7 ms·

Leviathan in Lockdown

68 points by acsillag 6y ago

OliverJones 6y ago
Two things: 1. The graphic is a woodcut. Details take a LOT of time to produce, and they make the woodcut less durable. 2. Remember that Hobbes's Leviathan idea was revolutionary back then. The idea that each of us answers to an abstract entity of truth and justice overturned the idea that the monarchy could, and had to, dream up every single rule of conduct (or point to the Hebrew Bible when it was convenient). Here's a 21st century non-Leviathan way of thinking. On the wall of a flight school I once saw a printed sign saying "Do not buzz your house." Scrawled under that was "or anybody else's house either." In our Leviathan world we know it's unwise for student pilots, or anyone, to fly low over populated areas. We hardly have to run through the reasons: hurtling tanks of gas, telephone poles, small children ... Pre-Leviathan, everybody had to rely on handed-down laws. And when they were insufficient they had to be amended. (Gasoline fumes are well known to transport young men back to a pre-Leviathan mode of civilization. :-) Imagine the Internet in a pre-leviathan time. If all we knew was the content of RFC5861, and didn't know why TCP congestion control (slow-start / exponential backoff) was useful, routers would drop many more packets than they do today. Plus, I prefer my Big Brothers with long curly hair.
- jsmith99 6y ago
  That's not a woodcut. It's acid etched on metal.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Are you sure? Looks more like a https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kupferstich https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kupferstich to me, no acid involved. (sorry for the german wikilink, but it has more pictures than the english equivalent)
    - jsmith99 6y ago
      I originally assumed it wasn't a woodcut because the woodcuts I've seen were mostly simpler, and I confirmed it by googling the artist. I now know that woodcuts can rival etchings in complexity, but looking at the biography of the artist he was an etcher who copied the engraved style. The British Museum confirms itsw an etching https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1867-1012-510 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1867-1012-...
phs318u 6y ago
“Whatever else government does, the trick it absolutely has to pull off, according to Hobbes, is to make us afraid of breaking the rules while ensuring that we have no real cause to panic about our survival.” I’d argue that some governments have a very tenuous grip on the above two levers. COVID-19 has merely brought that into stark relief. I think that those taking a gamble that the majority will be content to suffer (primarily) their old folk suffering and dying in order to keep the grindstone of the economy turning, will find out they are mistaken.
- luckylion 6y ago
  You believe the majority will rather keep their parents for a few more years than a functioning economy? Intuitively, I'm pretty sure everybody will say "of course, I love my parents". If they think about it for a while, I don't believe that they will. I'm not sure the old people would either. My reason for that belief is the behavior people show: they do not spend their money to pay for better health/elderly care to give their (grand) parents another year or two. And the old rather pass on money instead of spending it in an attempt to get another five years. A much weaker economy is functionally very similar to spending your savings in a good economy: you're going to be out of money in a few years.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  In my family, it's the old folks who are most worried about the lockdown. I shouldn't imply I'm in favor of it, I'm pretty strongly opposed, but my and my parents' generation ultimately know we have good times to look forward to. My grandparents are starting to worry that, you know, am I signing up to do this for the rest of my life?
motohagiography 6y ago
The emphasis of plague doctors in that cover is pretty consistent with the things a state will face. Plague has been an essential factor in all government since beginning of time. There even is biblical trilemma for rulers that is basically the option of three days of plauge, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three years of famine. The answer is rip the band-aid off and accept the plague casualties because the alternatives cost you your kingdom. You can see this playing out now as countries balance lockdowns against the risk of becoming economic clients of larger or powers or losing economic incumbency, and causing a generation lost to a severe depression. It's why I predicted re-opening before mid-june, as if we lose a spring season, we fall into dependency and long term losses.
- zzzeek 6y ago
  Things like vaccines and ICU units didn't exist in Biblical times so perhaps 2000 years of progress has had some effect on the calculus of such an issue.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Not really. Vaccines help you prevent an outbreak from reoccuring; it's unlikely one would be created in time to stop an ongoing one. ICUs help minimize causalties. Neither one is a qualitative change in terms of handling a sudden outbreak. We got better at handling pandemics, but the playbook is mostly still the same - identify and isolate infected, and wait it out.
    - zzzeek 6y ago
      the point is we want the hospitals to stay available to the general public. this means reducing the speed of the disease's progress allows this resource to stay available.
    - carapace 6y ago
      It's absurd to point to "biblical trilemma" as something that should inform a modern society on how to handle a pandemic. > "three years of famine" Less than 3% of the population is involved in food production in modern times.
carrozo 6y ago
Great first episode of Talking Politics: A History of Ideas by David Runciman was on Hobbes - https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/talking-politics-history-of-ideas/id1508992867?l=en&i=1000472784320 https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/talking-politics-histo...
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> And, right in the middle of the frontispiece, there are two figures wandering the empty city. Their clothes identify them as plague doctors, with their characteristic beaked masks, containing herbs or sponges soaked in vinegar to filter the air. Alternatively, they could be two people with long, pointy hoods stylized to point backwards.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Bayes rule makes me prefer TFA's interpretation.
- nanna 6y ago
  If you look at sharper prints of the frontispiece than the one LRB uses, they do look more like hoods or hennins than plague masks, in my opinion. I took this photo of them from a 17C copy of Leviathan at the British Library: https://ibb.co/DGL4dJj https://ibb.co/DGL4dJj Edit: Not sure why the parent comment is being downvoted? They're making a completely legitimate observation.
  - user_0x 6y ago
    on the other hand, there is something to be said for the decision to interpret the image in a way that makes it relevant to our times.
  - lurquer 6y ago
    Thanks for the better picture! Very useful post. Look like hoods to me. But, whatever works for the essay... The REAL mystery is what the two baseball batters are doing on the left side of the image.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > Alternatively, they could be two people with long, pointy hoods stylized to point backwards. Do you have any examples of artwork from the 14th century showing people wearing long pointy hoods stylized to point backwards?
  - 6y ago
rsync 6y ago
Please, please subscribe to the London Review of Books. You will not be sorry. Excellent writing on politics, current events and society ... along with the book reviews and an interesting and lively letters-to-the-editor section. You can subscribe to LRB on Amazon ...
blendo 6y ago
“The total absence of citizens combined with the presence of protective officials gives the city an air of being under a permanent state of siege. It could almost be a depiction of David Hume’s remark, a century later, that military camps ‘are the true mothers of cities’.” Question: Where should one start in reading David Hume?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- StevenRayOrr 6y ago
  If you're looking for a crash course on him as a political thinker, you could check out the selections that seem of interest to you from his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary[0]. If you want a more specific list (and a reasonably coherent reading order): * 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science' ("It is a question with several, whether there be any essential difference between one form of government and another? and, whether every form may not become good or bad, according as it is well or ill administered?") * 'Of the First Principles of Government' ("Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few") * 'Of the Origin of Government' ("Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society, from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit.") * 'Of Parties in General' ("As much as legislators and founders of states ought to be honoured and respected among men, as much ought the founders of sects and factions to be detested and hated; because the influence of faction is directly contrary to that of laws.") * 'Of Passive Obedience' ("The maxim, fiat Justitia & ruat Coelum, let justice be performed, though the universe be destroyed, is apparently false, and by sacrificing the end to the means, shews a preposterous idea of the subordination of duties.") * 'Of the Coalition of Parties' ("Liberty is a blessing so inestimable, that, wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure. All human institutions, and none more than government, are in continual fluctuation.") * 'Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences' ("What depends upon a few persons is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to chance, or secret and unknown causes: What arises from a great number, may often be accounted for by determinate and known causes.") * 'Of Commerce' ("The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers, who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers, who go beyond it.") * 'Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing' ("Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments, which are natural, without being obvious. There cannot be a juster, and more concise definition of fine writing.") * 'Of Refinement in the Arts' ("We shall here endeavour to correct both these extremes, by proving, first, that the ages of refinement are both the happiest and most virtuous; secondly, that wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial; and when carried a degree too far, is a quality pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political society.") [0]: Available on https://davidhume.org/ https://davidhume.org/

68 points by acsillag 6y ago

Two things: 1. The graphic is a woodcut. Details take a LOT of time to produce, and they make the woodcut less durable. 2. Remember that Hobbes's Leviathan idea was revolutionary back then. The idea that each of us answers to an abstract entity of truth and justice overturned the idea that the monarchy could, and had to, dream up every single rule of conduct (or point to the Hebrew Bible when it was convenient). Here's a 21st century non-Leviathan way of thinking. On the wall of a flight school I once saw a printed sign saying "Do not buzz your house." Scrawled under that was "or anybody else's house either." In our Leviathan world we know it's unwise for student pilots, or anyone, to fly low over populated areas. We hardly have to run through the reasons: hurtling tanks of gas, telephone poles, small children ... Pre-Leviathan, everybody had to rely on handed-down laws. And when they were insufficient they had to be amended. (Gasoline fumes are well known to transport young men back to a pre-Leviathan mode of civilization. :-) Imagine the Internet in a pre-leviathan time. If all we knew was the content of RFC5861, and didn't know why TCP congestion control (slow-start / exponential backoff) was useful, routers would drop many more packets than they do today. Plus, I prefer my Big Brothers with long curly hair.

jsmith99 6y ago
That's not a woodcut. It's acid etched on metal.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Are you sure? Looks more like a https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kupferstich https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kupferstich to me, no acid involved. (sorry for the german wikilink, but it has more pictures than the english equivalent)
  - jsmith99 6y ago
    I originally assumed it wasn't a woodcut because the woodcuts I've seen were mostly simpler, and I confirmed it by googling the artist. I now know that woodcuts can rival etchings in complexity, but looking at the biography of the artist he was an etcher who copied the engraved style. The British Museum confirms itsw an etching https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1867-1012-510 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1867-1012-...

phs318u 6y ago

“Whatever else government does, the trick it absolutely has to pull off, according to Hobbes, is to make us afraid of breaking the rules while ensuring that we have no real cause to panic about our survival.” I’d argue that some governments have a very tenuous grip on the above two levers. COVID-19 has merely brought that into stark relief. I think that those taking a gamble that the majority will be content to suffer (primarily) their old folk suffering and dying in order to keep the grindstone of the economy turning, will find out they are mistaken.

luckylion 6y ago
You believe the majority will rather keep their parents for a few more years than a functioning economy? Intuitively, I'm pretty sure everybody will say "of course, I love my parents". If they think about it for a while, I don't believe that they will. I'm not sure the old people would either. My reason for that belief is the behavior people show: they do not spend their money to pay for better health/elderly care to give their (grand) parents another year or two. And the old rather pass on money instead of spending it in an attempt to get another five years. A much weaker economy is functionally very similar to spending your savings in a good economy: you're going to be out of money in a few years.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
In my family, it's the old folks who are most worried about the lockdown. I shouldn't imply I'm in favor of it, I'm pretty strongly opposed, but my and my parents' generation ultimately know we have good times to look forward to. My grandparents are starting to worry that, you know, am I signing up to do this for the rest of my life?

motohagiography 6y ago

The emphasis of plague doctors in that cover is pretty consistent with the things a state will face. Plague has been an essential factor in all government since beginning of time. There even is biblical trilemma for rulers that is basically the option of three days of plauge, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three years of famine. The answer is rip the band-aid off and accept the plague casualties because the alternatives cost you your kingdom. You can see this playing out now as countries balance lockdowns against the risk of becoming economic clients of larger or powers or losing economic incumbency, and causing a generation lost to a severe depression. It's why I predicted re-opening before mid-june, as if we lose a spring season, we fall into dependency and long term losses.

zzzeek 6y ago
Things like vaccines and ICU units didn't exist in Biblical times so perhaps 2000 years of progress has had some effect on the calculus of such an issue.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Not really. Vaccines help you prevent an outbreak from reoccuring; it's unlikely one would be created in time to stop an ongoing one. ICUs help minimize causalties. Neither one is a qualitative change in terms of handling a sudden outbreak. We got better at handling pandemics, but the playbook is mostly still the same - identify and isolate infected, and wait it out.
  - zzzeek 6y ago
    the point is we want the hospitals to stay available to the general public. this means reducing the speed of the disease's progress allows this resource to stay available.
  - carapace 6y ago
    It's absurd to point to "biblical trilemma" as something that should inform a modern society on how to handle a pandemic. > "three years of famine" Less than 3% of the population is involved in food production in modern times.

carrozo 6y ago

Great first episode of Talking Politics: A History of Ideas by David Runciman was on Hobbes - https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/talking-politics-history-of-ideas/id1508992867?l=en&i=1000472784320 https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/talking-politics-histo...

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> And, right in the middle of the frontispiece, there are two figures wandering the empty city. Their clothes identify them as plague doctors, with their characteristic beaked masks, containing herbs or sponges soaked in vinegar to filter the air. Alternatively, they could be two people with long, pointy hoods stylized to point backwards.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Bayes rule makes me prefer TFA's interpretation.
nanna 6y ago
If you look at sharper prints of the frontispiece than the one LRB uses, they do look more like hoods or hennins than plague masks, in my opinion. I took this photo of them from a 17C copy of Leviathan at the British Library: https://ibb.co/DGL4dJj https://ibb.co/DGL4dJj Edit: Not sure why the parent comment is being downvoted? They're making a completely legitimate observation.
- user_0x 6y ago
  on the other hand, there is something to be said for the decision to interpret the image in a way that makes it relevant to our times.
- lurquer 6y ago
  Thanks for the better picture! Very useful post. Look like hoods to me. But, whatever works for the essay... The REAL mystery is what the two baseball batters are doing on the left side of the image.
DanBC 6y ago
> Alternatively, they could be two people with long, pointy hoods stylized to point backwards. Do you have any examples of artwork from the 14th century showing people wearing long pointy hoods stylized to point backwards?
- 6y ago

rsync 6y ago

Please, please subscribe to the London Review of Books. You will not be sorry. Excellent writing on politics, current events and society ... along with the book reviews and an interesting and lively letters-to-the-editor section. You can subscribe to LRB on Amazon ...

blendo 6y ago

“The total absence of citizens combined with the presence of protective officials gives the city an air of being under a permanent state of siege. It could almost be a depiction of David Hume’s remark, a century later, that military camps ‘are the true mothers of cities’.” Question: Where should one start in reading David Hume?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
StevenRayOrr 6y ago
If you're looking for a crash course on him as a political thinker, you could check out the selections that seem of interest to you from his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary[0]. If you want a more specific list (and a reasonably coherent reading order): * 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science' ("It is a question with several, whether there be any essential difference between one form of government and another? and, whether every form may not become good or bad, according as it is well or ill administered?") * 'Of the First Principles of Government' ("Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few") * 'Of the Origin of Government' ("Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society, from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit.") * 'Of Parties in General' ("As much as legislators and founders of states ought to be honoured and respected among men, as much ought the founders of sects and factions to be detested and hated; because the influence of faction is directly contrary to that of laws.") * 'Of Passive Obedience' ("The maxim, fiat Justitia & ruat Coelum, let justice be performed, though the universe be destroyed, is apparently false, and by sacrificing the end to the means, shews a preposterous idea of the subordination of duties.") * 'Of the Coalition of Parties' ("Liberty is a blessing so inestimable, that, wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure. All human institutions, and none more than government, are in continual fluctuation.") * 'Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences' ("What depends upon a few persons is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to chance, or secret and unknown causes: What arises from a great number, may often be accounted for by determinate and known causes.") * 'Of Commerce' ("The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers, who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers, who go beyond it.") * 'Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing' ("Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments, which are natural, without being obvious. There cannot be a juster, and more concise definition of fine writing.") * 'Of Refinement in the Arts' ("We shall here endeavour to correct both these extremes, by proving, first, that the ages of refinement are both the happiest and most virtuous; secondly, that wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial; and when carried a degree too far, is a quality pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political society.") [0]: Available on https://davidhume.org/ https://davidhume.org/