolution from labor, as in Marx through Max Horkheimer, to communication. In addressing the role of technology in today’s society, Habermas speaks through these post-Marxist and pro-communicative philosophies. Habermas’s critique of technology is not a rejection of technology as such (which he blames Herbert Marcuse for doing) but a critique of the political and economic use of technology. In this way, a Habermasian analysis of the Prompt Global Strike system would not automatically reject it as technology, but would observe what democratic and anti-democratic processes were involved in developing the system and how the sphere of democratic communication could contribute to the development or critique of this new bombing technology.

Habermas’s critique of technology is not so much a critique of technology itself as it is of the roles of what he calls technological consciousness which is driven by purposive-rational action. Technology itself, such as the Prompt Global Strike (PGS), is the product of, as well as the force behind, a particular sort of rationality. Habermas’s concern with technology in contemporary society takes form in the context of the overwhelming dominance of this technological consciousness as well as technological production. The vast increase of new technologies in recent years is coupled with a rationality that, left outside of the communicative sphere, absorbs the communicative rationality which is fundamental to political participation as opposed to political domination. The preservation of the communicative sphere is a fundamental force behind Habermas’s concern with the current state of technology as a dominating rationality.

In order to understand what Habermas means by technology and technological consciousness, and how he finds it problematic, one first must understand what he means by purposive-rational action and how this rationality contributes to the development of technology. In setting out his approach to technology in distinction from that of Marcuse and Max Weber, Habermas distinguishes between two types of rationality: purposive-rational action and communicative action. Purposive-rational action is understood as, “either instrumental action or rational choice or their conjunction. Instrumental action is governed by technical rules” (Habermas, Culture and Technology as Ideology, 124). Communicative action, on the other hand, is symbolic interaction which “is governed by binding consensual norms, which define reciprocal expectations about behavior and which must be understood and recognized by at least two acting subjects” (Habermas, 124). Purposive-rational action is the rationality which is driven by technical logic and drives technical production. While communicative action is concerned with interaction between human acting subjects, purposive-rational action is concerned with “realizing defined goals under given conditions” (Habermas, 124). Communicative action interacts with other actors, but purposive-rational action works down a set path toward an end that is contained within itself. Take for example the difference between planning and producing a computer program – a process that takes technical knowledge of codes and step by step tasks which must be done correctly in order for the computer to “understand” them and produce the intended result – and deciding how to go about a marketing plan with a business partner – a process that requires listening, responding, and taking creative initiate with another person who must also do the same. While both of these jobs can involve some of both types of rationality, the computer programming defiantly requires the use of purposive-rational action while the decision of business partners only could entail that rationality. When acting others are involved communication serves as the paradigm. Technology does not interact as other but works toward a particular purpose that is defined within itself.

Habermas privileges communicative action because of its irreplaceable possibility for critique and understanding, but this does not mean he dismisses purposive-rational action as useless or totally unethical. The trouble with purposive-rational action is not in itself, but in its inability to question itself. Habermas explains that technology “serves as an ideology for the new politics, which is adapted to technical problems and brackets out practical questions” (Habermas, 134). Technology, under the drive of purposive-rational action, works toward an end without having the capability to question itself – not for practical, ethical, or any other concerns. Because technology follows purposive-rational action which follows only the means which work toward achieving some end, it cannot question its own means or end for anything but its productivity in achieving that said goal. Habermas states, “The moral realization of a normative order is a function of communicative action oriented to shared cultural meaning and presupposing the internalization of values” (Habermas, 134). Ethical concerns are explicated under the communicative sphere because that is the sphere where acting subjects, others, are involved. Technology does not act as an other, but as a tool. In this way, technology serves a function in society that is a-ethical. Habermas sees this as a necessary condition for the need for communicative reason. Because the communicative sphere can question itself in a way that technology cannot, Habermas turns to communicative action to question and critique technology. While technology is not bad in and of itself, its negative sides can come to dominate without a powerful presence of communicative action in questioning it. This is why Habermas privileges communicative action over purposive-rational action and why he turns to the communicative sphere to address the ethical issues which arise from technology.
This is also why technology can tend to dominate over the communicative sphere for Habermas. Internal questioning serves as a hindrance to dominating forces which purposive-rational action pushes forth in its productive drive. Habermas’s turn to communicative action serves to address the power of purposive-rational action to produce of its ends without questioning the implications of those ends or the means of getting there. With the increase in technology and technological superstructures more and more of life is taken over by purposive-rational action. While communicative action still must be utilized in various areas of production – i.e. people still must make decisions about what to make – the use of technology to achieve that communication, to survive, or to do nearly anything forces all areas of life under the rationality of technology. Eventually, modern technological rationality, “widens to take in all areas of life: the army, the school system, health services, and even the family” (Habermas, 128). Technology becomes more than a tool, it becomes a consciousness. Under technological consciousness people begin to think more like technology. In comparison to communicative action “technological consciousness is not based in the same way on the causality of disassociated symbols and unconscious motives” (137). Technological consciousness is more driven by directive purposive ends. Habermas argues that secularization, the loss of myth, is a result of this technological consciousness, for, “measured against the new standards of purposive-rationality, the power-legitimating and action-oriented traditions – especially mythological interpretations and religious world views – lose their cogency….Instead they are reshaped into subjective belief systems and ethics which insure the private cogency of modern value-orientations” (Habermas, 128-9). Under the power of technological rationality, the “subjective” nature of spirituality begins to function as a means to some concert ends. Technology comes to dominate non-technical rationalities through its very nature. Accordingly, Habermas turns to the communicative sphere to keep technological in cheek.

The communicative sphere is critical, for Habermas, in the political. The communicative sphere falls under the category of the “life world” which Habermas sets forth as the gel in which the State and economy take place. The communicative sphere serves as the normative foundation for critique of both State and economy. It is through assumed or agreed upon norms and symbols that common understanding, Habermas’s goal for communication, takes place. In this paradigm the State and economy are not put in opposition to communicative action – that is, they do not represent purposive rationality. Though Habermas does come to argue, as we have seen, that purposive-rational action is over taking the State and economy, in and of themselves they are not forces of purposive-rational action.

While capitalism cannot be reduced to purposive-rational action it does follow this rationality much more than a communicative rationality. Capitalism is driven to achieve specific ends and to do so without questioning itself in the process. Habermas states that the “capitalist mode of production has equipped the economic system with a self-propelling mechanism that ensures long-term continuous growth (despite crisis) in the productivity of labor” (Habermas, 126). By working toward the end of productivity, capitalism, left to its own forces, continually pushes toward its ends. Furthermore, part of its production its technology itself which perpetuates technological consciousness within the capitalist engine of society. However, unlike many, Habermas turns not primarily to the State to keep capitalism in cheek but to the communicative sphere which questions and critiques both capitalism and the State.

Habermas attributes the growing interventionism of the State as a response to the growing power of the capitalist economy with the use of technology and technological consciousness. As capitalism became more and more technological in form and in content the State was driven to intervene to stop these unquestioned abuses of people or land and to direct the technological production to ends which are seen as beneficial for the State (stated to be the people). Habermas argues, “The permanent regulation of the economic process by means of state intervention arose as a defense mechanism against the dysfunctional tendencies, which threaten the system, that capitalism generates when left to itself” (Habermas, 130). As the primary force behind the development of technologies capitalism maintains a vast amount of power to direct society. Accordingly, the State increases its involvement in the economy such that technology does not remain only driven by the capitalist economy but also by the State. Through the use of technology the State absorbs some of this technological consciousness, acting based on productive and quantitative ends rather than distributive or responsive ends. While the State does serve as a hindrance to the domination of technological capitalism, even it cannot serve as the critical counter-part to purposive rationality – a role which is left to the communicative sphere. The result of technology and the power of purposive-rational action driven by and in use by capitalism is the increase in State power to work hand and hand with technology.

This is where the Prompt Global Strike system comes back into the discussion. PGS is a technology developed by State researchers and funding but this development is only made possible because of other technologies developed by non-state forces, particularly more corporate capitalist forces. For example, PGS is using techniques developed by NASA – which is not exactly corporate or State. Furthermore, as the State is funded by the capitalist economy anything which promotes economic growth will affect the State, through increased revenues, need for intervention, or some other means. The purposive-rationality needed to develop a weapon such as the PGS thus seeps through capitalism and the State.

The development of the PGS points directly to the increased State interventionism which Habermas attributes to the increasingly technological nature of capitalism. As more and more technologies are developed for private corporate means the State steps in to keep these technologies from over running State interests. Yet in doing so the state turns more and more to technology to serve its own interest as well. The PGS is a prime example of this because the motivation behind it is directly linked to State intervention in global economic interests. The New York Times, along with most articles on the PGS, states as an example of the innovative possibilities of this system as “destroying an Iranian nuclear sight” (Singer and Shanker, New York Times). The speed and precision of this bomb is continually promoted as a prime technology for pin pointing “terrorists” like Osama Bin Laden. An article in the Washington Independent gives a clear statement of the pro-PGS sentiment:
“Every strategist remembers Aug. 20, 1998, when the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group, stationed in the Arabian Sea, launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at an Al Qaeda training camp in eastern Afghanistan, hoping to take out Osama Bin Laden. With a top speed of 550 mph, the Tomahawks made the 1100-mile trip in 2 hours. By then, Bin Laden was gone -- missed by less than an hour, according to Richard A. Clarke, former head of U.S. counterterrorism” (Washington Independent).
PGS is deemed a growing necessity as the notion is perpetuated that the hour speed increase which PGS has would have given the U.S. the possibility of catching Osama Bin Laden.

This motive is clearly a result of the increase in State intervention – whether for economic ends (oil) or national-democratic or some other ends. If the clash with Bin Laden was from the motivation of economic ends through maintaining access to oil, a vital component of modern technology, the link of the State development of PGS to technology is even clearer. The goal of creating a technology which can strike a specific spot across the globe at an extremely fast speed would not exist without the presence of modern technology enabling people to think in terms of setting forth specific ends and making a closed system which can achieve those ends on its own. Only under this rationality is it possible for a technology like the PGS to be developed. The State utilizes this rationality to develop technology which can serve to address the technological engines of society – both local and global. As a State technology PGS is developed for State ends, which in turn perpetuate a technologically driven State.

Nonetheless, the Prompt Global Strike system is not a-ethical. The use of such a bomb raises all sorts of ethical questions – the obvious one being “should anyone have the right to kill another?” But the technology of PGS itself cannot ask those questions. As a technology PGS can only achieve or fail to achieve its intended ends – bombing a precise location fast. In order to address these concerns Habermas turns to the communicative sphere. Placed under the critique of communicative action, technologies, such as the PGS, can be directed by people through mutual communication. Habermas sees the democratic involvement of people in the development of technology as a critical force in asking ethical questions of technology. For Habermas the potential negative effects of even the development of the PGS must be able to be questioned and practically influenced by democratic involvement. PGS has had no democratic involvement, unless you count blog posts and news responses criticizing the system. As military technology, and only the State, and in particular the president, has the legal ability to make decisions about its use. In this way, the PGS is an example of the domination of technology, via the closed logic of purposive-rational action over the communicative sphere, to continually push its production on without halting to the countless critiques of the people communicating through norms and questioning as others.

“Should we develop the Prompt Global Strike?”
“Maybe…but for whose ends?”
“WE, the people.”
“Where is the WE here…?”

Habermas, Jurgen. “Culture and Technology as Ideology” in Critical Theory: the essential reader, ed. David Ingram and Julia Simon-Ingram, Paragon House: St. Paul Minnesota, 1992.
Sanger, David E. and Thom Shanker April 22, 2010 www.nytimes.com
Ackerman, Spencer April 23, 2010 http://washingtonindependent.com/83050/your-prompt-global-strike-primer

Polybius on Critical Moments of Revolution and Political Decline: Anacyclosis

Polybius on Critical Moments of Revolution and Political Decline: Anacyclosis
Historical Development of Ancient Political Theory
Terese Howard
4/27/10

Political states change.… Do they change in predictable cycles? A number of political theorists throughout history have argued that political states do change in recurrent predictable cycles. Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Hegel, Marx – these theorists and more all believed that the form of political states evolve in a cyclical fashion. The last stage is not the end, but is the stage before the cycle begins again. Stage one comes about again as a result of the last stage. In Marx, as drawing from Hegel, it is a result of the dialectic – the implicit disconnect (alienation) the people feel between their labor and the flows of capitalism must bring about communism. In Polybius the flow is not necessary in a casual philosophical since (as it is in Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx), but is the probable course of events as observed from history. For Polybius, living in Greece and Rome between 203-120BC and studying the history of those places, this was how history had panned out and furthermore he believed there was logical reason for it to have happened that way and to continue to follow that, or a similar, cycle.
Polybius sets forth six (or seven, depending on how you read him) political states or governments: monarchy, (kingship?), tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and ochlocracy (mob-rule). Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are considered the normative or superior governments, while tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy are considered the degenerate forms of those corresponding governments. Monarchy gone aria naturally becomes tyranny. And tyranny, taken on its natural course, will be turned into aristocracy. For Polybius, as noted, this is not a casually necessary progression but it is a natural progression. Polybius explains that, “there are six kinds of governments, the three above mentioned which are in everyone’s mouth and the three which are naturally allied to them” (Polybius, Book VI, 275). The natural alliance between the forms of government drive them to move from one from into the next. The word “natural” here refers to an understanding of nature not necessarily as without reason but as independent from reason. While reason is a component in the shifts from one form of government to another, nature follows its course regardless of the intentions of human reason. The natural flow of governments moves from one to another without needing someone to rationally decide what should or must be done next. People naturally act in such a way that these shifts happen regardless of the use of reason.
The first form of government which Polybius sets forth is monarchy. Monarchy comes directly out of the most original societies. Society emerges when the misfortunes and hardships of living, “owing to floods, famines, failure of crops or other such causes” (Polybius, 277) lead people to join together in interdependence. It is “owing to natural weakness” that men originally joined forces to create society. In this natural interdependence “it is a necessary consequence that the man who excels in bodily strength and in courage will lead and rule over the rest” (Polybius, 278). This natural bodily strength and courage places the man (yes, man) who is bravest and strongest in a position of authority. People naturally turn to him as a leader. It is at this stage that society is labeled as under a monarchy. Yet, at this stage the leader holds his power only to the limit that his strength will take it. The ruler is not more powerful than he is strong.
The passage from monarchy to tyranny has an intermediate stage – kingship. This form of government is different than the original monarchy in that kingship is passed on by blood while original monarchy is an earned authority. Polybius explains the shift from monarchy to kingship saying, “[W]hen in time feelings of sociability and companionship begin to grow in such gatherings of men, than kingship has struck root” (Polybius, 279). Family ties hold members together and lead people to join and defend those who have direct blood ties. Kingship takes root as “the people maintain the supreme power not only in the hands of these men themselves, but in those of their descendants, from the conviction that those born from and reared by such men will also have principles like theirs” (Polybius, 283).
It is under the government of monarchic hereditary succession that monarchy turns into tyranny. As kings become accustom to acquiring power without any hardships or work of their own but merely by succession, they begin to use that since of effortless entitlement to tyrannize over society. Polybius states, “[W]hen they received the office by hereditary succession and found their safety now provided for, and more than sufficient provision of food, they gave way to their appetites owing to this superabundance, and came to think that the rulers must be distinguished from their subjects…and that they should meet with no denial in the pursuit of their amours, however lawless” (Polybius, 284). This decline from monarchy to tyranny is instigated by the absence of hardship or effort which the ruler holds under hereditary succession. Born into the position of leadership without ever needing to earn that position, kings become tyrants.
The state of tyranny does not last forever though because people cannot withstand that sort of tyranny forever. Noble people join forces to over throw this tyrant and stop the abuses. In this way, through effort and joined forces, aristocracy overtakes tyranny as the political power. Here Polybius says, “The people now having got leaders, would combine with them against the ruling powers for the reasons stated above; kingship and monarchy would be utterly abolished, and in their place aristocracy would begin to grow” (Polybius, 285). The aristocratic rule begins with those who had the intelligence and courage (and wealth) to overthrow the tyrant. When the tyrant is gone, they rule with this effort and trial fresh in mind.
Yet again, however, when the positions of the aristocratic leaders is passed on without effort, be it through hereditary succession or some other means, the new rulers, who have no experience with struggle and never knew the horrors of the tyranny, take on many of the characteristics of the tyrant before them, abandoning “themselves some to greed of gain and unscrupulous money making, others to indulgence in wine…, others to the violation of women…and thus converting the aristocracy into an oligarchy” (Polybius, 285). In this way, the government deteriorates into a selfish rule of those in power seeking to gain power, rather than those seeking to reconvene order by maintaining power.
Because of the abuses of oligarchy, like tyranny, people do not withstand its power endlessly. At a point whomever takes “courage to speak or act against the chiefs of the state…[will have] the whole mass of people ready to back him” (Polybius, 287). The courage of a few here turns into the revolution of the masses – seeking to overthrow the powers that have kept them in pain and without power and replace them with a power for all. Polybius states,
“When they have either killed or banished the oligarchs, they no longer venture to set a king over them, as they still remember with terror the injustices they suffered from the former ones, nor can they entrust the government with confidence to a select few the evidence before them of their resent error in doing so. Thus the only hope still surviving unimpaired is in themselves, and to this they resort, making the state a democracy instead of an oligarchy and assuming the responsibility for the conduct of affairs” (Polybius, 287).
Democracy takes over oligarchy as the people take on the effort and responsibility of overthrowing the old government and governing themselves. This process values equality highly as the answer to the oppression of the one or the few which they experienced before.
It is this very equality and freedom that leads to the deterioration of democracy into ochlocracy. Polybius explains, “[W]hen a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustom to the freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence” (Polybius, 287). Born into freedom people forget they need to work for freedom and end up abusing it to the point where conflict takes over as some try to get more than their share of that freedom. This state of mob-rule takes over society such that the democracy can no longer rule. Mobs of people seeking more power make it impossible for all the people to share power equally.
Ochlocracy itself, though, is at some point overthrown and turned back into monarchy as the people see the problems of their lack of leadership and see democracy as the cause of this decay. Thus the people turn to one good person to rule monarchically. Yet again society is governed by a monarchy and the cycle begins again.
What can be seen in all of these shifts of government? There are three key components to each of these revolutionary moments or political declines. First, Aristotle’s conviction that the inferior want to be equal and the equal want to be greater (Aristotle, Politics, 1302a) holds true for Polybius as a force of political power shifts. In movement from tyranny to aristocracy, oligarchy to democracy, and ochlocracy to monarchy, the inferior are striving to be equal (though equal here does not only mean the sort of equality sought in democracy). The “negative” shifts are driven by the equals desire to be greater. Equality is favored in Polybius as a positive force driving politics to its better states. It is the desire to be greater than equal that leads to the forms of government which are most abusive. Though equality cannot stand in totality, as is seen in the fall of democracy to ochlocracy, it is still a positive force. For Polybius, it seems that democracy is at the culmination of the cycle because of its emphasis on equality, and that its failure to maintain itself and this absolute equality is the result of humanities natural pull to becoming greater.
The second key component of Polybius’s revolutionary moments is effort. Each shift of government is due to either the great efforts of a person or people or to their lack of effort. Through hereditary succession and positional succession (i.e. authority passed on via a set position without the person ever needing to earn that authority) which take no effort on the part of the successive rulers, rulers lose connection to the real issues society is faced with and to the effort it requires to address these. These rulers begin to think they are innately entitled to these luxuries instead of seeing them as a result of their hard work of overthrowing the previous oppressive government. Those who have had to put effort into earning power know what that power is worth and tend to use that power to maintain what they worked for in the first place. The effort of overthrowing an abusive government and implementing a new one keeps new leaders in cheek with the societal reasons they are in power. In Polybius, revolutionary generations and revolutionaries themselves are the best rulers.
Finally, it is essential to all good governments that they have a memory of the past. Through a since of history people can recognize the good they have or the effort that has been put into creating any good that does exist in society. Without remembering the horrors of the past, governments are apt to recreate those horrors and treat their role in government as a given. For Polybius, historical memory is a deterrent to abuses of power. History reveals the cycles of political government as well as holding those cycles in cheek with the past and with its future goals.
If Polybius himself is giving three words of advice to societies in this work I believe they may be: one, don’t try to be greater than equal; two, use effort to create and maintain government; and three, remember the societies history.

Polybius. The Histories: Fragments of Book VI, tran. W. R. Paton, Harvard University Press: Cambridge Massachusetts, 1923.

Hegel and Horkheimer: the Unfolding of Theory

Hegel and Horkheimer: the Unfolding of Theory
Philosophical Problems in the Social Sciences
Terese Howard
4/16/10

G. W. F. Hegel’s treatment of scientific cognition in contrast to the Understanding in Phenomenology of Spirit, and Max Horkheimer’s distinction between traditional and critical theory have a common critique of staticness and focus on process, as well as turning to interior content over the exterior surveying of content. Horkheimer’s critiques of what he calls “traditional theory” are to some extent an extension of Hegel’s critique of the Understanding. Hegel and Horkheimer both use terms to designate the approaches they are critiquing that refer to the status quo, or the “normal” or “everyday” understanding: the “Understanding” and “traditional theory.” This terminology sets both Hegel and Horkheimer in opposition to the dominate theory of their day.
In the preface to Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel articulates what he calls scientific cognition as his preferred method of cognition. While ordinary understanding sees things as static parts, lifeless data that adds up to a whole, scientific cognition gets to the subject-matter itself. Hegel explains that, “in the ordinary view of anatomy, for instance (say, the knowledge of the parts of the body regarded as inanimate), we are quite sure that we do not as yet possess the subject-matter itself, the content of this science, but must in addition exert ourselves to know the particulars” (PoS, 1). For Hegel the ordinary view “has no right to bear the name of Science” (Pos, 1) because it does not get to the life content of the subject. To the ordinary understanding the body is seen as a totality of inanimate parts. In scientific cognition the body is seen with life as the content. The use of the word “life” here emphasizes the dynamic nature of the content. Scientific cognition is the way of getting to the actual content of a subject itself – a content interior to the subject. Life cannot be understood in a static moment. The Understanding never gets inside of the subject to its content, but always stays on the exterior. Hegel explains, “The Understanding, in its pigeon-holing process, keeps the necessity and Notion [concept] of the content to itself – all that constitutes the concreteness, the actuality, the living movement of the reality which it arranges….A table of contents is all if offers, the content itself it does not offer at all” (PoS, 32). By pigeon-holing particular areas of a subject, such as body parts, and taking those as isolated facts, the Understanding keeps isolated everything necessary to the content (which refers to its dynamic relation to other parts, to the whole, to alterity). Neither the necessity nor the concept of the content is grasped when it is treated as static parts. The immanent content which scientific cognition reaches “consists partly in becoming other than itself” (PoS, 32). As scientific cognition looks not just too independent existents but to that which is imminently other than those existents, it unfolds the interior content of these existents in a way that the Understanding does not.
Max Horkheimer’s articulation of critical theory in opposition to traditional theory also emphasizes the interiority of the content as the life of the subject. In the traditional understanding of theory “the order of the world is captured by a deductive chain of thought” (CT, 239). Particulars are treated as truth propositions, independent facts, which create the basis for more general (or universal) truth claims. In traditional thought, theory “is the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these” (CT, 239). So long as the basic premises are true all general conclusions which are derived from those should also be true. This mode of thinking isolates things into propositions which can be evaluated in themselves without any reference to their history or context. Political science using traditional theory makes political truth claims based on claims which are defined as basic truth propositions (i.e. a country thrives with a strong middle class, safety requires weapons…). Once a statement is defined as basic (a process which uses deductive logic to make that claim), all claims which are derived from it must also be true so long as they are only using true claims. Horkheimer’s critique of traditional theory as a totaling of isolated parts through deductive reasoning is much like Hegel’s critique of the Understanding as a “table of contents” rather than the content itself. Traditional theory tells what is true but does not show how it is true. It does not trace its truth past itself. As an “enclosed system of propositions for a science as a whole” (239), traditional theory, like Hegel’s Understanding, only skims over the content, listing it as propositions and stopping there, instead of getting inside of the content itself. Horkheimer’s understanding of the alienation of labor under the paradigm of traditional theory, which draws both from Hegel and Marx, is based in this idea of external truth. Through the division of labor, “the activity of the scholar which takes place alongside all the other activities of a society…[is] in no immediately clear connection with them” (242). Alienation, in this way, is a result of the traditional theory which treats ideas, things, workers, and scholars as isolated producers with no real connection to the process or product.
None of this so far, however, has told us how to get to the content itself, or, much less, what that content is, which for Hegel cannot be handed as such to anyone but must be worked through. In this way one must ask how to get to the content before being able to say what the content is. This necessity of the “how” in understanding the content reveals the difference between traditional theory and critical theory. In asking “how” to get to the content of a thing one is forced to trace back within the thing instead of staying on the surface. For Hegel, and similarly for Horkheimer though with different terminology, the method (scientific cognition) is one of unfolding.
The unfolding process which get to the content itself can be found in Hegel’s incessant triads such as the “in-itself, for-itself, in-and-for-itself” which guide the movement toward knowledge or realization of the Real. The in-itself unfolds with the for-itself in the in-and-for-itself. That is to say, the inner content becomes outer and visa versa through the movement. Hegel explains, “The movement of a being that immediately is, consists partly in becoming an other than itself, and thus becoming its own immanent content; partly in taking back into itself this unfolding [of its content] or this existence of it” (PoS, 32). In becoming other than itself a thing realizes itself such that they can be joined through this unfolding – the “it” and its other as the it-other (or in-and-for-itself). Scientific cognition is a process. The truth of a thing cannot be grasped in a static moment but must be unfolded through time.
Horkheimer holds this same idea of cognition (or theory) as a historical process of unfolding. The process and historical nature of theory is a social process such that “the world of an individual is “a product of the activity of society as a whole” (PoS, 242). Truth propositions are not isolated from the structure of the society that made them. Their truth unfolds through recognizing their process of coming to be. This recognition happens through the critique of capitalist labor divisions. By reconciling with ones alienation from their labor (including the labor of theory in academia) one can move through its own otherness. This reconciliation happens in critical theory through seeing truth as a process of the modes of production, of history, of society – as an entanglement of these forces in a folding and unfolding process. Critical theory approaches truth as irreducible to any single moment. Social and historical factors always give the truth its truth.
Both Hegel and Horkheimer turn inward to the content of cognition or theory by taking the content as an unfolding process. As Hegel looks for the content of cognition in its relationship to its own otherness, thus unfolding the inner content out, so Horkheimer sets forth a theory of theory that looks to its relationship to its own alienation in historical process. Scientific cognition and critical theory stand in opposition to the everyday understandings of the day by taking in the past, present, and future, otherness, and alienation.

Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenology of Spirit, tran. A. V. Miller, Oxford University Press: New York, 1977.
Horkheimer, Max. “Traditional and Critical Theory” in Critical Theory: the essential reader, ed David
Ingram and Julia Simon-Ingram, Paragon House: St. Paul, 1992.

Equality in Athens: Between Lot and Specialization

Equality in Athens: Between Lot and Specialization
For The Historical Development of Ancient Political Theory
Terese Howard
3/19/10
How can everyone be equal when only a few people know how to run a country? How can anyone know how to run a country when everyone is equal? These questions stab at the core of the tension between striving for equality and striving for excellence in society with which all societies must wrestle. The value of equality comes up against its limitations when faced with the need for specialization that ultimately hinders equality. Specialization can destroy society by taking over the possibility of citizen participation. These conflicts must be addressed in order to find positive uses of both equality and specialization that are not mutually exclusive.

At the heart of early Athenian democratic theory is the idea of equality. The meaning of equality for Athenian democracy is very different, however, than its meaning in modern day democracies. Greek political historian, Paul Cartledge, points out that Greek ideas of equality were not wrapped up in the “liberal sense of the equality of individual rights against the State” (Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought, 7). Greek equality did not separate the individual from the State (as Hobbes does). Because Greek equality did not place the individual in primacy it takes a significantly different form than post-Hobbesian views of equality. Furthermore, the Greeks did not strive for all the same sorts of equality that are sought today. Gender equality, for example, was not a concern for them. Economic equality, though it was a concern to some extent, took a back seat in Greek equality.

The primary focus of Greek equality was civic equality. That is, equality of political participation, or “equality of status and respect within the conceptual framework of the Greeks normative socio-political system” (Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought, 7). This equality is wrestled with in education theory, in political activity, and in choosing political leaders/participants. In this essay I will focus on the later two strata of equality, but I will briefly touch on the significance of education theory for treatments of equality.

The fundamental question of the possibility or impossibly of political equality is at the heart of the question of whether one can teach political virtue. The differing opinions on this question reveal the conflict which arose in Athens over the legitimacy of equality in politics – or, between aristocracy and democracy. For those who believed that political virtue could be taught, people were seen as equally apt for political activity. With Solon the idea arose that political aptitude could be taught to anyone and was not a trait of birth or wealth. Latter others, such as Plato, in opposition to democracy, argued that political aptitude could be taught, but only to the few who were born with that possibility. This disagreement speaks to the vital role which the belief in equality played in democratic theory.

Because people’s equality in civic participation is at the core of Athenian democracy, all methods of reflecting or realizing this equality are central to Athenian democracy as well. One of these means, as mentioned, is the means of education. Another is the legal role which citizens played as council people and jurors. Another is the method of choosing these council people and jurors and other political leaders. Yet another is the roles that people are given in the polis. These social structures and practices reveal how the Athenians dealt with issues of equality or inequality. In what follows I will specifically examine the significance of elections by lot, and the argument for specialization of political roles made by Plato, as a tension between equality and inequality.

The beginning of the use of the lot in electing political participants is heavily debated (Headlam, Election by Lot in Athens) but regardless of the exact date, the shift coincided with the move to democracy. Greek history scholar, Donald Kagan, explains that at this time, “The old magistracies ceased entirely to be elective and were filled by lot” (Kagan, The Great Dialogue, 52). All free male citizens were included in the lot and thus could potentially be chosen for positions of political decision making. Wealth, talent, nor birth were a prerequisite for placement in the lot. In fact, some political positions, such as juror, were paid so that even the poor could take the time away from their work to do this civic duty.

Some scholars down play the significance of the lot as a tool of egalitarian politics arguing,
“when an office such as the Archonship which in earlier times was filled by popular election came to be filled by lot, it ceased to be of any political importance; and hence they conclude that if numerous minor administrative posts were so filled, the custom is curious and rather foolish, it is characteristic of the democratic jealousy, but did not seriously affect the government of the state” (Headlam, Election by Lot in Athens).
While it is true that the shift to using the lot did correspond with the decrease of power associated with roles such as Archon, this does not mean that the lot had no political significance or that the positions filled by lot were insignificant. In fact, it may be argued that with the use of lot, positions of leadership became more significant because the role of governing became a job instead of a birth right. Even though the power of any single one of these political roles decreased as the lot began to be used, the political power was dispersed more throughout all the positions. Athenian political scholar James Headlam argues that downplaying the lot “ignores, what is equally true, that, though no individual office is of particular prominence, the work done by all the officials elected by lot was together of the greatest extent” (Headlam, Election by Lot in Athens). The move to lot was not only a shift from blood, strength, or vote as the deciding method for political positions. It was also a shift to more dispersed political power. No longer was the position of Archon as important because other positions, such as council people, became more significant. Headlam goes on to say,

“It is scarcely too much to say that the whole administration of the state was in the hands of men appointed by lot : the serious work of the law courts, of the execution of the laws, of police, of public finance, in short of every department (with the exception of actual commands in the army) was one by officials so chosen” (Headlam, Election by Lot in Athens).

In this way, the shrinking power of some political positions does not indicate an insignificance of the lot, but instead a growing significance of dispersing the political power throughout more positions and more people.

Furthermore, skeptics of the significance of the lot treat the religious origin of the lot as a reason to disregard its political significance. It is true that the lot has a religious origin, and even that “the great mass of the people firmly believed in the continual intervention of the Gods in the affairs of men” (Headlam, Election by Lot). However, the idea that the lot was strictly a way of waiting on the Gods to determine the political is not well founded. References to the necessity of lot for democracy and critiques of the lot based on critiques of democracy, point to the essentially political, rather than religious, nature of the lot. Handlam concludes,
“the lot was religious in its origin, and that it was to the latest times throughout Greece used in the ritual of the temples with a clear acknowledgment that its decision gave a divine sanction ; but that at Athens owing to its constant use for political purposes it was secularised till almost all recollection of its religious origin had disappeared” (Headlam, Election by Lot).
With the decrease in religious significance, the political significance of equality, represented by the lot, grew to the greatest importance.

The use of the lot put civic equality at the heart of Athenian democracy. Because everyone (or rather, every free male), at random, could be chosen for a position of governing, trying to earn the position of power through skill or wealth was out of the picture.[1] Because of the random nature of the lot political preparedness had to be a universal and equal virtue, instead of a competition for power. Through the lot positions of political power became less powerful in and of themselves, and the whole system of political power became more powerful. The dispersal of power was, in part, a result of the focus the lot brought to equality rather than specialization in any role. Furthermore, the lot was held frequently enough so that no one held a position of power for very long. The job had to be such that anyone could fulfill the job when their name was drawn. In these ways equality both motivated and was created by the use of lot.

The lot was highly criticized by critiques of democracy, such as Socrates and Plato. For these critiques, choosing political leaders by lot was one of the many ways democracy failed to value specialization and recognize the natural inequality of people. For Socrates and Plato (and Aristotle), people are naturally unequal – not everyone is made to be a king, some are apt for jobs that others are not. This belief in natural inequality, tied to the belief in specialization of skills, makes them come out with a very different politics than the democracy of their fathers or even their own day.

Plato’s belief in inequality serves as a foundation for his understanding of specialization of social roles. In the Republic Plato states through the character of Socrates, “our several natures are not all alike but different. One man is naturally fitted for one task, and another for another” (Plato, Republic, 616). In this way, society is seen as a joining of different people with different skills in interdependence. It is not just that there are different tasks that need done in society, some manual, some political ect., but that people are born made for specific and different tasks and as such society is forced to form. This premise goes undisputed in the dialogue itself. Plato simply assumes that it is clear that people are made apt for different tasks. These tasks include political leadership and as such the idea of a lot choosing anyone at random for those positions is ridiculous to Plato. The lot does not recognize the natural inequality of people, but instead treats people who are very different as if they are the same.

From this inequality Plato argues, “The result, then, is that more things are produced, and better and more easily when one man performs one task according to his nature, at the right moment, and at leisure from other occupations” (Plato, Republic, 616). Each person should specialize in what they are good at and perform that task for themselves and for society. Through specializing, productivity, quality, and effort all improve.

Specialization is not just being born with a specific skill, the natural inequality. These skills also must be trained. Some tasks, such as farming, must be learned in one way. Others, such as king, must be learned in another way. The job of king is specifically learned through philosophy which takes a great deal of time and energy. Because of this, and because not everyone is made capable of philosophy in the first place, the specialized role of philosopher king is reserved for only an elite few. This division of labor is within the social as well as the political realms.[2] Within the political this specialization creates political roles much different than those which develop under the use of the lot. Only one, or in some cases a few, people can fulfill these roles, and in order to do so they must both be born apt for it as well as train for it. This means power becomes centralized in the positions which are most specialized. Because these positions can be held for longer and can only be done by the one who is made and trained for it, more power to enact that role is given to this leader than when the leader shifts frequently and can be filled by anybody.

The specialization of societal roles which Plato advocates strives for excellence over equality. When each position is done by someone who is trained carefully just for that position the level of excellence achieved will be much greater than if people who have no training in a position fill it. Specialization enables jobs to be done with excellence. The warrior is trained to be strong and brave, the farmer to know the seasons and needs of the crops, the king to know the nature of the world and the right means of getting there. Every job in society has its own skills and to become excellent at it those skills must be the full focus of the persons training. Doing more than one job at a time does not leave room for one to master any one of the jobs – (hence the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none”). For Plato, this means that designating jobs which individuals specialize in is the only way for a society to become excellent.

The effect of the use of lot in choosing people for political positions, and the shift to[3] specialization of societal role after Plato reveals the significance of the view of equality on the political situation. Imbedded in the lot is the idea that all citizens are equal and should share equally in the tasks of running a society. Imbedded in the idea of specialization is the idea that people are not equal and as such should not all share the tasks of running society. Subsequently the use of lot results in a more egalitarian society, and the implementation of specialized roles results in less equality. When the lot is used in a society people do not see the power invested in them as a result of their innate superiority or hard work, but as their duty to society. The power of a particular political role cannot grow to the point of vast inequalities because only limited power can be manifest when the jobs are designed so that anybody can fulfill it. If anybody can fulfill the job, than the one who is in that position could be replaced by anyone else at any time. As long as this replaceabilty exists, equality flourishes. Furthermore, because there are so many counter roles with the comparable political power (such as jurors, police…) it becomes extremely difficult for any one position to dominate the others. When the positions of political power are no longer replaceable with any citizen, inequality of power can arise. In societies where political positions are specialized, as Plato called for, power is centralized and thus not equally distributed within citizens. As one person becomes export in a task, others cannot engage in that task. When this is applied to political roles, those who specialize in the political hold the political power while those who specialize in other roles, such as farming, are left with no real political power. While everyone has their place in society, some of those places only have the power to maintain, not to change things. In this way, inequality emerges out of the ideology which is based on the idea of natural inequality, and equality emerges out of the system which is based on the idea of natural equality.

The inequality of specialization, however, also makes possible an excellence of performance that is impossible under the lot. While this excellence makes possible the centralization of power and inequality, it also makes possible excellent works of art, strong fighters, philosophy, and improvements in all these fields and more. Without specialization in a task it is hard pressed that anyone will know the task well enough to make improvements on its procedures. Only through specializing can a certain degree of excellence be obtained. Structures such as the lot do not enable anyone to develop a specialization in the roles which it applies to because there is no time. Specialization, and thus excellence, takes time that is not given with the use of lot. The possibility for excellence which emerges from a political system structured on specialization is one that arguably does not exist in early Athenian democracy.

The tension between these poles – specialization and lot, inequality and equality, excellence and equality – raises questions about the division of equalized or specialized jobs in society. If specialization creates inequality should any jobs require specialization? Yet, if some jobs can only be done if done by specialists, what jobs are these? Are these mutually exclusive? The answer to these questions will reflect the views of equality underlying them. The view of equality manifest through the use of the lot in Athenian democracy as equal civic political participation stands at odds with the understanding of equality as impossible/unnatural found in Plato’s treatment of specialization in society. It is within this tension that constructive approaches to equality as well as to the need for specialization can be developed.

Cartledge, Paul. Ancient Greek Political Thought, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009.

Headlam, James. Election by Lot in Athens, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1891. Found at http://www.archive.org/stream/electionbylotata00headuoft/electionbylotata00headuoft_djvu.txt
Kagan, Donald. The Great Dialogue, The Free Press: New York, 1965.

Plato, Republic in The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Princeton
University Press, New Jersey, 1961.

[1] Though the tyrants obviously were able to do so through skill, and wealth and force combined.
[2] In so far as these are divided or united.
[3] Or back to…

Hobbes and Anarchy: Equality, Individualism, and the War of All Against All

For Cycles of American Political Thought
Hobbes and Anarchy: Equality, Individualism, and the War of All Against All
Terese Howard
2/26/10

One of the most readily made arguments against anarchism as a political system is that, if people are without an authority, they would have nothing holding them back from acting out their self interest which would lead them to killing and stealing and reeking mass havoc. People, left to their own devises, will be in a constant state of war. This is essentially the argument set forth by Thomas Hobbes in the mid seventeenth century in his works De Cive and Leviathan. Hobbes’ influence on politics throughout the west is vast. Hobbes was extremely influential on American political thought via his strong influence on John Locke, who is often considered the father of American political philosophy. Locke’s view of the individual, of equality, and of rights, among other ideas, would not have existed without Hobbes’ articulation of these ideas. From this chain of influence, Hobbes’ treatment of the state of nature as a war of all against all – which is labeled anarchy, becomes the foundational argument against anarchy and for State authority. Because of the universal and rational logic of the argument set forth by Hobbes, his state of nature is treated as a foundation of the logic of State authority without ever considering the history or material context of the societies in question. If human nature is universal and rational and it is such that anarchy equals the war of all against all, than nothing more need to be said to justify one’s critique of anarchism. Anarchist responses to this fundationalist critique of anarchy address both the method of the logic which leads to his conclusion, and the premises of his logic and conclusion itself – that is, that people are natural enemies who exist in perpetual war without a higher power to keep them in shape.

In this paper I will focus on explaining what the state of nature is for Hobbes and how his argument for the state of nature is made. I will than briefly consider some anarchist responses to this Hobbesian anarchy of all against all under the basic question, “Are humans at odds with each other in self interest?”.

The state of nature, in Hobbes, is socially manifest as the war of “every man, against every man” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 100). In the state of nature human action is in constant conflict with others and is without anything keeping each individual from manifesting that conflict in destructive ways. In moral terms “to this war of every man, against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 101). It is the Sovereign, or the common power, that makes laws and it is laws that make justice and injustice. Without this sovereign law anything goes. The state of nature is such that every individual acts by their own interest against others thus in war – the opposite of peace.

As Hobbes scholar A.P. Martinich points out, the state of nature “has often been misunderstood to be the condition human beings were in when they were first created” (Martinich, Hobbes, 63). Hobbes does not trace the state of nature to Adam and Eve or any other primordial stage of human history. Hobbes explains, “It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 101). There was never a time when the whole world was in this state of nature – not in the beginning or ever. He goes on however saying, “but there are many places, where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America…have no government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 101). The existence and non-existence of the state of nature is not an evolutionary process. History does not move from the state of nature to the state of the State or other authorities. Societies can digress from government to a state of nature (anarchy) or develop from anarchy into governments. The point is that this state of nature is underpinning all societies but it only becomes manifest as such when there is no sovereign to keep the people in order. Most societies have some sort of sovereign, though often ones that are not strong enough or given proper authority which is a key concern of Hobbes, and the ones that don’t, the anarchies (his example being Native Americans) are seldom seen. Hobbes project throughout the Leviathan is not primarily to argue that humans left to their own without authority will be in a state of war against all, but to argue for a particular type of government lead by a Sovereign who has sufficient power and who the people consent to and act under the absolute jurisdiction of this power. Hobbes argument that the natural state is one of self interest and war is merely the foundation on which his theories of sovereign government lay. In this, the state of nature is not a concert historical stage which is leading to the correct form of government. Martinich describes the state of nature in Hobbes as a thought experiment (Martinich, Hobbes, 63). It is something one must deduce from logic and material, which is for Hobbes material logic since he is a materialist, through thought. While I argue the state of nature cannot entirely be a thought experiment, since Hobbes does make reference to examples of this state, it is clear that his method of reaching the state of nature is based more in logical thought, using specific material starting places, than on historical examples.

Hobbes’ argument that the state of nature is one of the war of all against all is based on material premises and logical deduction. The building rhetoric which Hobbes uses throughout the Leviathan is a perfect example of the logic of the state of nature itself. Each premise becomes a foundation for the next which in turn builds to the next. This is particularly true in his definitions of terms which once defined are then used with the whole baggage of that definition throughout the rest of the work.

The argument proper, that is the argument for his understanding of the state of nature, is most clearly set forth in chapter 13 of the Leviathan. Hobbes begins with the premise that all men are by nature equal. He states, “Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of the body, and mind; as that though there be quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 98). This does not mean that all people are exactly the same in every way, or that all people have the same capabilities. Hobbes certainly believes that some people are better apt for intellectual activity or physical arts than others, but ultimately, in all significant ways, humans have equal capabilities. This is made most clear under the fact that even “the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 98). This basic equality of strength in the ability to kill another is the fundamental equality of all. It is important to note that the strength of the body and the creativity of the mind are joined here when the physically weaker uses mind to maters matter. One way or another, through physical strength or through mental smarts, everyone can kill another and thus no one is naturally greater than any other. This basis of equality is a central fetcher of the liberal[1] individualist philosophy which streams from Hobbes into America. People are treated as individual entities which can be described by universal, equitable qualities.

Because of the natural equality of humans, in the second premise, Hobbes argues that diffidence proceeds. Everyone becomes enemies in equality. Hobbes explains, “From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in attaining of our ends” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 98). Since everyone is equal everyone has equal hope of being the one to get what they want. The conflict here comes in that “if two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 98). If people were not equal and they knew that someone else was capable of getting things that they were not they would not see themselves at odds with the others because they could not gain the same things. But as equals, people are at odds because they both want the same things and have the capacity of getting the same things. Crucial to this logic is that assumption, hinted at in the statement “which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy,” (98) that these things are exclusive – that is, they can only be had by one person. This point will be discussed more latter, but for now it must be noted that Hobbes basis the equality of conflict on the exclusivity of desires. In diffidence people always must be afraid of everyone. Every other person is a potential threat to one’s desires and one can never tell who is going to be a threat and who is not. In this way, Hobbes takes “Stranger Danger” to its extreme.

It is a natural step for Hobbes to move from this state of diffidence to the state of war of all against all. Since everyone is enemies with everyone else in conflict for exclusive ends, and everyone has the capability to kill another, war is quick to ensue. This war “consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 100). The state of nature is thus manifest not necessarily as battle but as tension, fear, and felt conflict between all people as individuals. Even if an individual turns to others as allies to help fight another, that individual cannot trust even those allies. Anyone could potentially be an enemy. This implicit animosity to all others is the state of nature. This state comes to fruition when there is no authority to keep the people in awe. Without absolute sovereign law people’s exclusive self interests will have full reign over themselves and society as a whole will be a state of war. It is only an absolute power that can keep people from acting out this state of nature.

Why would people consent to this absolute power? Hobbes’ fourth premise to the state of nature is that people seek peace. It is because people desire peace, they know peace to be a better state of being than war, that they will turn to an absolute power to get them out of the state of war. This desire for peace is directly tied to the individual’s drive for life over death. Otherwise put, “The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living” (Hobbes Leviathan, 102). Since death is more likely under the state of nature – the war of all against all – people realize that a sovereign power is needed to keep them from existing, and dying, in this state of nature. Without the desire for peace, or life, nothing would drive people to get out of the state of nature.

The consent which the people give to the sovereign is manifest in giving up their natural rights to the sovereign. Not only is Hobbes the father of liberal equality, he is also the father of the liberal notion of rights as is based on equal individuals with a universal human nature. A critical part of the state of nature is that in this natural state everyone has the right to everything needed for self preservation. The right here is naturally endowed in a person by their very nature as a material body with material needs, including the need to be protected from death. Hobbes states, “The right of nature…is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 103). The natural right to life here does not just mean a right to food and shelter, it means a right to do whatever one believes is needed to preserve one’s life, even if that belief is not true. In the state of nature people have the right to anything, including the life of another, they perceive as standing in the way of their preservation. But the right of all to all, that is the state of nature, is ultimately not conducive to life. When everyone has the right to everything, everyone is in conflict as enemies, and thus the state of war takes over society. From this state of things people realize that it is better to give up some of their rights to a sovereign power who will create and enforce laws that limit everyone’s rights such that everyone can live in peace.

After summarizing Hobbes treatment of the state of nature the question must ask whether this really is the natural state of anarchic society. Do humans living in anarchy live in a state of implicit self interest and war? Are people naturally at odds with each other in such a way that, without a higher power to keep them in awe, they kill and steal and lie in any way they see fit to get what they want? I will not attempt here to give a thorough treatment of anarchist critiques of Hobbes’ state of nature. The point of this paper is more to understand Hobbes’s treatment of anarchy than to critique it. However, for the sack of putting Hobbes’ ideas in a broader perspective I will set forth two anarchist[2] critiques of Hobbes’ state of nature as specifically articulated by Hobbes scholar Charles Landesman in his essay Reflections on Hobbes: Anarchy and Human Nature.

In Hobbes’ state of nature people learn to distrust one another through competition. Humans’ natural state of fear of all others, a fear based on the idea that humans are bound to look after their own self interest to the point of harming others, lays grounds for Hobbes’ extreme individualism. This individualist antagonism sees every individual at odds in fear of every other individual. Yet, as Landesman points out, this does not take into consideration the fact that without natural trust of others, people would die. Landesman argues, “The very young child’s dependence upon others and need for the company of others defeats the hypothesis of innate and universal distrust. Human survival would be threatened if diffidence were instinctual. Imagine the infant fleeing from its mother’s breast” (Landesman, Reflections on Hobbes, 144). The point here is not that interdependence and trust is more natural than competition and distrust. Both trust and distrust can be seen as natural. The point is that this state of competition cannot be treated as a foundation for a natural state of distrust because competition does not take place in isolation from interdependence and thus trust. The state of nature, accordingly, should not be considered one of distrust, but of trust – which is unlearned, combined with distrust – which is learned from competition. This state of trust de-individualize the society as people are not seen as independent entities at odds with every other independent person, but as interdependent beings. The competition that does exist must exist in this the midst of the natural trust of interdependence.

The second critique of Hobbes state of nature flows directly from this one. It can be state as simply as “we could share the apple.” This critique addresses Hobbes assumption of the exclusivity of human needs and desires. When Hobbes states, “if two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies” (Hobbes, Leviathan, 98), he is basing the animosity of humanity on the assumption that most things people want cannot be shared. Yet, as Landesman argues, “Not all goods are exclusive. Some can be jointly enjoyed….Goods are not intrinsically exclusive or nonexclusive. How they are to be classified depends on how we slice them up” (Landesman, Reflections of Hobbes, 145). An apple, for example, that two people desire can be cut in half and shared. In fact many, if not most, things in life can be split up or mutually shared. It is only in true scarcity that survival goods such as food become exclusive goods. Yet this kind of scarcity is not the case in most societies today or even in the long past. And where there is genuine scarcity such that all cannot survive on the amount of food at hand, it is natural for competition to ensue and some to live and some to die. Yet the existence of this state of competition in a state of scarcity does not necessarily mean that the state of competition will exist when scarcity does not. Competition should not be the basis of the argument for the state of nature as fear and enemies, but instead scarcity should, as it is scarcity that makes competition. And since scarcity is not an eternal and universal state it cannot be taken as the universal natural state. In this way, Hobbes belief that people are naturally enemies is called into question and a more mutually dependant, less competitive, state of nature comes to play.

No matter whether one buys Hobbes self driven, individualist, war of all against all as the state of nature or not, in the face of these critiques (critiques which ultimately lay room for anarchism), one is forced to question the basic component of the individual which Hobbes’ arguments are all based on, as well as questioning the natural animosity that Hobbes claims as natural. It is these questions that must be addressed in order to viably argue for the possibility of a healthy, happy anarchy, or against the possibility of such an anarchic society.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, Collier Books: New York, 1962.
Landesman, Charles. “Reflections on Hobbes: Anarchy and Human Nature” in The Causes of Quarrel:
essays of Peace, War and Thomas Hobbes, ed. Peter Caws, Beacon Press: Boston, 1989. Martinich, A.P. Hobbes, Routledge: New York, 2005.

[1] Here meaning the modernist liberalism, not what is looked at as liberalism today.
[2] Or pro-anarchist since it is unclear whether the author is coming specifically from an anarchist perspective or just a defense of anarchy.

Acting Together: Anarchist Action and Hannah Arendt’s Philosophy of Togetherness

My final paper entitled "Acting Together: Anarchist Action and Hannah Arendt’s Philosophy of Togetherness" was completed and presented December 15th. However, the paper is to long to be posted on this blog.
My Spring semester classes will begin January 18th. Class discriptions are posted on the side line. I look forward to everyones engaging feedback and dialoge!