Hobbes, Kubrick and the Timeless Paradigm

of the Leviathan

14/2/03

Thomas Hobbes was a political philosopher who lived from 1588 to 1679. His book Leviathan, an

amalgamation of his life's writing, was an attempt to break away from previous political thinking,

to come up with a new conception of the state. His writing reflects a time of fighting, the English

Civil War, and accordingly, his theories were based on the violence around him. The Catholics and

the Protestants were in a condition of conflict. Hobbes's generation was pervaded by a feeling of

skepticism to positive change, suspension of emotional involvement in the serious questions of

life, and secularism. Hobbes felt that all previous philosophers had failed to lead the people

toward peace; and with these frustrations in mind, Hobbes set two intentions for Leviathan: 1) to

prove that civic peace can be obtained and maintained, and that men can fulfill their civic duties,

like the other theorists all suggested, but unlike the others, 2) that moral and political philosophy

was scientific, and that it was scientific method that could map out human nature and lead the way

to civic peace.

Hobbes identified the main player in politics as the state. The state is an artifact, something that

we, humans, have created because peace and order are more important to us than freedom. He

explained that nominalism is a reality in society, and therefore all universals or ideas are just

words, invented by humans. Until humans created society, they were in a state of nature, in which

no one was secure, as the only law that governed them as the Law of Nature. And as the Law of

Nature was not an artifact of human creation, it could not be relied upon for security. Hobbes

describes the state of nature as a state of war, everyone against everyone else, in which each is

governed by his or her own reason. "Every man has a Right to every thing; even to on anothers

body"; it follows that the state of nature contains no security, just humans fighting for survival.

Hobbes continues by making his appeal to reason, "that every man, out to endeavour Peace, as

farre as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all

helps, and advantages of Warre." (1, 91-2) In summary, the fundamental laws of nature 1) to seek

peace, and 2) to defend ourselves.

Now, there is a counter to the state of nature, and that is the artificial state humankind has created,

the state we build by going through our daily lives, into which we invest our power, our sweat and

our loyalty. In return, we are delivered from the chaos inherent in the state of nature, and we are

relocated to the Leviathan. The Leviathan is essentially the state, and apparently, in Hobbes's view,

the ideal state to protect us. For, the wayward character of the state of nature poses a constant

threat to our security, hence the security dilemma. Hobbes makes it very clear, through hyperbole

(as was the style of his time), that our security is in dire straits without the paramount protection of

the sovereign, the overarching defender of our right to order and peace, the Leviathan.

Hobbes's writing in Leviathan are both descriptive and prescriptive. His country was marked by

strife that tore apart families and friends over ideology, and Hobbes longed for lasting peace.

While he endeavoured to be didactic and teach everyone how civil life could be in the closest

thing to utopia, he was, in actual fact and perhaps inadvertently, accurately depicting the modern

state and modern international relations. Having translated any anachronisms to contemporary

politics and swapping exaggeration for realism, careful consideration of Hobbes's work reveals

many truths about today's society, within and without the state, that have not changed for hundreds

of years. Hobbes's concept of human nature is tantamount to some modern realist discourse on

international relations; security under the Leviathan equates to security under the nation-state; the

security dilemma converts to the fragility of the alliance, agreement, coalition, contract or

commonwealth; and the Leviathan itself is the modern sovereign state and its representatives.

Some more recent political philosophers, Locke, Wolff, Vattel and their peers, argue that a moral

equality is what holds us together and we will not wrong other people or state unjustifiably. But

the state is strong and fiercely independent, Hobbes would argue, and all states have different

conceptions of the moral, the reasonable and the just.

Hannah Arendt brings some background information to the occurrences and the sentiments of the

times of Hobbes. The Modern Age was in its infant stages. All authors, scientists and philosophers

had begun, by Hobbes's time, to think things they had never thought before, even though motives

and intentions were frequently rooted in tradition. "The stability of the world [was] undermined in

a constant process of change." An example of a disruptive change around Hobbes's time was the

enclosure movement of Henry the Eighth. Certain groups were deprived of "their place in the

world", and "the original accumulation of wealth" (entrepreneurship) combined with a healthy

supply of labour to give rise to a capitalist economy in England. (2)

Stanley Kubrick was a film director. He may not have realised it, but he was also a Hobbesian.

Two of his most noteworthy and interesting contributions to movie history, which I construe as

extensions of Leviathan, as Full Metal Jacket, about the US's involvement in the Vietnam War,

and A Clockwork Orange, a harrowing look at the future of civil society. Both of these movies

embody some of the arguments of Leviathan that hold true today. A Clockwork Orange assists in

explaining the state of nature in a more literally interpreted sense. Alex, our humble narrator, and

his friends, or "droogs", live the lives of criminals. Kubrick's postulation seems to be that, if

society as we know it degenerates steadily for some ten, twenty, thirty years, a kind of state of

nature will develop. Some will seek peace, others justice, and still more will seek the Hobbesian

human nature path of doing whatever they want. For fun, Alex and his droogs seek out "ultra-

violence". There is no law and order in the world, no justice beyond that which we effect

ourselves; for the authorities, while extant, uphold the law only if and when it is convenient to do

so. The young, including the police, beat and rape. The old are either homeless and victims or rich

and have no desire to change the status quo. Does Kubrick maintain that humans have a natural

proclivity to violence? That we have no conscience? Paints a somewhat pessimistic landscape of

the future, doesn't he? But wait. Are those injustices not going on now, under our noses? People

tried to torture Alex in the name of the wrong he had done them: when there is no justice, one

must take the law into one's own hands. During war, the height of the modern state of nature,

torture, beating and raping civilians is often just part of the program. J. Ann Tickner cites an

example: "As illustrated by the Bosnian case, rape is not just an accident of war but is, or can be, a

systematic military strategy." (3, 129) Moreover, appeals to troops' masculinity and protecting of

the weak, ie. Women, "who are seen as dependent and incapable can contribute to misogyny." UN

peacekeeping operations bring back stories of sexual assault that are written off as the right of

young soldiers. (Ibid., 130) The state of nature is dangerous, as Hobbes says, and exists both

outside the polis and inside if we have the freedom to live comfortably by it.

Full Metal Jacket takes us immediately to the Leviathan. The sovereign, the omnipresent authority

to which the citizens hand over all their power, is the United States of America; but the

representative of the sovereign is borrowing this power from the state--just as the state is

essentially borrowing its power from its citizens--to teach the recruits to become soldiers. The

representative of the state is the superior; indeed, is he not known as a superior officer? The

recruits stand silent. Where they had the power to speak at one point in their lives, "from now on

you will speak only when spoken to," for they have transferred all their power to their superior

officer, again, the representative of the Leviathan. The sovereign wants to send these boys to fight

for the state. The Leviathan guarantees its citizens' security: that is its function. Hobbes points out

that what we want is security, and not to be subject to the anarchy of others. The officer tells them

that they are all equal under his power: "here you are all equally worthless." And to deviate from

the rules? Anything but complete deference to authority results in physical punishment. The use of

force. Every order, as it is sanctioned by the Leviathan and dealt by its agent, is followed to the

letter, or else the state sanctions more force. The justice system, while well established in the US,

is for dealing with deviants, under which category the officers shall not fall: the state has a

monopoly on the use of violence.

The soldiers are conditioned to want war. War is a state of nature, and the Vietnam War is an

example of the state of nature in a modern context. Since the combatants on both sides feel loyal

to their own state, Hobbes's ideas of the state of nature being between individuals moves to the

chessboard of interstate conflict. The indoctrination is ordered by the superior office. Every night,

the boys repeat that "my rifle is my life" and that they are useless without it. The Vietnamese (the

"Gooks") are the enemy, and "I will defend my country until there is no more enemy, only peace."

"Your killer instincts must be clean and strong," says the superior officer. It is a kill or be killed

situation. Considering this fact, is Hobbes's writing even an exaggeration after all? The hatred for

the enemy brings on a kind of racism that can only be classified as nationalism: since the corps is

made up of both black and white men, and yet they feel a common bond with each other and

antipathy toward the Gooks, it is not the fact that they are of another race that creates friction: it is

their distinct nationality that sets them apart. But if the state is an artifact, devised by man,

nationalism is also an artifact, and indoctrination is the construction phase.

The boys go off to war to uphold and reaffirm their sovereign right. The Leviathan is shrouding

the populace with its aegis. Whether true or not, the Leviathan claims to defend its people to the

last. The team of field journalists reports the truth of the war to the other marines (just as any

respectable medium would during a time of war), and they recount two kinds of stories: 1) how

great we are to them, and 2) a US mission that results in a kill. The Leviathan is writing stories and

retelling them to show how well it keeps everyone safe, how happy everyone on our side is. This

process is necessary to legitimise the role of the state in the war. As the state perpetuates the

stories, the stories perpetuate the state. The Leviathan provides "security".

A modern illustration of the security dilemma arises in Vietnam The two sides have signed an

agreement whereby, every year, for a national Vietnamese holiday, there is to be a ceasefire. So

one year, on this day, though unexpected, though deviating from the rules that were so clearly laid

out, the enemy attacked. The Leviathan can establish security when it exercises power that

outranks that of its enemy. But deviants make the security of the Leviathan break down. "'Power,'

Hobbes argues, 'if it be extraordinary, is good, because it is useful for protection... If it be not

extraordinary, it is useless.'" (4a, 147) History tells us that the US ended up losing the Vietnam

War, and this loss is evidently attributable to the US's lack of dominating power. It lost the power

to protect the South Vietnamese, and later, its own soldiers, because its power was not

extraordinary. This instance is the security dilemma in a nutshell. As distinct from Hobbes's notion

of creating a pact or contract between citizens, one was created between countries; but returning

with alacrity to Hobbes, one party broke the contract and the state of nature, in its chaos, was

released, and many people were killed in the battle that ensued. The security dilemma is a mutable

and errant struggle for compliance (when it suits).

David Boucher, in his chapter on the international society, shows the counter to Hobbes's

descriptions of modern society. Like Hobbes, Locke et al. Believe that individuals are free and

equal in the state of nature. However, their natural equality does not stop at the physical or mental,

but is a moral equality as long as rights and obligations are the same. (4b, 261) Their theories are

founded on moral and ethical grounds, "constraints which if deviated from impel the transgressor

to give moral justifications for his actions." (Ibid., 262) The existence of might does not lead to the

Law of Nature, nor does it legitimise itself: as Boucher recapitulates for Wolff, "right and might

are not correlative." People will not do just anything to each other, and so neither do nations

legitimise their actions by the Law of Nations. According to Wolff, if a nation is not harmed or

threatened by another, it has no cause to use force against it. (Ibid., 261) Vattel adds to this point

that "nations should not feel free to do whatever can be done [as Hobbes implies] with impunity,

when it is contrary to the 'immutable laws of justice and the voice of conscience.'" (Ibid., 262)

History (or what was, at the time, the future) has caused realists to all but dismiss this way of

thinking. All states have different conceptions of morality, and seem continuously to be able to

legitimise their exploits. Actions taken in the name of one's nation, or nationalism, have saturated

the history of the twentieth century. Lest we forget the World Wars, rampant colonialism and

disregard for international treaties, I give Hitler as a prime example. Hitler invaded other countries

and exterminated many of those he found there and at home because they were of a different race.

His Nazi party's ability to convince the people of his country that the others were the enemy was

justification enough. Hitler instilled the people with passion because he knew, unlike Locke and

his contemporaries, that it is not reason, not reason-based thinking like moralising, but passion

that motivates men. A further attack on morality comes from Leo Strauss, who puts forth that

political life is not subject to morality, and that political society cannot be established and

preserved by staying within the limits of morality: the effect cannot precede the cause. (5)

Some of the axioms and even the less apparent truths of Thomas Hobbes's writing correctly depict

times present, past and, if Stanley Kubrick has any say, future in the international realm. The

nature of both the state and the domain of international relations have changed since Hobbes's

time but the basic truths have remained the same. His discourse on human nature is like the

current layout of international relations. The nation-state safeguards its people just like the

Leviathan. The security dilemma and the frailty of any agreement a state enters into today are

proximate. The representatives of the sovereign state wield the power handed down by the

Leviathan. While I do not think he achieved his objectives with Leviathan, Hobbes nonetheless

provides much insight that helps to explain why things are the way they are.

1. Hobbes, Thomas: Leviathan. Revised student edition, edited by Richard Tuck, 1996,

Cambridge University Press.

2. Arendt, Hannah: "The Viva Activa of the Modern Age". From The Human Condition, 1958,

University of Chicago Press.

3. Tickner, J. Ann: "You Just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements between Feminists and

IR Theorists". From Karen Mingst and Jack Snyder: Essential Readings in World Politics, 2001,

W. W. Norton & Co.

4. Boucher, David: Political Theories of International Relations, 1998, Oxford University

Press.

a) Chapter 7: "Inter-community and international relations in the political philosophy of Hobbes."

b) Chapter 11: "International and cosmopolitan societies: Locke, Vattel and Kant."

5. Strauss, Leo: "Three Waves of Modernity". From An Introduction to Political Philosophy:

ten essays, edited by Hilail Gilden, 1989, Wayne State University Press.