Hobbes, Marx, and Shah - 1503 Words

The cold, calculating, and logical brains of Enlightenment thinkers are much different from the emotional, fantasy-loving mind of Romantics. The Enlightenment was an 18th century movement in which rationality and science were placed as the number one things a human could have (Brians). The Enlightenment also propagated the idea equality and liberalism (Brians). Romanticism was an international movement which occurred after the Enlightenment during the late 1700s to the mid-1800s (Melani). It placed emotions at the forefront of human thought (Melani). Thomas Hobbes, a very early Enlightenment thinker, has a variety of ideas which do not coincide with those of Karl Marx, an early Romantic. The thinkers of the Enlightenment era, which†¦show more content†¦Therefore, when Hobbes speaks of a state of nature, he is speaking of a state without a governing body. In the natural state, â€Å"Every man was continually engaged in a war against all other men (â€Å"bellum universale†)† (â€Å"The Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes†) in an effort to gain power (â€Å"Thomas Hobbes†). In Hobbes’s natural state, all men are equal insofar that each man is able to kill every other man, be it through sheer force, cunning, or by joining his power with others against a stronger foe (Williams). This â€Å"equality† leads Hobbes to claim that â€Å"there is no natural source of authority to order [men’s] lives together,† (Williams). Also in Hobbes’s bellum universale, â€Å"‘nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place [in the state of nature],’† (Williams ). The combination of Hobbesian equality and lack of a universal moral system allow there for no agreed authority to decide if anyone’s actions are allowable or not. Unless â€Å"people share the same moral ideas†¦at the level of individual judgment,† (Williams), no conclusion may be arrived at. However, identical moral ideas for each and every judgment on each and every person are possible when political authority exists. In a Hobbesian society, all men (except the chosen ruler or ruling body), agree to give up or limit their rights (especially the singular right of nature) in order to create a â€Å"social contract† whichShow MoreRelatedCollective Behavior11901 Words   |  48 Pagesway. Most of the loss of life during the 1960s urban civil disorders was caused not by protestors, but by control agents who, lacking experience in crowd control and holding discredited or inappropriate ideas about crowds, frequently overreacted. (Marx 1970) The importance of understanding behavior in disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tidal waves, and nuclear accidents is obvious. Research, education and planning can make it more likely that the damage that occurs is entirely a result of theRead MoreCollective Behavior11916 Words   |  48 Pagesway. Most of the loss of life during the 1960s urban civil disorders was caused not by protestors, but by control agents who, lacking experience in crowd control and holding discredited or inappropriate ideas about crowds, frequently overreacted. (Marx 1970) The importance of understanding behavior in disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tidal waves, and nuclear accidents is obvious. Research, education and planning can make it more likely that the damage that occurs is entirely a result of the