Journal of the Plague Year: An Evening with Tom Hobbes

In 1651, in the middle of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan, or more fully "Leviathan: On the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil."  Leviathan is a classic of political theory, and is read alongside Locke, Rousseau, and Machiavelli as part of the basis of "early modern" or "Enlightenment" political thinking.  It is also, I think, a deeply misunderstood book.  It's misunderstood because there is a surface-level argument that Hobbes is making (which is the one that everyone focuses on), and then there is a a much more interesting and I think much more relevant argument that he makes under the surface.

Hobbes begins his thinking with the notion of "the State of Nature"--what human beings are like without any of the constraints of society.  Unlike those that would follow him (like Locke and especially Rousseau), Hobbes thinks that this State of Nature is unambiguously terrible, expressed in probably the most famous quote from Leviathan that the State of Nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  And, because it is so terrible, basically any sort of government structure is better than being in the State of Nature.  As such, "the Sovereign" is justified in doing basically anything to keep society together and ward off a dissolution of society and a return to the State of Nature--not on some philosophical ground, but because it's actually better for the people themselves.  No matter how terrible and oppressive your government is, says Hobbes, you are always better off under that than under the anarchy of the dissolution of government (which Hobbes, situated as he was in the midst of the English Civil War, was experiencing first hand).

If you leave Hobbes at that level, as most do, it's basically a long justification for authoritarianism.  And he clearly thinks that authoritarian tyranny is better than anarchy.  But there is this other part to Leviathan, where Hobbes turns to address the Sovereign.  Yes, Hobbes says, the Sovereign ultimately justified in being as brutal and oppressive as he wants to be, as the oppressed are ultimately better off under your thumb than on their own in the State of Nature.  But, here's the problem--people don't always evaluate their own self-interests properly.  The oppressed may, in an objective sense, be better off being oppressed than rising up, but they may not see it that way.  They may decide that, as Janice Joplin once said "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."  When they decide that, they are going to come for you, the Sovereign.  And when they do, it's not going to be tremendously persuasive to them for you to say "hey, it's going to be worse for you when I'm gone," even if it is true.  You are going to get the ax, and everyone is going to learn their lesson the hard way about the State of Nature.  

So, says Hobbes, while the Sovereign is ultimately justified in being as brutal as he wants in theory, in practice the Sovereign is constrained (or, if he is smart, constrains himself) by the need to avoid putting people in a position where they become convinced that they have nothing to lose by tossing you out.  The real limit on the power of the Sovereign is not some theoretical conception of what is justified or unjustified, but by the perception of the Sovereign's actions among the people being governed.  If the Sovereign wants to remain in power, he needs to make sure he has the consent of the governed, at least to some degree.  And, if he loses that, he has a big problem, because he risks having the governed fall into the Janis Joplin territory.  And then he won't be the Sovereign anymore, or likely alive.

The lesson, the real lesson, of Leviathan is that in the long run government only exists via the consent of the governed.  Democratic systems, at least in theory, attempt to enshrine this principle into the mechanisms of government.  But, even if they don't, or even if those systems break down, consent of the governed is still the fundamental principle of governance, de facto if not de jure.  So long as there are more people opposed to the government than support it, the regime is in peril.  The question then becomes whether or not the majority is willing to pay the price to see their will implemented.  Conversely, a regime that wants to operate outside of the consent of the majority must make that price seem as high as possible.  That plan can work, but it only goes so far--eventually there is a breaking point, where people decide that the price is worth paying.       

So, you might ask, why have I been thinking about Leviathan today?  As I write this, protests and riots are occurring in many American cities, triggered in large measure by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police.  This protests have the feel, at least to me, of being the leading edge of something more significant, more lasting.  And I can't help but think that these protests are not exclusively about race, although that is of course a major and critical component.  It seems to me that there is also something here about the very concept of policing, or at least how policing is made manifest in America.

There is a theoretical conversation to be had about the necessity of police, the role of police in the life of a community, etc.  But I think those conversations are less important than the public perception of the police.  Minority communities have often viewed the police as rogue actors that are parachuted into their communities, and have no accountability for their actions.  But, I think we are approaching the point when the majority of people view the police in that manner.  Most disturbing is the perception that the local police are not subject to the commands of the local public officials.  Minneapolis is a left-wing city, with a left-wing political leadership, and those leaders seem unable to get the police to follow their commands.  Ditto in places like New York City--or in my home city of Columbus, Ohio.  It's bad when the police are seen as agents of a hostile government; it's worse when the are seen as beyond the control of that government, no matter what the intentions or world-view of the government.

My take away from the last few days is that it is absolutely imperative for the elected political leadership in this country, and especially the left-leaning political leadership in the country, to bring the police to heel.  It must be demonstrated to the community--and, cynically, especially the the middle slice of the white community--that the police do what elected leaders tell them to do, and not the other way around.  Because, if they don't, then the target will not just be the police themselves, but also those political leaders.  Left-leaning political leaders are, historically and in the current era (or, at least as of the last couple of weeks) afraid of doing that, afraid of being demagogued by the right for being soft on crime, of hearing the 80s/90s playbook repeated once again.  It's time to stop being afraid of that, because the alternative is worse.  If you won't act out of the merits of the problem, act on the basis of your self-interest and self-preservation.  You may not be able to fix racism, but you can fix this problem, and people are expecting you to fix this problem.

Then, of course, we have to talk about Trump.  Everyone likes to say that every election is the most important in their lifetime.  Well, 2020 actually is the most important election in my lifetime.  If Trump is not removed, then we will have wide-spread civil unrest, and likely a civil war.  There, I said it.  There are a large number of people in this country that would rather run right into the chaos than spend four more years under the thumb of him and his cronies.  Civil wars are terrible and awful, as Hobbes knew all to well, but people don't always evaluate their situation rationally or objectively.  Whether or not the ideals of a democratic America are in fact worth dying for, people believe them to be worth dying for.  And, if they do, die they will in defense of them, if that becomes necessary.     

It is worth noting that there is one group of people who really believe that the ideals of America are worth dying for, and that is the officer corps of the United States military.  Yes, sure, the people that rise to high levels in the U.S. military are often not by conventional standards "woke."  But you basically cannot rise to high military rank in the U.S. if you are an idiot (it is a mandatory professional development requirement to obtain a Master's level degree in order to move into the middle level ranks), and the folks who are generals and admirals have spent more or less their entire adult lives thinking about what it means to give your life for an ideal of America.  When folks like former Defense Secretary Mathis denounce Trump, that comes out of a place of deep reflection, whatever you might think about the ways in which that reflection comes to pass, or the principles upon which it is based.

It would a truly horrible thing, one that would have lasting negative consequences on American life, if the military has to intervene in a direct way in this present crisis--on behalf of or against Trump.  But it is not at all assured or clear that, if they were to do so, they are in the pocket of Trump.  They know what is at stake in these times.  And Mathis's statement that Trump is a singular threat to the ideals of the United States, one that transcends political or partisan considerations, is a statement directed at his former comrades in the uniformed services, an attempt to build a platform to allow them to move beyond their (ultimately praiesworthy) unwillingness to take sides in the normal run of political ebb and flow.  And the other thing about generals and admirals is that they are all by definition deeply and thoroughly skilled political operatives.  There are ways that they can put pressure on other actors in the political system to act on their behalf.    

The United States, perhaps uniquely but surely in any event the first of the kind, is less a place or a people than an ideal.  That ideal is complex and often contradictory in many ways, but it has power because people believe in it, notwithstanding its ambiguity and unfaithfulness.  That power will make people act.  We are seeing its power in these last few days.  It's power has brought people to the streets.  And it is a power that, if most people believe in it, will ultimately (if, potentially, at heartbreaking cost) prevail over the odious shitheads and tin-pot fascists like Trump and his cronies in the police.  The Sovereign is supreme, but only so long as the people tolerate that supremacy.