Tuesday 4 November 2014

Hobbes' Leviathan vs. Punk Rock

Alternate title:

I Knew Hobbes Was Trouble When He Walked In (Trouble, Trouble, Trouble)


Needless to say, my understanding of Hobbes before yesterday's lecture was minimal at best. I get it a bit more now, but still, I reckon if you want some actual enlightenment on the contents of this book, it'd be best to scroll down to the blog post below mine.

Whenever faced with the intellectual demands that a comes with a book like Leviathan, my mind inevitably shifts to something that doesn't require thought, like punk rock. But then, with a flash of minimal inspiration, I realised that when Johnny Rotten sang

"I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist"

he was talking about the direct opposite of Hobbes' State = God analogy! The Sex Pistols, therefore, must have been scholars of the Hobbesian variety, and with their decree of destroying passersby, Johnny Rotten was fully acknowledging that sudden and violent deaths would result form his anarchistic ways.

The band Crass, on the other hand, promoted anarchism and pacifism as ways of life, saying things like

"External control are you gonna let them get you?
Do you wanna be a prisoner in the boundaries they set you?"

but also telling the embittered 'common man' who wishes for a bloody revolution that

"freedom has no value if violence is the price
Don't want your revolution, I want anarchy and peace."  

Hobbes, however, wouldn't be too happy with Crass. He'd say that the 'boundaries' (which involve fear) are necessary, and that violence is only other outcome.

Indeed, I think the idea of Hobbes getting cosy with any anti-capitalism and anti-establishment music from the likes of Fugazi or Refused would have been a definite no-no. What he would have thought of The Buzzcocks' 'Orgasm Addict' though, still remains to be seen.

Hopefully I'll have an even better grasp of this book by the end of the week. I wonder if any reproductions of the book have ever been attempted with a more modern vernacular and clearer arguments. I'm sure I'd enjoy reading that a whole lot more, as it's hard to follow Hobbes' traynes of thought when his now outdated diction gets in the way. 




  

1 comment:

  1. Hey look, someone DID translate Hobbes into a modern idiom. Your post reminded me that I had heard of someone doing this sort of thing, and I found it: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/

    I haven't looked it over to see if I think the "translation" loses any of the meaning, but it might. The translator would have to choose which words to use to replace the ones Hobbes uses that have different meanings now, or that are no longer in use. But then again, we have to do that ourselves when reading (and looking up the words in the glossary).

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