In Primo Levi’s Survival of Auschwitz, he tells us a story of his time at Auschwitz and the horrors that happened at this camp. This story shares some key aspects of Enlightenment thought. This book helps us to understand Enlightenment ideas such as human nature, self-interest, natural laws, and even Thomas Hobbe’s idea of the State of Nature. There is a lot of horror in this camp and many of the prisoners struggle to survive and maintain their humanity. I will look at the Enlightenment thoughts of Hobbes and Locke to relate them back to Levi’s story of survival. The Enlightenment idea of human nature is that “people are not inherently bad or evil.” In other words, we are “born good, we like to be happy, and we make ourselves as happy
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. John Locke’s idea of self-interest in was a way to survive in Auschwitz. This is based on reason and observation. We saw a lot of prisoners in this story acting on self-interest. One example of this in the novel is when the prisoners have the share bunks with another person. One person is going to end up pushing the other off the small bed so they can get a better nights rest. They’re not really concerned about the other person or how they sleep. Another example of these prisoners being driven by self-interest is when no one wants to work with Levi because he is weak and klutzy. The others know he will slow down their work and could get in a lot of trouble so they don’t want to have to compensate while working with him. We also see this when Levi meets Piero Sonnino. Sonnino plans on faking a stomach illness so he can stay in the medical hut all winter, so he can get some rest, even though this probably means more work for the other prisoners. It is human nature to want to survive and this could be driven by self-interest, especially when you are put into this type of situation. Levi explains that it is a constant struggle for survival in these camps, and it is hard to not entirely sell out on your own ethics in the course of your time
. John Locke’s idea of self-interest in was a way to survive in Auschwitz. This is based on reason and observation. We saw a lot of prisoners in this story acting on self-interest. One example of this in the novel is when the prisoners have the share bunks with another person. One person is going to end up pushing the other off the small bed so they can get a better nights rest. They’re not really concerned about the other person or how they sleep. Another example of these prisoners being driven by self-interest is when no one wants to work with Levi because he is weak and klutzy. The others know he will slow down their work and could get in a lot of trouble so they don’t want to have to compensate while working with him. We also see this when Levi meets Piero Sonnino. Sonnino plans on faking a stomach illness so he can stay in the medical hut all winter, so he can get some rest, even though this probably means more work for the other prisoners. It is human nature to want to survive and this could be driven by self-interest, especially when you are put into this type of situation. Levi explains that it is a constant struggle for survival in these camps, and it is hard to not entirely sell out on your own ethics in the course of your time