this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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Read the article by the way
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-long-run-wars-make-us-safer-and-richer/2014/04/25/a4207660-c965-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html
TL;Dr
'war is hell' and 'war is brutal' but it has brought about larger societies in which technology and the rule of law have dramatically reduced the amount of violence the average person suffers (he compares the stone age to modern times)
lmao. Who believes this pseudo-scientific nonsense?
Ofc the author is a (british) classics professor. Unqualified and steeped in white supremacy. I almost barfed at the apparently serious reference to Hobbes. Just another jordan perterson style grifter...
You have to be actively braindead or bigoted to genuinely believe in hobbsian ideas.
In your own words, what are his ideas and why do you think they're terrible?
Not Shezznazz but Hobbes thought of the "natural state" of humanity as war of everyone against everyone with the only motivation being profit to oneself. The way to escape that state of being was to form a state where all members relinquish their individual power to a single person or group who then intimidate everyone into following the rules they made up by punishing them if they don't.
It is pretty much just an attempt to justify the divine right of kings in a more or less scientific/philosophical way.
Hobbs and even rosseu both had simplistic mindset on pre history humans that were incredible naiive and harmful towards ant progression of understanding. Hobbs believed in the savage brutish and short life of these people, while rosseu believed they were all loving, peaceful, and egalitarian. In reality, humans are humans, very smart, and complex social organisations haven't been with us well before the first villages or towns became a thing. I have an issue with both, but arguably, hobbs with so much worse, so much more racist and backwards too. The kinda guy if was alive today you'd want to beat up
Here's an archive link so nobody has to give this article clicks.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220221015217/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-long-run-wars-make-us-safer-and-richer/2014/04/25/a4207660-c965-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html
This entire theory begs the question of why we couldn't unite peacefully?
Because most of human history looked something like mad max and all the "peace first" guys were the first to die nasty deaths
What has given you this perception that all of history was something like mad max? There are certain time periods and events of turmoil and "war" which you can point too, but why have you come to the conclusion that all of history and life in it was a super action movie?
I'm not him but we know the answer. All the rich people keep repeating it. And if you hear it enough times, see it in enough movies, and even get taught in school that slaves were thankful for their "opportunity" then you start to believe it.
What if I told you it wasn't a light switch, you can just defend your community and there were areas of the world that understood this. Cultures that resolved conflict with mostly ceremonial combat and preferred trade to war?