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I think this article is rather unfairly quoting poor Hobbes out of context. Hobbes didn't say humankind was nasty and brutish, he said the life of man would be

I think this article is rather unfairly quoting poor Hobbes out of context. Hobbes didn't say humankind was nasty and brutish, he said the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in the absence of a community... Which is not contradicted by the examples in the article!

vorpalhex 6y ago
I'm working from the article and not Bregman's work (though it's been added to my reading list) but the article does setup Bregman to respond to a strawman instead of Hobbe's actual argument. One of the differentiators here is that difference between intent and reality. Most everyone, even very bad people, typically believe they are behaving ethically and "doing good". It's just that sometimes one persons good is another's evil. That's one of the issues the Leviathan fixes - it prevents these kind of oversteps by keeping externally enforced standards on behavior.
cousin_it 6y ago
What Hobbes actually said: > To speak impartially, both sayings are very true; That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities. In other words, within a group we often see niceness, and between groups we often see nastiness - both are parts of human nature.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  It's a pretty succinct description of the two sides of tribalism.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    To have a We, you need a They. An alien threat would be the best thing ever for human cooperation. I'm not sure whether the aliens need to be real, as long as they feel real.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is real, but apparently insufficiently alien? Or maybe too alien to suffice as a subanthropomorphisable They?
      - luckylion 6y ago
        Yeah, I think it has to be something that can be considered an enemy, not something that'll do us harm because that's how things are but has no mind of its own. A virus, diabetes or global warming aren't going to work as good (my intuition is that men need it to be an actual enemy more than women, but I have no idea). I do believe that e.g. Americans would be much more compliant in corona-mitigation-things like wearing masks if the narrative was "China has sent us a Virus to destroy us". But that would obviously also create serious issues because they'd demand revenge. A secretive alien enemy has sent us a Virus, and they're also trying to cook us alive by heating up our planet. Are you going to just let them do it to us, or will you stand up and fight for our way of life, against the intergalactic threat? Now that's a They that can provide a We for Team Humanity, Leaders Of The Free Universe.
        082349872349872 6y ago
        Would you like to know more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc
      - samatman 6y ago
        Not nearly alien enough. Plague has co-evolved with human civilization, for reasons adequately explained in Guns, Germs and Steel, among other places. The ability to understand it, and take rational steps to mitigate it, is rather more new. SARS2 is arguably the first major pestilence to strike a human civilization which was coddled into the illusion that no such thing can happen to it. Our spectrum of responses to that are fairly predictable to a student of history, but mixed with the peculiar impotence of a people who thought they had the power to stop this sort of thing, and have discovered they do not.
      - 6y ago
- libraryofbabel 6y ago
  The actual nasty, brutish, and short quotation: > In such condition [the state of nature] there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
- Eupolemos 6y ago
  As a reply to a post saying that the quote was taken out of context, providing a second quote not related to the first quote is at best unhelpful. Or did I miss something obvious?
soledades 6y ago
You are misrepresenting Hobbes here to say that he was referring to the absence of a community... Sapiens have always lived in communities. He was referring specifically to humans in the condition in the absence of state power: Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. The "nasty brutish, and short" bit follows in an elaboration of this condition in the next paragraph. and THIS is contradicted, if not by the article, then by the book it is reviewing. In particular: To date, some three thousand Homo sapiens skeletons unearthed at four hundred sites are old enough to tell us something about our 'natural state'. Scientists who have studied these sites see no convincing evidence for prehistoric warfare. In later periods, it's a different story. 'War does not go forever backwards in time,' says renowned anthropologist Brian Ferguson. 'It had a beginning'
- fancyfredbot 6y ago
  Yes, good point. I agree community wasn't a perfect word to represent what Hobbes meant. I considered using "society" and "the leviathan", maybe they would work better. It is interesting to consider that part of the book, it does seem to disagree with Hobbes at first glance. Hobbes did say that the state of nature was violent. However I think he also thought that a fear of violence would spontaneously cause humankind to organise into societies. So I'm not sure he'd necessarily be that surprised to find a lack of evidence for prehistoric warfare.
- btilly 6y ago
  Your summary of what the book says is directly at odds with data that I've seen in books like Enlightenment Now. https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-... does a good job of summarizing the data. Every archeological site on record and every primitive society we have been able to study records a rate of death by human violence that exceeds by orders of magnitude what is seen in modern civilized societies. In fact they all exceed what happened in the USA+Europe from 1900-1960, and usually by a large multiple. Even with 2 world wars, Western civilization killed fewer per capita in violence than any previous period in history that we have data for. In short, Hobbes was right. Every attempt that I have seen at taking a quantitative approach has backed that up.
disown 6y ago
> Hobbes didn't say humankind was nasty and brutish, he said the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in the absence of a communit I think you are misrepresenting Hobbes here. The essential idea of Hobbes' Leviathan was that men are selfish brutes/savages that require an overwhelming authority to pacify and tame. Hobbes' goal was to provide a justification for royalty. In other words, "community" cannot exist without a king because mankind is nasty and brutish.

vorpalhex 6y ago

I'm working from the article and not Bregman's work (though it's been added to my reading list) but the article does setup Bregman to respond to a strawman instead of Hobbe's actual argument. One of the differentiators here is that difference between intent and reality. Most everyone, even very bad people, typically believe they are behaving ethically and "doing good". It's just that sometimes one persons good is another's evil. That's one of the issues the Leviathan fixes - it prevents these kind of oversteps by keeping externally enforced standards on behavior.

cousin_it 6y ago

What Hobbes actually said: > To speak impartially, both sayings are very true; That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities. In other words, within a group we often see niceness, and between groups we often see nastiness - both are parts of human nature.

mdorazio 6y ago
It's a pretty succinct description of the two sides of tribalism.
- luckylion 6y ago
  To have a We, you need a They. An alien threat would be the best thing ever for human cooperation. I'm not sure whether the aliens need to be real, as long as they feel real.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is real, but apparently insufficiently alien? Or maybe too alien to suffice as a subanthropomorphisable They?
    - luckylion 6y ago
      Yeah, I think it has to be something that can be considered an enemy, not something that'll do us harm because that's how things are but has no mind of its own. A virus, diabetes or global warming aren't going to work as good (my intuition is that men need it to be an actual enemy more than women, but I have no idea). I do believe that e.g. Americans would be much more compliant in corona-mitigation-things like wearing masks if the narrative was "China has sent us a Virus to destroy us". But that would obviously also create serious issues because they'd demand revenge. A secretive alien enemy has sent us a Virus, and they're also trying to cook us alive by heating up our planet. Are you going to just let them do it to us, or will you stand up and fight for our way of life, against the intergalactic threat? Now that's a They that can provide a We for Team Humanity, Leaders Of The Free Universe.
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        Would you like to know more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc
    - samatman 6y ago
      Not nearly alien enough. Plague has co-evolved with human civilization, for reasons adequately explained in Guns, Germs and Steel, among other places. The ability to understand it, and take rational steps to mitigate it, is rather more new. SARS2 is arguably the first major pestilence to strike a human civilization which was coddled into the illusion that no such thing can happen to it. Our spectrum of responses to that are fairly predictable to a student of history, but mixed with the peculiar impotence of a people who thought they had the power to stop this sort of thing, and have discovered they do not.
    - 6y ago
libraryofbabel 6y ago
The actual nasty, brutish, and short quotation: > In such condition [the state of nature] there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Eupolemos 6y ago
As a reply to a post saying that the quote was taken out of context, providing a second quote not related to the first quote is at best unhelpful. Or did I miss something obvious?

soledades 6y ago

You are misrepresenting Hobbes here to say that he was referring to the absence of a community... Sapiens have always lived in communities. He was referring specifically to humans in the condition in the absence of state power: Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. The "nasty brutish, and short" bit follows in an elaboration of this condition in the next paragraph. and THIS is contradicted, if not by the article, then by the book it is reviewing. In particular: To date, some three thousand Homo sapiens skeletons unearthed at four hundred sites are old enough to tell us something about our 'natural state'. Scientists who have studied these sites see no convincing evidence for prehistoric warfare. In later periods, it's a different story. 'War does not go forever backwards in time,' says renowned anthropologist Brian Ferguson. 'It had a beginning'

fancyfredbot 6y ago
Yes, good point. I agree community wasn't a perfect word to represent what Hobbes meant. I considered using "society" and "the leviathan", maybe they would work better. It is interesting to consider that part of the book, it does seem to disagree with Hobbes at first glance. Hobbes did say that the state of nature was violent. However I think he also thought that a fear of violence would spontaneously cause humankind to organise into societies. So I'm not sure he'd necessarily be that surprised to find a lack of evidence for prehistoric warfare.
btilly 6y ago
Your summary of what the book says is directly at odds with data that I've seen in books like Enlightenment Now. https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-... does a good job of summarizing the data. Every archeological site on record and every primitive society we have been able to study records a rate of death by human violence that exceeds by orders of magnitude what is seen in modern civilized societies. In fact they all exceed what happened in the USA+Europe from 1900-1960, and usually by a large multiple. Even with 2 world wars, Western civilization killed fewer per capita in violence than any previous period in history that we have data for. In short, Hobbes was right. Every attempt that I have seen at taking a quantitative approach has backed that up.

disown 6y ago

> Hobbes didn't say humankind was nasty and brutish, he said the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in the absence of a communit I think you are misrepresenting Hobbes here. The essential idea of Hobbes' Leviathan was that men are selfish brutes/savages that require an overwhelming authority to pacify and tame. Hobbes' goal was to provide a justification for royalty. In other words, "community" cannot exist without a king because mankind is nasty and brutish.