Thomas Hobbes

Beauty and terror are two words that can be associated with peace and war, security and fear, comfort and devastation, serenity and distribution. Peace is a necessary requirement among all nations because its based on a system of just and truth. War has always been a motivation among nations to seek authority and power, some see it as the mechanism of survival and a fullfilment to humans desire of violence, others see it as violent armed conflict between two political units that share…

PS 331 Participation Exercise Edelman 1. The Political Spectacle a. Edelman defines the political spectacle as, “Accounts of political issues, problems, crises, threats, and leaders now become devices for creating disparate assumptions and beliefs about the social and political world rather than factual statements. The very concept of ‘fact’ becomes irrelevant because every meaningful political object and person is an interpretation that reflects and perpetuates an ideology. Taken together,…

Everyone defines his own liberty Society is made of individualist, without individualists there would be no society. Going even further, the term society is actually an illusion and the individuals are its reality. Individualist have the choice to come to gather and to form an assemblage. Because society is just an imagination and a fiction it does not exist and individualists’ liberty is limitless. The reason why in every epoch man must seek his freedom not at the beginning but at the end of…

Please Conform “The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity” - Robert Anthony. Conformity has a negative connotation, because people like to be unique, and the world would allegedly be a dull place if everyone was exactly the same. This attitude creates a collective animosity towards communism and countries that encourage conformity. The reality is if everyone would conform to societal standards the world would have a hope of achieving peace. People need to conform, and be part of…

The writings of Henry George stand as a clear condemnation by him on the concept of privately owned land amongst other ideas which he staunchly regards as both immoral and impractical. In his work George attacks the validity of private ownership and calls for distinction between land and personal property. He depicts such ownership as being unjust, indefensible and even akin to slavery with regards to the liberties of the tenants who may reside there, urging instead for a fairer and more…

is the only true church. He had many different political positions such as; Undersheriff of the City of London, Master of Requests, a member of the Privy Council, Speaker of the House of Commons, and in the year of 1529, he surpassed Thomas Wolsey as Chancellor. Thomas More wrote many letters, some of which are in museums up to this day. He wrote these letters to people such as; his family, children, friends, other scholars and government officials. In 1535, at the age of 57, More was found…

There are numerous parallels between the theories of Hobbes and Machiavelli. These provide strength to both of their arguments but their similar outlook on the relationship between human nature and political structure also provides space for similar questioning. Through the comparison of Machiavelli and Hobbes, the question of the worth of liberty arises. Liberty and security go hand in hand in that security of the populace is necessary before any individual can truly be free. But in order to…

In the citation from Leviathan, Hobbes is describing the law of nature which in essence is a general rule that is discovered through reason. Furthermore, such a law asserts human self-preservation and censures acts destructive to human life. As opposed to, a civil law, which must be written down and issued in order to be known. A law of nature is inherently known by all because it can be deduced by innate mental capabilities (such as reason and philosophy). Hobbes illustrated the terrors within…

reflections that Hobbe had toward fear, honor, and how those relate to the human character. The author begins with “The Worst part of life during wartime, which is the same as the state of nature, Hobbes claims, is the ‘“continual fear, and danger of violent death”’ (McClure, 114) I disagree with this in the perspective of Nietzsche’s “warlike” character. I would say this fear of violent death plays a part in why the warlike man is so uneasy during times of peace. Otherwise, according to Hobbes,…

In the early seventeenth century, a group of English Protestants also known as the Puritans came to America to search for liberty. Puritans were trying to seek for the right to worship and govern themselves in the Christian manner. In 1645, Governor John Winthrop made a famous speech for the concept of freedom for the Puritans to the Massachusetts legislature. John Winthrop pointed out two different liberties, which were “natural liberty” and “moral liberty”. He had addressed that natural…