Thomas Hobbes: Power as a political problem

Thomas Hobbes: Power as a political problem



Abstract:
This article explores the concept and function of power in the philosophy
and politics of Thomas Hobbes and the ways in which he has subsequently
been read and used. We look at how fear of violent death structures the
contract model and how Hobbes mobilizes a spectacle of fear, a 'lesson of
fear', to legitimate his system and convince his readers and we discuss his
political psychology and the anthropological foundation of his thinking
situating man as the eminently dangerous and killable being. Man is
basically exposed and vulnerable and this is both the foundation and the
selling point of his system. We then move onto his nominalism and the right
of interpretation and naming as the premier attribute of sovereignty. It is
a monopoly on decision and interpretation rather than violence which
preoccupies Hobbes and defines his sovereign. Just like the fragility of
flesh is used creatively so is religion both the problem and the solution.
Hobbes develops a political theology using a minimalist and politicized
definition of religion to block the attempts of religious scholars and
proselytes to use religion against the sovereign but he also acknowledges
the power of religion to persuade and legitimate so he inscribes the
sovereign, the Leviathan, the mortal God, within a religious vocabulary and
mysticism. Deep within his mechanistic philosophy a mystic religious core
pulses. Hobbes' solution throughout is to turn the problem and source of
disorder into the solution and foundation of order. This article explores
how he did that.


Keywords: fear, Hobbes, political metaphors, power, political theology
Thomas Hobbes: Power as a political problem


He has no equal on earth, being created without fear.
He looks the haughtiest in the eye; of all the lordly
beasts he is king.
(Job 41: 25-26).



Leviathan and Behemoth

On the cover of Thomas Hobbes' principal work, Leviathan (1651), we see a
giant, whose corpus consists of a large number of individuals. And we know
the common interpretation of this image, the liberal one, according to
which Hobbes is the founder of a tradition, which understands individuals
as the foundation of the state (see e.g. Wolin 1960: 266). The state, so
the interpretation continues, is neither something that evolves naturally
by itself, nor in principle just, but rather a unit that must be
continuously legitimized. And this is exactly what Hobbes' argument of the
contract, according to the same liberal interpretation, offers. Worn out by
struggle and strife, the individuals come to realize that they will all
really be better off by laying down the arms. But this only works if
everyone does it, and if attempts at transgressing the new pact are
sanctioned. This latter task is the task of the state. The state monopoly
of violence is legitimate, because the state is the product of the
individual wills of the subjects, and because it is the expression of a
fundamental rationality.

Hobbes, however, is not a liberal thinker – at least he is not if we take
our point of departure in the tasks and authorities, which he grants the
state. On the face of it, the natural condition can legitimize almost any
kind of state. Faced with the Armageddon of the natural condition, all
solutions seem paradisiacal, even an authoritarian state. There are
contract-theoretical arguments for anything from night-watchman states to
welfare states of the Scandinavian outlook. When Hobbes argues for the need
of exactly an authoritarian state, this stems from his realization that
individuals are not only rational agents, but also governed by their
appetites, lusts, and desires. If you want a well ordered and peaceful
society, you must, facing an individual with these qualities, establish a
series of very restrictive measures of the state. Hobbes' authoritarian
state not only punishes crime and fights physical threats to its existence.
By suppressing any horizon of meaning, which could potentially undermine
the legitimacy of the state, it also seeks to anticipate eventual
uprisings.

It is not wrong that the contract argument offers a conception of the state
being constructed from the bottom up, meaning that the individuals
constitute the foundation of the state. But that being said, it is
important to pay attention to the fact that the thought behind Leviathan,
as well as other of Hobbes' works, is to induce certain ideas into the
population – or at least prevent that dangerous thoughts undermine the
fundament of the state. Hobbes' work, in other words, offers an ideological
ground compatible with sustaining state authority. The blood dripping
description in Leviathan of the natural condition has only one purpose: to
scare the living daylights out of the populace and lead them to the
recognition that the authoritarian state in any case is better than the
Armageddon of the natural condition. Hobbes' perspective is therefore not
the "bottom up" approach of liberalism. It is exactly the opposite. The
primary task of the state is to create obedient subjects. The central issue
is the power of the sovereign and the way in which he implements it.
Hobbes' perspective, thus, is "top down". If we pay closer attention, all
the individuals that constitute the Leviathan have their eyes turned
towards the head of the sovereign. The sovereign is, in other words, not
the sum of individual wills. It is the other way around: The individuals
are identifying themselves with the will of the sovereign, or better, they
fear him and therefore never turn their back on him.

The epochal about Leviathan is that Hobbes bases the position of the king –
and thereby also the unity of the society, its cohesion – not on theologico-
political arguments about tradition, divine right, hereditary power or the
like. Instead, authority rests on a secular foundation: on utility and
efficiency – or rather: Hobbes, as we shall see, steals the instruments and
rationale from religion and employs them in a secular context. He sees
himself as a Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods. The name of the
desired state, accordingly, Hobbes found no other place than in the Bible.
We encounter the sea monster Leviathan in the Book of Job, where it reigns
over "lordly beasts". A better symbol of the unlovable can hardly be found.
It is the absence of moral and religious legitimization of the state, in
short its complete lack of lovableness, which justifies Hobbes' position as
the first of modern thinkers. Hobbes, as the first, replaces a religious
cosmology with a political theology, and he thereby opens the horizon which
is still ours.

In Job, Leviathan is fighting the equally forceful Behemoth. On the cover
of Hobbes' work, however, we only see the Leviathan, which figures as the
symbol of political sovereignty – of the state. But Behemoth has a place in
Hobbes' oeuvre as well; indeed, Hobbes' Leviathan is unthinkable without
this twin monster. Where Leviathan symbolizes the social order as
guaranteed by the state, Behemoth symbolizes the chaos, which could be
experienced during the English Civil War. Hobbes' book about the Civil War
exactly carries the title Behemoth. Behemoth is the diagnosis, Leviathan
the medicine. It takes, the authoritarian Hobbes claims, a monster to fight
a monster! The difference in comparison to the biblical original of course
is that these two forces are no longer considered super human. One could
even claim that the natural- and societal condition are the translations of
the biblical image of hell and paradise, respectively, to earthly – and
thereby not eternal – life.

Hobbes is not a thinker who spirits away the problem of power through the
idea of a real or imagined contract. The struggle between Leviathan and
Behemoth seems without end. And this conflict is mirrored within the
individual. The passionate subject desiring power is not replaced by a
rational, calculating subject. Instead, we are facing a subject driven by
both impulses; indeed, Hobbes seems to believe that only the passions and
the disposition for fear (and not rationality) are inherent to the subject.
Hobbes thereby depictures an original drama between nature and culture,
order and chaos, desire and fear, security and freedom. And it is this
tension, which to Hobbes opens the space of the political – and of the
state.

The "liberalisation" and "pacification" of Hobbes' work seems to have been
happening simultaneously with the Leviathan being displaced as a symbol
from its original biblical context and from Hobbes' own text. The liberal
tradition seems to fear that recognition of the "dangerous" insights of the
work also implies commitment to its program. Hobbes and other "dangerous
thinkers" such as Machiavelli are therefore kept at arm's length. Hobbes'
theory is reduced to purely philosophical, logical or technical points,
which are not to be literally, let alone politically, understood (e.g.
Sabine 1961: 470, 474). The work is interpreted as an exercise in logical
reasoning or limited to being relevant only as a description of the
conditions that pertained in Hobbes' own time (e.g. Quentin Skinner's
reading of Hobbes). The fact that one of the founders of modern politics
and political science in his main work should express a despotic intention
is too undermining to be acceptable (Tarlton 2001: 589). The intention
behind this article is a wish to confront the liberal reading of Hobbes'
work and show that power always remains a problem to Hobbes; a problem to
which one must relate reflectively and through intervention. The natural
place to start is of course the contract itself and the fear which it seeks
to handle but at the same time makes possible.

The liberalism of fear: the basic structure of the contractual argument

By nature, the human being is completely free, but a condition of
uninhibited freedom is life threatening, and so rationally calculating
human beings can (with some help) be brought to realize that they must give
up a large portion of their natural freedom – first of all the freedom of
interpretation and large parts of the freedom of action – and hand it over
to a sovereign, who is thereby authorized to define good and evil, yours
and mine, etc. The insecurity of the natural condition is thereby removed,
since everyone's security is guaranteed, and in return the sovereign
deserves unlimited loyalty and obedience – protego ergo obligo, as Hobbes
classically describes it. The societal condition establishes a foundation
of trust through the monopoly of violence and interpretation of the
sovereign; a foundation which allows us to meet the other as a friend or at
least not to presuppose that he is an enemy.

The natural condition is permanently unstable and disquieting. Partly,
desire has no point of saturation, and partly one must, in order to keep
what one has already got, by necessity and constantly aim at obtaining
relatively more than others. However much power we build up, even the
weakest of men can always stab a mighty man from behind. A natural
condition will therefore always be a condition of war or at least a
condition of constant threat of war, not because human beings are
especially aggressive, but because the insecurity of the natural condition
and the absence of common values force us to take measures of preventive
aggression. We cannot know anything about the intentions of the strangers
and must therefore, in order to be on the safe side, assume that they are
bad people (Hobbes 1991b: 100).

One of Hobbes' merits is his focus on the mortality and vulnerability of
the individual person, which is why Judith Shklar (1989) talks about a
liberalism of fear. But Hobbes' solution is not the one of liberalism.
Writing in the 17th century, Hobbes saw himself confronted with political
instability in the shape of the threat of civil war, and he identified the
core of the problem as the absence of a strong, state authority. In other
words, he knew that the Behemoth of revolution is constantly threatening
the Leviathan. To Hobbes it therefore doesn't suffice to refer to already
existing norms and rules. The Civil War was exactly a war, where the
citizens of a certain state fought each other as if they represented two or
more communities. The task is to create common values and standards and a
state, which can guarantee them. Leviathan as a book and symbol serves the
purpose of being a "lesson through fear", which is why Hobbes does not shy
away from drawing the most radical consequences of the epistemic and
ethical anarchy, where everyone is entitled to everything – even to the
body of the other. About the anarchy of the natural condition, Hobbes
writes:

To this warre of every man against every man, this also is
consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and
Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is
no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice. […]
Justice, and Injustice are none of the Faculties neither of the
Body, nor Mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were
alone in the world, as well as his Senses and Passions. They are
Qualities, that relate to men in Society, not in Solitude. It is
consequent also to the same condition, that there be no Property,
no Dominion, no Mine and Thine distinct; but onely that to be
every mans, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.
(Hobbes 1991a: 90).

In the natural condition there is no production of commodities, no
agriculture, no navigation or overseas transport. There is no well spaced
housing or major means of transportation. There is no knowledge of the
surface of the Earth, about date or time, no arts or sciences, and no
society. In return, there is a constant and well founded fear of violent
death (ibid.: 89) Hobbes was a great rhetorical writer and made use of all
of his abilities to strengthen the consciousness of the exposed character
of the human being as well as its fragility and finality. The
accomplishment of authority is not so much the subjugation of the body as
it is the spell of the mind (Holmes 1993: xi). Andrew Lister (1998: 44) is
therefore right, when he claims that Hobbes' central goal is to reshape
public moral discourse through a political definition of what counts as
acceptable and unacceptable.

On this background it is immediately remarkable that Hobbes, in his
definition of power and freedom, sees power as the ability to stop bodies
in their free movement, and conversely freedom as unhindered movement. "A
Free-Man, is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is
able to do, is not hindred to doe what he has a will to do. But when the
words Free, and Liberty, are applyed to any thing but Bodies, they are
abused" (Hobbes 1991a: 146). As a consequence of his radical materialism,
Hobbes understands the concept of the body in a much wider sense than it is
usually understood. Everything – sensory perception, mind, imagination,
etc. – should be understood as bodily processes: as movement. Ideas and
concepts stop or drag the movement of the body in a specific direction in
the same way as physical use of power does. Rhetorical power is therefore
not different in essence from physical use of power. Only the medium of the
exercise of power is different.

But when it comes to the question of the right to one's body, i.e. of the
natural freedom of the individual, the issue is nonetheless the body in a
traditional sense. The right to one's body is inalienable, which is why
Hobbes gives us the right to fight a sovereign who condemns us to death
(i.e. we may scream on the way to the gallows). We also have the right to
subdue under a new sovereign, if he annexes our land in his territory, and
the same goes, if this sovereign takes us prisoner during a war (ibid.:
414). Finally, if we are starving, we have the right to break the laws of
the sovereign (by e.g. stealing food). Death stops the movement of the body
forever, and Hobbes' minimal understanding of freedom therefore requires
him to secure us against it. On this background, the social contract can be
said to make possible a type of freedom, which we only apparently have in
the natural condition. The total freedom of the natural condition, namely,
often leads to its opposite, to death, and it is therefore a somewhat
hollow freedom. Hobbes therefore believes that the introduction of an
authoritarian state actually increases our freedom.

A fundamental question, however, which one must ask, is how the transition
from natural to societal condition is at all possible (Laustsen and Thomsen
2000: 382-385). The contractual argument seems to require a minimal
standard of interpretation, which can only be established with the passing
of the contract (Kramer 1997: 68). Hobbes' individuals must therefore like
Baron von Münchhausen leave the swamp of the natural condition by pulling
themselves up by their own hair. And that of course rarely happens – it
would require a miracle (Herbert 1993: 293). Hobbes however does not care
at all who originally "signed" the contract. The idea of the contract is
merely a rhetorical trick. In fact, he considers questions about the
origins of the contract to be directly harmful, since they will inevitably
bring forward its contingency. Most frequently, a community arises when a
war lord annexes a territory, i.e. not through the agreement between a
group of individuals on a common pact (Kateb 1989: 372). Given the
description of the individuals in the natural condition and considering
their lack of rationality, this is actually the only way a pact can be
"made" (Flathman 1993: 132).

Hobbes is of course prepared for arguments of this type. If a territory has
been conquered, the argument is the following: If the war lord protects the
individuals who occupy the area, and if they subdue to the war lord, i.e.
refrain from rebellion, then the situation will be comparable to one, where
an actual contract has been signed. The war lord in other words is the
sovereign, and everyone else is a citizen with the minimal set of rights
and duties, which this implies. But as George Kateb notices, Hobbes'
understanding of consent is unreasonably broad (1989: 372). When the
individuals of the natural condition are able to leave the natural
condition this is because the sovereign pulls them out of the swamp, and
that manoeuvre has very little to do with consent, let alone signing of a
contract. Thus, to Hobbes the issue is the acceptance of a given contract
rather than the establishment of it. And of concern are those who may wish
to break out of the contract, rather than those who found it.

In reality, the issue is not really contracts and natural right, but rather
Hobbes' monarchism – his support of Charles the First and Second – and his
love of England. Hobbes is a patriot and an ethnocentric (ibid.: 377, 382).
When, however, he cannot take such a position here, at least not openly,
this is most likely because that would make him a party of the Civil War.
He would seize to be someone who provides the frames of the "extra
political" solution of the Civil War – a contract to everyone's benefit.

And who is it then that would be inclined to break the "contract"? Who
opposes this solution? The learned and wise and the rich and proud, Hobbes
replies (1991b: 65f). Furthermore; the more safe and comfortable the
individuals feel, the more ready they will be to challenge the sovereign
(ibid.: 119). The strength of the sovereign is thus simultaneously his
weakness. Hobbes therefore does not stop at the contractual argument
itself. As a final trump he adds that the war is not only an internal
threat but also an external. If the sovereign is weakened, he will not be
able to wage war against other states. To the fear of the civil war is thus
added the fear of war between states.

But this is not without costs. Mostly, as we shall see later, Hobbes talks
with contempt about the megalomania, pride, ambitions, and combativeness of
individuals. And, as mentioned, he emphasizes their right to their own
life. All this of course fits badly with international war, where it is
pride on behalf of the community which must motivate the individuals (Kateb
1989: 376). And this can only with difficulty be united with the
willingness to sacrifice one's life. Hobbes exactly writes that the
individuals can subject themselves to a new sovereign, if their land is
conquered. When the rule of the sovereign is so authoritarian, as it is,
and when Hobbes has equipped his subjects with an interest in but one
thing, namely to sustain life, isn't then the rational thing to do simply
to surrender to a new sovereign? Why fight for one's freedom, when one
practically hasn't got one? And finally, being drafted for the army can
hardly be said to be compatible with the right to one's own life. Hobbes
does not settle for an army of mercenaries – he probably knows that it
would be far too expensive. Instead, he offers the argument that
international war is actually the least of two evils. Without a defence,
everyone – or at least a great many – will die. If one takes up arms, fewer
will die. Hobbes however never writes very much about the international
war, which probably seems more distant to him than the civil war. Or maybe
the sparse reflections, Hobbes does on this issue, must be explained by the
fact that the conceptual tectonics really breaks down here.

When Hobbes is discussed today, it often happens with reference to a
conception of the international system as Hobbesian. And this is curious,
since the international dimension is not very much on Hobbes' mind. Hobbes
is often reduced to an exponent for the view that international affairs are
anarchic, without order, rules, institutions, confidence, etc. Especially
the debates in the past decade about failed states and ethnic violence and
the massive preoccupation with terrorism and the war against it have
brought "the Hobbesian" to the fore in the debate. One can find
corroboration for translating the natural condition to the relation between
states, but as we shall see in a moment, the analogy is forced. Hobbes
writes:

Concerning the Offices of one Soveraign to another, which are
comprehended in that Law, which is commonly called the Law of
Nations, I need not say any thing in this place; because the Law
of Nations, and the Law of Nature, is the same thing. And every
Soveraign hath the same Right, in procuring the safety of his
People, that any particular man can have, in procuring his own
safety. And the same Law, that dictateth to men that have no
Civil Government, what they ought to do, and what to avoyd in
regard of one another, dictateth the same to Common-wealths.
(1991a: 244).

By definition, there are parallels, since the natural condition of both the
humans and the states is without a supreme arbiter, but Hobbes suggests
that there is nonetheless a significant difference between the two
conditions: "But because they uphold thereby, the Industry of their
Subjects; there does not follow from it, that misery, which accompanies the
Liberty of particular men" (ibid.: 90). Stanley Hoffmann (1965) mentions
two reasons why the natural condition of international affairs is not as
miserable as the national. First, the states are stronger than the humans:
communities simply do not wither as easily, which is why the fear of
extinction is less prevalent. Secondly, the very existence of the state is
a guarantee for the security of the citizens: no human is secure in the
natural condition, while inter state rivalry or war does not necessarily
influence the daily life of the individual person.

David Runciman (2003) also notices the difference between the human and the
state in the natural condition. States are more robust than the individuals
of the natural condition. They are bigger and stronger. They live longer,
and they are not as humans exposed and vulnerable. It is difficult to stab
a state in the shoulder, and the structure of potential threats is in
general very different between states and humans. States are, if not
eternal then at least much more long-lived than people. This also means
that the relations between states in the international natural condition
are different from the relations between people in the interpersonal
natural condition. States are not solitaire, since they only become states
in the mutual recognition of the community of states. States are not poor,
since even the least affluent state has far more economic power than its
inhabitants. States can do nasty things to first of all their own citizens,
but as a general rule, states are not nasty towards each other; on the
contrary, they do great efforts to maintain state etiquette and avoid that
anyone – even the representatives of nasty states – looses face. States are
not brutish. It is exactly the core of Hobbes' argument that we enter the
societal condition with the state, and that even the most brutal sovereign
is preferable to no sovereign. And last, but not least, the life of states
is not short. The concept of "failed states", paradoxically enough,
demonstrates the "almost immortality" of states. They are empty shells:
states without state contents. But no one problematizes their state status:
once a state, always a state.

To Hobbes, the main problem is, as already mentioned, the civil war, and
not international war. Hobbes wanted to halt the human being in its natural
movement, characterized as it is by self-promotion and self-overestimation
– qualities that led people towards the struggle of everyone against
everyone in the natural condition. Invincibility might be the self-image of
the human being, but it is not its reality, and the entirety of Hobbes'
oeuvre serves as a reminder of this. And Hobbes has here got two trumps to
play: fear of civil war and fear of international war. The reason why this
constant instruction of the population through fear was necessary is that
Hobbes' individual is not characterized by the power of reason alone. It is
just as much guided by its desire, its appetite and its passions on the one
side, and its fear on the other. The foundation of Hobbes' political theory
is thus a political psychology.

Political psychology

Hobbes' fundamental assumption is that the human being is exposed and
vulnerable. Even the mightiest of people can be killed and must therefore
live in constant fear thereof. Hobbes' pessimistic anthropology does not,
however, portray the human being as evil (which would also be meaningless
in the natural condition, since this condition is precisely characterized
by the absence of moral categories), but as dynamic, expansive, and in
continuous movement. As Leo Strauss notices, there are two fundamental
postulates about human nature in Hobbes. First, the postulate of a natural
appetite – drives, desire, lust, hunger – which also has a social dimension
in the longing for recognition (not as the equal of others, but as their
superior) (Hobbes 1991b: 113). The human being is therefore also
characterized and driven by vanity, pride, self-love, ambition, self-
importance, and their expressions of neglect: grudge, envy, anger, hatred,
etc. And it has a tendency to identify with people of higher ranking, like
secular authorities, army leaders, and scientists. The discourse of such
men is often incomprehensible to the ordinary man, which only enhances its
attraction (Hobbes 1990: 17, 164).

The Leviathan must therefore, as it is described in The Book of Job, be
king over all the lordly beasts". The function of the state is to keep all
these proud and wild creatures – or quarrelsome social asocialities as Kant
calls them in slightly different context – under control. We are here quite
at a distance from the reading of Hobbes as a rational choice theoretician.
Pride and honour often trump the worry about one's own life and thereby
lead to sub-optimal results (Hobbes 1991b: 142f). Without rationality the
human being loses its orientation and approaches something that could
resemble madness (ibid.: 51). Actually, this happens quite often.

The natural appetite puts the human being in constant movement. In contrast
to the animals, the human being has an idea of the future (which to a high
degree conditions the social appetites in difference to the purely natural)
and is therefore also hungry for and possibly in the future. This makes
human much more dangerous than the animals that merely direct their
attention towards immediate hunger. Hobbes writes the following about the
difference between animals and humans:

[A]mongst other living creatures, there is no question of
precedence in their own species, nor strife about honour or
acknowledgment of one another's wisdom, as there is amongst men;
from whence arise envy and hatred of one towards another, and
from thence sedition and war. Secondly, those living creatures
aim every one at peace and food common to them all; men aim at
dominion, superiority, and private wealth, which are distinct in
every man, and breed contention (1999: 105).

Hobbes continues his account by remarking how animals furthermore
distinguish themselves from humans by not being able to criticize or rebel
against the prevailing order, and he finally concludes that the relation
among the animals is as God wanted it, whereas the relation between humans
is decided by agreements and pacts (ibid.: 105f).

The other fundamental postulate in Hobbes' political psychology is the one
of natural reason, which he, according to Strauss, reduces to self-
preservation or, in Strauss' formulation, to the fear of not only death,
but of a violent death: "This fear is a mutual fear, i.e. it is the fear
each man has of every other man as his potential murderer" (Strauss 1992:
17). Until Hobbes, fear was seen as irrational: it did not have a given and
concrete object, and it was not tied to anything that had actually
happened, but to something that might happen. With regards to fear of the
future, it can lead to irrationality, e.g. superstition, but it can also,
and this is the new, direct itself as a fear of the possible sanctions of
the sovereign state.

In his early writings, Hobbes typically distinguishes between two passions:
desire, which leads the subject towards given, desired objects, and fear,
which pulls the other way (1999: 29, 61). The difference between the two
forces, however, is not only the one between attraction and repulsion.
Where desire is characterized by the wish of appropriating known objects,
fear does not have a specific object. If we make use of Kierkegaard's
terminology, Hobbes should rightly have called it anxiety and not fear –
and Hobbes does actually use the concept at times (but not systematically).
Fear (or terminologically more correct: anxiety) is directed towards
something, which the subject imagines, but does not have any certain
knowledge about (ibid.: 28f). Accordingly, fear is much more plastic than
desire – and therefore also easier to manipulate. The human being has a
tendency to rationalize its fear of the formless and unknown by
constructing objects or entities (hereby, the anxiety is reconstructed as
fear, if we stick to Kierkegaard a little yet).

Much – if not all – superstition and paganism have this tendency of
rationalization as their background. The idols are, as Hobbes says, a
product of human fear (1991a: 75-86). Curiosity is the invention of
religions. Man seeks causes for everything, and where a cause can not be
found, a god is placed (ibid.: 31). One may then ask how to distinguish
between true religion and superstition, and Hobbes does not really answer
that. He merely says that there are two kinds of men: those, whom curiosity
leads to superstition, and those whom it leads to the true God (ibid.: 98).
When Hobbes must answer evasively, this is of course because it is the
sovereign who decides what counts as faith and superstition. We can never
know the will of the gods, and therefore the sovereign must step in.

As always, the issue for Hobbes is not to fight human nature. No, he
"merely" wants to make human desire and fear serve the state rather than
work contrary to it. As Stillman (1995: 810) emphasizes, Hobbes therefore
adopts an ambiguous attitude towards desire. He oscillates between looking
for a foundation of society in the desire of individuals, and giving laws
that regulate and inhibit this desire. The natural appetite drives human
forward. The natural reason stops human drive – when it is for instance
awakened by the imagination of a violent death (or by reading Leviathan and
Behemoth) – and puts down the foundation of the societal state. Natural
appetite will, abandoned to itself, lead to the war of all against all.
Natural reason will, given the right prompting from the political
entrepreneur, lead to a generalized condition of peace and community. It is
the task of the sovereign to manoeuvre in this tensed field and make sure
that the energies and desire of the subjects are directed in ways optimal
to the state.

In order to drive the human being forward and into the societal condition,
manipulation is thus required. Man does not see the light out of his own
drive. Natural appetite and the self-illusion that accompanies it create a
veil of illusion between human and world, which the political entrepreneur
must tear away, before peace can become a reality. As Hobbes emphasizes,
fear is the one of human passions that serves the community best. Fear of
the punishment of the sovereign is for instance the best guarantee that
people do not violate the laws (Hobbes 1991a: 206). Fear does not change
character as such, but it transforms from fear of every other man to fear
of the sovereign.

A little bit of political theatre is therefore a good idea. In connection
with an analysis of the emergence of pagan religions, Hobbes writes that
people who believe that their misfortune is to be explained by a lacking
ability to honour the gods or abide to their commandments, will be less
likely to rebel against their rulers than people, who don't. The pomp and
circumstance of the festivals – and a little bread – was sufficient, if one
wanted to avoid rebellion (ibid.: 82f). What is Hobbes' natural condition
if not such a "political theatre of fear" (Stillman 1995: 807)? Hobbes
wants to direct fear, and he does this by, on the basis of already existing
perceptual experience (of e.g. the English Civil War), constructing an
image of ultimate barbarism (the natural condition).

If one neglects Hobbes' double diagnosis of human psyche, one also neglects
what besides (the fragile) rationality and reason motivates individuals in
their political action, and thus also, what must be "delivered" in order to
keep them "in place". Physical monopoly of violence is not enough. "For if
men know not their duty, what is there that can force them to obey the
laws? An army you will say. But what shall force the army?", Hobbes asks
rhetorically (1990: 59). An ideological state apparatus is Hobbes' implicit
answer, and this almost 300 years before Althusser made this thought
explicit. Human imagination does not restrict itself to what we can
perceive. We can imagine almost anything – and we can fear these
imaginations. Hobbes' worry was that this fear might turn against the
state. It was therefore crucial to him that the state have a counter move
to the religious image-makers, to whom the state was ungodly and therefore
the ultimate enemy. Free from superstition, human would be much easier to
control (Hobbes 1991a: 19). But human psychology being the way it is, and
being unalterable, there is nothing else to do than to beat the priests and
the god-makers with their own weapons. This weapon is the right to
interpretation.

The right to interpretation

Hobbes writes that what we consider good or beneficial is not that in and
of itself, but only because it seems so to us. And since these perceptions
are conditioned by the natural appetite of each individual person, there is
no natural order among things: no harmony or agreement about their value.
To Hobbes, linguistic categories such as true and false do not refer to the
things themselves, and these categories therefore always have a connection
to the language user that applies them (1999: 28, 39). In the natural
condition, every man is his own master with regards to what counts as good
and evil. The problem here is that a minimal consensus about the meaning of
such categories and distinctions is a necessary precondition for the
survival of a community. The English Civil War, according to Hobbes, had
its background in exactly a strife over interpretation – or rather in a
strife over who could rightly construe the central categories (ibid.: 127).
Strife over interpretation encourages political strife, which in turn can
provoke civil war: "all violence proceedeth from controversies that arise
between men concerning meum and tuum, right and wrong, good and bad, and
the like, which men use every one to measure by their own judgments"
(ibid.: 113).

The natural condition, and with it the strife over interpretation, is not
necessarily a period all overcome. Behemoth is thus the narration of the
connection between intellectual and physical strife, as it could be
observed during the English Civil War. If we look shortly at the seven
reasons (and seducers) that Hobbes identifies in Behemoth in the shape of
the master A, it is clear that it is the right to interpretation that is at
stake. Among those who corrupted the people, Hobbes mentions: 1) priests,
who believe to have a right from God to reign over their congregation and,
based on this, over the country; 2) people who believe that the country
should be ruled by the Pope; 3) people who believe they have a right to
interpret the Bible in their own way (freedom of religion); 4) people who
in their youth have read Greek and Roman authors and therefore equal
monarchy with tyranny; 5) people in London and other important commercial
towns, who disadvantageously compare the wealth of England to that of the
Netherlands; 6) lucky riders and people with unfulfilled ambitions who are
longing for a war to profit from, and finally 7) people who are in general
ignorant about their obligations towards the King or who do not acknowledge
the need for such an authority (1990: 2-4). With the possible exception of
the sixth and seventh point, the fundamental tenor of this rhyme is that
rivalling centres of power are also centres of interpretation. The Civil
War broke out because of doctrinary mistakes. Hobbes even writes that one
should have killed 1,000 Presbyterian priests, whose teachings challenged
the authority of the King, in order to have saved the more than 100,000,
who had died in the Civil War (ibid.: 95). One can with a certain right
call Hobbes a cynic.

The English Civil War was the "revolt of the learned". It was led by people
who without surveillance and independently read the Bible, Greek and Roman
history, and philosophy, especially Aristotle. This is why Hobbes can write
that the universities could be likened to Trojan horses that served the
rebels in the struggle against the King (ibid.: 40). Demagogues, often
educated from the Pope's universities, make people blind through
incomprehensible distinctions with the aim of undermining the rights of the
sovereign. The natural condition in the context of this situation is not
the war of all against all, but rather the struggle of some groups against
other groups, and in Hobbes' time this meant mainly religious groups.
Religion was the medium through which one could articulate political views
and act politically – in many ways like it is today in the Middle East,
where Islamism can be interpreted as an obstructed and suppressed political
voice, which has only religious language available to its expression.

To Hobbes, the core of the strife over interpretation is a mistaken
continuation of the freedom of definition from the natural condition into
the societal condition. Especially depraving is the conception among
priests that they possess a god-given authority to distinguish between
right and wrong. Hobbes here expresses himself quite unambiguously: any
right to interpretation, which is not authorized and sanctioned by the
sovereign, is subverting the power of the sovereign and thereby also peace.
Hobbes' solution to the strife over interpretation is therefore to hand
over to the sovereign the right to decide between irresolvable conflicts of
adhered truths. The sovereign is thereby not only attributed the role as
the one who steps in between conflicting parties, but also as the one who
establishes the standards on the basis of which the conflict must find its
solution (Williams 1996). It is therefore not only the option of using
violence, which the subjects are giving up on, when entering the societal
condition. They are also – and this in fact is more important to Hobbes –
giving up the right of definition.

The crucial issue in the natural condition is the individual freedom of
definition, and not the more rhetorically impressive: "the life of man,
solitaire, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes 1991a: 89). Life in
the natural condition might be like this, but this is primarily a
consequence of the freedom of definition. Parallel to this, the defining
characteristics of the societal condition is the monopoly of definition
(ibid.: 120). The retention of the monopoly of definition requires a
constant repression of other authorities on definition, and one of the most
essential remedies of the sovereign is therefore the ability to exercise
censorship. It befalls the sovereign to decide which attitudes and
doctrines are subverting and which contribute to peace. In a more offensive
sense, good governance requires that one not only influence but also
actively create the opinions and attitudes among people (Hobbes 1999:
124f).

It follows from the above that the sovereign has also got the right to
expound the words of God (Hobbes 1991b: 51f). All sects must be assigned to
the Church of England, which in turn must be assigned to the English King.
The sovereign on the cover of Leviathan holds a sword in one hand – the
symbol of secular power – and in the other the crosier – the symbol of
church power. A separation between church and state is thus not an issue.
Hobbes' aim, as he explains in the subtitle of Leviathan (The Matter, Forme
& Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill), is a society, which
unites religious and secular power. The image of an earthly and a spiritual
government is but a means of forcing a double vision on people and making
them misrecognize their true and law given sovereign (ibid.: 321).

The most pressing problem to Hobbes was the conflicting interpretations, or
rather the unauthorised non-government interpretations of the Bible.
Therefore we encounter a remarkable – some would say odd – definition of
the church in Leviathan. In focus is not the function of the church as
God's instrument on Earth or as messenger of God's words. Rather, its
submission under the regime of the Earthly sovereign is in focus:

I define a CHURCH to be, A company of men professing Christian
Religion, united in the person of one Soveraign; at whose command
they ought to assemble, and without whose authority they ought
not to assemble. And because in all Common-wealths, that
Assembly, which is without warrant from the Civil Soveraign, is
unlawful; that Church also, which is assembled in any Common-
wealth, that hath forbidden them to assemble, is an unlawful
Assembly. It followeth also, that there is on Earth, no such
universall Church, as all Christians are bound to obey; because
there is no power on Earth, to which all other Common-wealths are
subject. (1991a: 321).

Hobbes especially criticizes the English Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers,
Catholics, Baptists, and Diggers, who, on the basis of their interpretation
of the Bible seemingly wish to establish new political institutions and
rules. To Hobbes, however, neither God nor the will of God can be known.
Only rarely does God speak directly to human. In fact, as we shall see,
this has only happened twice, according to Hobbes. The idea of a dialogue
with God, which appeared among the mentioned groups, is therefore an
illusion. Not even the Bible itself is God's words, but a human
reproduction of these, and this is what in turn means that the Bible
unfortunately, but necessarily, falls prey to sectarian interpretation
(Mattel 2004: 1). The Pope and a long line of priests on this background
challenge the sovereign's monopoly of definition and "causeth so great a
Darknesse in mens understanding, that they see not who it is to whom they
have engaged their obedience" (Hobbes 1991a: 420).

What could be more harmful to the state than the religious notion that the
human being, which obeys the laws of the sovereign, will be subjected to
eternal suffering after death, Hobbes asks (1991b: 248). As long as eternal
torture is worse than death, the people will fear the clergy more than the
king (Hobbes 1990: 14f). To convince the sceptical reader, Hobbes mentions
ancient Ethiopia, where kings committed suicide, if there were told so by
the priests – and this without the priests having opportunity to exercise
any kind of physical force (ibid.: 94). The lesson from this and other
examples is that the force of religion is colossal – and therefore
politically dangerous! If we proceed to Hobbes' own age, the Puritans were
influenced by a similar radicalism. They were inspired by among others St.
Bernhard de Clairvaux, who said: "What can such soldiers fear who have
consecrated their lives to Christ? … The Soldier of Christ kills with
safety; he dies with more safety still" (quoted in Robin 2004: 37). One can
hardly imagine a better basis for an insurrection.

Hobbes must necessarily construct a protective armour against these self-
proclaimed authorities and their ideas. Tirelessly, therefore, Hobbes
repeats that this is not a case of genuine religious convictions, but of
superstition. And to back his claim he states that the priests are
motivated by something entirely different than the religious, most
frequently by power, money and prestige. The Presbyterians desire the
cattle and other goods of their neighbour (Hobbes 1990: 24f). The bishops
and the priests are preaching as they are, because they want more land
(ibid.: 161), or because they wish to improve their position in the power
hierarchies of the church – a striving which incidentally also has an
economic side to it (ibid.: 63).When the list of sins is settled, those
that relate to trade are forgotten, and Hobbes explains that this is so
because the priests want to maintain good relations to the moneyed (ibid.:
25). Finally – and most damaging – the theological doctrines are a cover
for usurpation of the King's power (ibid.: 71). Only one fraction remains,
which is in service of the true God – and not surprisingly this is the
Anglicans.

A famous quote from Hobbes reads: "Covenants, without the Sword, are but
Words" (1991a: 117), from which one may conclude that Hobbes' primary
concern is with securing the monopoly of violence. In both Leviathan and
Behemoth, however, Hobbes is far more attentive to the importance of
education (the word) than to the importance of violence (the sword).
Violence is sometimes necessary, but it is the monopoly of definition
rather than the monopoly of violence, which secures peace. The subjects
must believe the legitimacy of the sovereign, and they must be instructed
in a number of doctrines: 1) not to love the forms of government of other
countries over their own; 2) not to honour any of their fellow citizens too
much, since this reduces the obedience that befalls (only) the sovereign;
3) never to speak badly of the sovereign or question his power; 4) to make
time for listening to those that have been appointed to instruct them of
their duties; 5) to honour their parents; 6) not to exercise violence or
steal from their neighbour; and 7) that not only the exercise of injustices
but also the intention of exercising them is wrong (ibid.: 233-236). These
doctrines are meant to hinder the spread of harmful convictions, such as
the one that every individual human being (in the societal condition) is
the master of what is right and wrong; that everything a man does against
his conviction is a sin; that some are super naturally inspired; that the
one, who possesses sovereign power is subjected to the laws; that every man
has an absolute right to property; and that sovereign power can be divided
(ibid.: 223-225).

Hobbes thus does not reject moral and religious vocabulary. He "merely"
wants to activate it to the interest of the state. The breeding grounds of
false doctrines should therefore not be abolished, but disciplined to make
people realize their obligation to the will of the sovereign (Hobbes 1990:
56-59). Hobbes' path to peace is political, since the sovereign establishes
the limits and contents of the political community through his monopoly of
decision. Everything is to him (potentially) political – and thereby
(potentially) a motive for civil war. But Hobbes is at the same time anti-
political. Hobbes describes the human being as a public or political
animal, but once the societal condition has been established, the
"citizens" are expected to limit themselves to their privacy. The
"citizens" no longer have a public side. As Gershon Weiler (1997: 44)
writes: "That there ought to be no free discussion of matters politic is
one of the cornerstones of Hobbesian antipolitics". Hobbes' societal
condition is emptied of politics. But simultaneously, this privatization of
the citizens included a radical interference with the private sphere.
Hobbes' answer to the differences in faith, which led to the religious
wars, was not the liberal solution of dividing religion (private) from
politics (public), but on the contrary to attach religion to politics and
the state. And what, more precisely, is then the relation between the
political and the religious?

Political theology

In the question of obedience of the Christian towards the temporal ruler,
Hobbes develops a minimalist Christianity, the essence of which is the
formula: "Jesus is Christ" (1999: 144), i.e. the belief that Jesus is the
promised saviour: that Christ is everything required for individual
salvation. The subject can therefore be indifferent in relation to all the
outer rituals and dogma established by the state church of the sovereign as
valid within the territory. They have nothing to do with individual
redemption and should therefore not be made objects of strife or rebellion,
which has exactly been the case in the continent as well as in England.
Hobbes can thereby, against the religious sects, claim that God's will is
beyond human understanding. Everything we know is that God exists. Indeed,
even the name God does not correspond to the essence of God. We have an
idea of God as the highest and we therefore call upon him with names which
on Earth signify the highest and most valued. Similarly, those are
mistaken, who claim that the beyond is materialised on Earth as spirits and
ghosts, which can either be conjured up or away. Such a direct connection
between the earthly and the beyond can not be established. Hobbes writes:

For the nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we
understand nothing of what he is, but only that he is; and
therefore the Attributes we give him, are not to tell one
another, what he is, nor to signifie our opinion of his Nature,
but our desire to honor him with such names as we conceive most
honourable amongst our selves. (1991a: 271).

Any attempt at positively describing God's essence must therefore fail and
should be understood as idolatry (Mantel 2004: 33). God has revealed
Himself first to Moses, then incarnated as Jesus, his son, and finally as
the Holy Spirit (Hobbes 1991a: 339-341). Hobbes assumes the belief in a
holy trinity, but he also emphasizes that only Moses and Jesus formed the
foundation of the establishment of a God's Kingdom on Earth. The kingdom,
which the Holy Spirit announces, is the eternal Kingdom of God, and this we
must still await. The Holy Spirit is "only" the promise of a new pact with
God (Mantel 2004: 53). The church, the priests and the Pope can therefore
not make claim of standing in a direct connection with the Holy Spirit.
Hobbes writes:

It is true, that the bodies of the faithfull, after the
Resurrection, shall be not onely Spirituall, but Eternall: but in
this life they are grosse, and corruptible. There is therefore no
other Government in this life, neither of State, nor Religion,
but Temporall (Hobbes 1991a: 322).

Hobbes furthermore rejects the distinction between body and soul and the
idea of Hell as eternal punishment (Mantel 2000: 11; Kateb 1989: 368). Man
"sleeps" after his death and is only awakened on Judgement Day. In Hobbes,
there is also nothing like sin to be found – man has exactly been given his
desires and passions from God (1991a: 89). Honouring God means having faith
in oneself as His creation (Mantel 2000: 28). Some have claimed that Hobbes
here, as elsewhere, hides his atheism in religious garments (e.g. Gauthier
1977; Strauss 1992). This is probably not the case – at least not if one
takes Hobbes' membership of the Anglican Church at face value (Mantel 2000:
9). But it is true that Hobbes' Christianity is so minimal and deistic that
the immanent is entirely left to the humans. Hobbes' religious conviction
in other words opens up the political field, indeed to everything which was
earlier inferred or derived from religious dogma. That God withdraws from
the world means that human action and freedom become possible. God has put
us in the world and given us a nature, which makes it possible for us to
establish well functioning societies. The task is thus to learn how to live
in a world, where God is silent (which is not the same as saying that God
does not exist). Hobbes, on this background, can be said to have formed a
political theory on the basis of his own theological insights (ibid.: 11f).

Tracy B. Strong claims that Hobbes' political philosophy is in accordance
with the dogma of Lutheranism: that the holy scripture alone has authority
– that truth can be claimed, even when it contradicts the established
church; and finally, most importantly, that no human authority can make
claim to the final word (1993: 133). A more instrumental interpretation is
given by George Kateb to whom Hobbes was at least as much an atheist as he
was a Christian. But he had, in any case, to deal with a world that was
Christian (Kateb 1989: 368).

Hobbes replaces Luther's conception of taking a deep look into one's
conscience with the conception of knowing one self, or rather: reading
oneself. Hobbes mistranslates the classical maxim nosce teipsum to "read"
instead of "know thy self". This happens by "reading" human nature (which
is exactly given by God) (Strong 1993: 143). Natural law has been inscribed
into people's hearts, but only few are able to see deep enough to read what
has been written. Humans therefore need written laws, which are nonetheless
a good alternative, since they are based on the imperatives of reason
(ibid.: 144). Hobbes even writes, in the appendix to the Latin edition of
the Leviathan, that it is not up to him to interpret the Bible for anyone
but himself (ibid.: 153). It is the individual who faces God (in the same
way as it is the individual who faces the sovereign). Hobbes even goes as
far as to claiming that the individual can in fact believe whatever he
wants, as long as it does not challenge the power monopoly of the
sovereign. Here, he plays the ultimate trump – the Bible itself. He
recapitulates the story of the Syrian Na'aman (2 King 5), who after having
been cured of leprosy by the Jewish prophet Elisa accepts the God of Israel
as the only true God. But Na'aman then asks, if he can be allowed to
continue worshipping his old god, when he is together with his master.
Elisa indirectly agrees by bidding him farewell. To Hobbes, the lesson from
the story about Na'aman is of course that one can believe whatever one
wants, as long as one's faith does not conflict with the maintenance of the
authority of the sovereign (Kateb 1989: 370).

The question about where the religious stops and atheism begins is almost
impossible to answer, and especially when it is asked in a time of unrest
and upheaval such as Hobbes'. Hobbes sees himself as a kind of Prometheus,
who has stolen the fire from the gods. He borrows the forms of reasoning
from religion, but does his departure from religion mean that he leaves it
altogether or that he, exactly by stealing its holy fire, recognizes its
force? Maybe the answer is a third, namely that it becomes impossible to
distinguish with Hobbes. One can argue that Hobbes is doing theological
politics as well as political theology. We have so far investigated the
first option, i.e. understanding Hobbes' writings on the background of
Luther and Protestantism, but one could also argue that Hobbes' work is an
actual political theology.

In this connection, Strong claims that Leviathan by Hobbes was seen as a
secular Bible – as the definitive and authoritarian text (1993: 131). The
central parallel between the Bible and Hobbes' work is that they both gain
their authority from the author's failure to present himself directly. The
truth of the works does not depend on their author and can not be brought
into question as such (ibid.: 148). It could be noticed that Hobbes never
answered seriously to the critique of Leviathan – why should he, when he
had written an authoritative and definitive work? Hobbes' understanding of
truth, as given immediately and without author, has thus much in common
with Luther's discussion of how the individual should read the Bible
(ibid.: 150). We can conclude with Strong as follows:

For Protestants, the great advantage of the scriptural basis of
authority is its apparent lack (or at least unavailability) of an
author. Hence it was authoritative precisely because it had no
author. […] The problem for Hobbes was how to establish civil
authority such that it shared the quality of Scripture, that is,
made itself available to humans without the quality of being
authored (ibid.: 154).

Hobbes wanted Leviathan to become the standard text in the same way as the
Bible was. As we know, the cover of Leviathan shows a giant that consists
of hundreds of little individuals, all looking at the sovereign's head,
which is said to resemble Charles the First, Charles the Second, Oliver
Cromwell, or even Hobbes himself (ibid.: 130). To Strong, however, it is
not the sovereign that these individuals are showing awe. It is the text
itself, they are turning to, and thereby Hobbes, who made the text possible
by writing that which everyone would be able to find, if they read
themselves (ibid.: 159).

But the parallel between the immanent and the beyond can of course also be
exaggerated. The God given truth is absolute: ahistorical and immediate.
The truths of the sovereign, on the other hand, are established through
convention, and on this basis their truth is considerably weaker (Mantel
2000: 87). The religious is given through revelations; societies through
agreements on pacts (Strong 1993: 140). The religious is beyond criticism,
since criticism has no object, whereas the political has the sovereign and
his actions as the objects of critique. The religious is distant and out of
reach (from this side of life); the political is near, every day, and
within reach to both criticism and rebellion.

So far we have encountered two arguments concerning the relation between
the religious and the political. The more far reaching concerns enchanting
the state to make it appear with a quasi religious aura (political
theology). The less far reaching argument concerns creating a fundament for
the state which is compatible with the religious convictions of the time
(theological politics). But there remains a third option, which concerns
disenchanting the entire magical universe or to be more precise: replacing
religious superstition and magic with science. Science here becomes
political. Not by letting itself be distorted by interests, but simply by
serving as a fundament to political community. Politics to Hobbes becomes
rational problem solving or engineering, if you will. He simply wants to
create a geometry of politics – to do for politics, what God did for
geometry (ibid.: 145).

The war on metaphors

Hobbes' understanding of science can be condensated in two postulates. One
concerning the ontological, which consists in the reduction of everything
to movement and effects. And a postulate concerning the epistemological,
consisting in a theory of reference or rather in a lack of the same. The
idea is that words do not refer to qualities in objects but get their value
through human practice. Let us look at these two postulates in turn and
along the way discuss their political implications.

A cause is to Hobbes something, which puts something else in motion. Both
humans and nature can in this way cause something, but only when the human
being is doing it can one talk of exercise of power. It is furthermore only
by concerning an effect, which has not yet manifested itself that power
distinguishes itself from causes. Power is in this sense tied to
potentiality – the ability to possibly do something. In order to exercise
power wisely, the human being must therefore seek knowledge of causes, and
this is where science offers itself (Blits 1989: 422). With a solid
knowledge of causes, one will be able to produce similar effects.

And since everything has a cause, the political community must also have it
– this is the background of Hobbes' construction of his political theory.
If we look at the contractual argument itself, it seems to follow the
following track: Hobbes tries to trace political community back to its
cause (the signing of a contract). This interpretation however is founded
on an understanding of Hobbes as a liberal, which – as it has been the aim
of this article to show – is a problematic assumption. The argument should
therefore rather go as follows: In the same way as God created the world –
was its cause – can we, on the basis of our knowledge of causes, create an
artificial god, a Leviathan. In this way, we can become our own cause.
Hobbes incidentally uses the same method when he criticizes his opponents.
The religious ideas of the opponents are traced back to their "real"
motives (causes), e.g. a striving for honour, money or power (Shulman 1989:
401). In the same way, his analysis of the English Civil War is not just
descriptive history, but an attempt at tracing the background of actions
and it should therefore be counted as genuine science. Actions are traced
back to motives, which in turn are finally traced back to the passions.
Once these reductions have been completed, we reach the fundamental level
in the shape of natural reason and the laws of nature. These principles are
eternal and indisputable, and can as such constitute the building blocks in
a geometry of politics.

And why do we see so much unrest and irrationality? Why hasn't Hobbes'
political science gained a foothold? Because science presupposes agreement
on the meaning of words and concepts, which was lacking in Hobbes' time.
God originally gave predicates to everything, but since the fall of the
Tower of Babel, we are referred to man made definitions, and they are
disputed (Strong 1993: 144). There is no way back to the age before Babel,
and instead it is the task of the earthly god, the sovereign, to establish
definitions. In Leviathan, we are introduced to a seemingly endless line of
them. Hobbes is not an empiricist. He is rather inspired by logics (another
reason why geometry is his ideal science). When the definitions are
settled, they must be accepted by all. Kaynak is therefore right, when he
depicts Hobbes' approach as a scientific absolutism (Kaynak 1982). The
procedure is the following:

Hobbes begins by claiming that language prior to sovereignty and
science merely reflects the utter subjectivity of taste; he then
redefines concepts in a disembodied and technical way that
removes the element of judgment. Finally, he insists that a
word's meaning is given by sovereign definition and enacted by
the sovereign as actor. (Shulman 1989: 410).

Language is thus not immediately a neutral medium for our association with
the world. Language gives direction to our passions and vice versa.
Language is therefore conventional, which in turn means historically given.
If the sovereign is unable to make his definitions count, meanings are
floating. Metaphors are monstrous, because one, with them, can imagine the
most fantastic numbers: e.g. centaurs or unicorns. We know that everything
has a cause, and so do these imaginary creatures – they have their origin
in an undisciplined imagination, which seeks to make its subjective
judgements count. Hobbes thus ties metaphors to everything, he loathes:
subjective imagination, passions, and the monstrous. Instead, he favours
objective judgement, reason, and "the natural" (e.g. the natural reason and
natural laws). Hobbes puts truth over falsehood, geometry over poetry, and
philosophical discourse over rhetorics (Stillman 1995: 792). And finally,
metaphors are on the side of the political opponents, and the correct
language use on Hobbes'. The movement from one extreme to the other however
demands a gigantic and heroic effort. Leviathan is this effort. Page by
page metaphors are replaced by scientific definitions and arguments (ibid.:
799). The correct language use is contrasted with the incorrect, and what
falls in this category is obvious to Hobbes. He writes:

The generall use of Speech, is to transferre our Mentall
Discourse, into Verbal; or the Trayne of our Thoughts, into a
Trayne of Words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is,
the Registring of the Consequences of our Thoughts; which being
apt to slip out of our memory, and put us to a new labour, may
again be recalled, by such words as they were marked by. So that
the first use of names, is to serve for Markes, or Notes of
remembrance. Another is, when many use the same words, to
signifie (by their connexion and order,) one to another, what
they conceive, or think of each matter; and also what they
desire, feare, or have any other passion for. And for this use
they are called Signes. Speciall uses of Speech are these; First,
to Register, what by cogitation, wee find to be the cause of any
thing, present or past; and what we find things present or past
may produce, or effect: which in summe, is acquiring of Arts.
Secondly, to shew to others that knowledge which we have
attained; which is, to Counsell, and Teach one another. Thirdly,
to make known to others our wills, and purposes, that we may have
the mutuall help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight
our selves, and others, by playing with our word, for pleasure or
ornament, innocently.
To these Uses, there are also foure correspondent Abuses. First,
when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy of the
signification of their words; by which they register for their
conceptions, that which they never conceived; and so deceive
themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that
is, in other sense than they are ordained for; and thereby
deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be
their will, which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve
one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures, some
with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve an
enemy, it is but an abuse of Speech, to grieve him with the
tongue, unlesse it be one whom wee are obliged to govern; and
then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend. (Hobbes
1991a: 25f).

But Hobbes of course fails miserably. He merely ends up replacing some
metaphors with others (Stillman 1995: 805). Giving his major work the name
of a mythic monster is of course the best, but by far not the only example.
One of Hobbes' contemporary critics, John Eachard, summarizes all of
Hobbes' metaphors in one single sentence – and this sentence stretches over
no less than 19 pages (ibid.: 796). But the worst, of course, was the title
of the book. It was monstrous, which is why Hobbes himself quickly got the
nick name "The Beast of Malmesbury" (ibid.: 794).

The sovereign, as it is described in the Leviathan, is not absolute
authority, but the symbol of it (the England of the Civil War is precisely
characterized by the absence of sovereignty). And as such the figure of
authority can be read differently and interpreted according to private
inclinations (Martel 2004: 36). In an England haunted by civil war,
Leviathan is therefore not referring to a concrete, existing state, but to
a future state, which, given that people buy the contractual argument,
could grow strong and legitimate. Hobbes' eager to replace metaphorical
constructions with real entities here reaches its peak. The metaphorical
Leviathan should be replaced by an actual, existing Leviathan (Stillman
1995: 813). This, in all simplicity, is Hobbes' project.

The double bottom

Hobbes was born on April 5 1588 – when the Spanish Armada was on its way to
England. He writes in his autobiography that his mother was so terrified
that "she bore twins, me and together with me fear" (Hobbes, quoted in
Robin 2004: 31). Hobbes was influenced by concerns about realpolitik like
no other. 180,000 people died between 1643 and 1660, and Charles the First
was beheaded (ibid.: 33). This madness had to stop – and the solution was
right at hand. The fear, on which the war lords had based themselves, could
be transformed to a fear of the sovereign's sanctions. The cause and
solution of the problems, in other words, had the same source: the crucial
was in both cases the gestalt of the psyche of the individual – its nature.

But this is not the only place, where Hobbes' arguments have a double
bottom. Hobbes not only turns fear against fear, but also religion against
religion, rhetoric against rhetoric, and metaphors against metaphors. This
is also where we find the source of the many contradicting readings of
Hobbes' work. The work is interpreted as both religious and the opposite,
as liberal and totalitarian, scientific and mythological. The answer,
however, is neither the extremes, nor their middle, but rather that Hobbes
uses the figures and reasoning of religion against religion itself. He
learns from religion the meaning of theatre, and uses this against the
church adversaries. He trumps the idea of Hell with the natural condition,
etc. A comparable span can be found in the view of the form of government,
which Hobbes is said to have sown the seeds of. In one extreme, Hobbes is
portrayed as a liberal thinker, who secures a space for the freedom of the
private person, and in the opposite extreme as an authoritarian – if not
even totalitarian – thinker, who lets the political permeate the private
space (religion become a matter of the state, etc.). Again, the answer is
neither the poles, nor somewhere in between. The contractual argument is a
liberal argument, but it is applied in an illiberal way to secure support
for state politics and, more fundamentally, the existence of the state.

The relation between the liberal and the authoritarian Hobbes is also
central to Foucault's reading of Leviathan. Foucault stresses an apparent
tension in Leviathan. On the one hand, the war with all its consequences
seems to be at the very core in Hobbes. On the other, it follows from the
assumption of rationality that people will exactly not go to war. Hobbes,
furthermore, as we have seen, legitimizes almost any kind of regime. Are
there actually any reasons left to go to war? The tension between these two
views is only apparently a paradox. Both statements are correct: The war is
everywhere present in Hobbes, and yes, Hobbes does everything he can to
make it go away. The fact of the matter of course is that England
throughout most of Hobbes' life was in a permanent condition of war, and
that he precisely for this reason wanted to remove the rationale of war.
And he did that by imagining an even vaster barbarism: the natural
condition – the war of all against all. This condition is so dystopian that
it should seize being an opportunity to rational people. Foucault writes:

Although it seems to be proclaiming that war is everywhere from
start to finish, Hobbes's discourse is in fact saying quite the
opposite. It is saying, war or no war, defeat or no defeat,
Conquest or covenant, it all comes down to the same thing: "It's
what you wanted, it is you, the subjects, who constituted the
sovereignty that represents you." […] The enemy – or rather the
enemy discourse Hobbes is addressing – is the discourse that
could be heard in the civil struggles that were tearing the State
apart in England at this time. […] It is this discourse of
struggle and permanent civil war that Hobbes wards off by making
all wars and conquests depend upon a contract, and by thus
rescuing the theory of the State. And this is of course why the
philosophy of right subsequently rewarded Hobbes with the
senatorial title of "the father of political philosophy". When
the State capitol was in danger, a goose woke up the sleeping
philosophers. It was Hobbes. (Foucault 2003: 98f).

All the previously mentioned tensions or possibilities of diverging
readings have their background in the fact that Hobbes is not only the
scientist, who calmly describes the political game, but also the ideologue
who through his writings seeks to contribute to the settlement of
conflicts. Hobbes' texts are simultaneously constative and performative.
Where, then, the scientifically describing ends, and the metaphorically
enchanting begins, is difficult to determine. And it becomes even more
difficult, when one realizes that the scientific pathos has got a practical
political dimension as well. If we want to understand Hobbes and his work
we must acknowledge that he, as a theoretician, not only reflects the
political conditions of his time, but also reflects on the impact of his
reflections on them. Hobbes, on this background, is not only a thinker, who
thinks power: its different shapes, the limitations and possibilities of
its exercise, its desirable institutionalization, etc. To Hobbes, thinking
is also power. Political reality is discursively formatted, which is why
the political also becomes a struggle over ideas and their impact. Hobbes'
success and influence was modest in his own age. Do we have to mention that
it is immense today?

Translated (from Danish) by Henrik Jøker Bjerre


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