Michael: Most of us like to think people are basically good. We want to believe in cooperation, in community, in some kind of innate decency. Kevin: Yeah, of course. Otherwise, what’s the point? You have to believe that, or getting out of bed in the morning becomes a real challenge. Michael: But what if that's a dangerous illusion? What if, without a boot on our necks, without some overwhelming power forcing us to behave, we'd all descend into a brutal, violent free-for-all? Kevin: Whoa, that's a dark start. A boot on our necks? That sounds… unpleasant. Who came up with such a cheerful view of humanity? Michael: That would be the one and only Thomas Hobbes, in his monumental 1651 work, Leviathan. And this wasn't just some armchair philosophy for him. He wrote this while in exile in Paris, having fled the absolute chaos and bloodshed of the English Civil War. He was literally watching his country tear itself apart from a distance. Kevin: Okay, that adds some serious context. He wasn't just theorizing in a comfortable study; he was a political refugee watching his world burn. That probably colors your perspective a bit. Michael: It colors it completely. The book is a direct, visceral reaction to the horror of civil breakdown. It’s an attempt to answer the most fundamental question of politics: how do we stop ourselves from killing each other? Kevin: And his answer involves a boot. I'm sensing this is going to be an intense ride. So what did he see that made him so profoundly pessimistic about us?

Michael: He started with a famous thought experiment. He asked, what would life be like in a "state of nature"? A world with no government, no laws, no police, no one to enforce any rules. Kevin: It’s like the first ten minutes of a zombie apocalypse movie, right? Where the power goes out, and suddenly your friendly neighbor is eyeing your canned goods with a baseball bat. Michael: That's a perfect modern analogy. Hobbes argued that in this state, three things would drive human behavior: competition, for resources; diffidence, which is a kind of deep-seated fear or mistrust of others; and glory, the desire for reputation. Without a common power to keep everyone in awe, these drivers would inevitably lead to what he called a "war of every man against every man." Kevin: A war of all against all. That’s a famous line. But is it really a constant, literal war? Or more of a state of constant readiness for a fight? Michael: It’s the readiness. He clarifies it’s not just about active fighting, but the known disposition to fight. It’s the cold war of human existence. You can't trust anyone. You can't build anything, because you have no assurance you'll get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You can't have industry, culture, or knowledge. Life, in his most famous and chilling phrase, becomes "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Kevin: Wow. "Nasty, brutish, and short." That’s one of the bleakest, most powerful descriptions of existence I've ever heard. It’s so visceral. But I have to push back a little. People aren't all monsters. Even in chaotic situations, we see people cooperating, forming communities, helping each other. Doesn't that contradict his whole premise? Michael: It’s a great question, and it’s where his argument gets really sharp. He’d say that yes, we might form small groups, but then those groups would just go to war with other groups. The fundamental problem doesn't disappear. And his core argument rests on a radical idea of equality. Kevin: Equality? He sounds like the last person to be talking about equality. Michael: It's not the kind of equality we usually talk about. It’s not about equal talents or equal wealth. For Hobbes, it’s the equality of vulnerability. Specifically, the equal ability to kill one another. The strongest person can be killed by the weakest through secret plotting or by ganging up with others. No one is safe. No one can ever be powerful enough to be secure on their own. Kevin: Huh. That’s a grim way to think about it. The fact that anyone can kill anyone else means everyone has a reason to fear everyone else. And that fear is the dominant emotion. Michael: Exactly. Fear is the engine of the state of nature. It’s a world governed by the fear of a violent death. You don't attack your neighbor because you're evil; you attack your neighbor because you're afraid they might attack you first. It's a preemptive strike for survival. It’s a terrifying, but logical, spiral into chaos. Kevin: And this wasn't just a thought experiment for him. You said he was living through the English Civil War. Michael: Precisely. He saw a nation that had a king, laws, and institutions suddenly collapse. Brother was fighting brother, towns were being sacked, and the established order had completely dissolved. For him, the "state of nature" wasn't some prehistoric fantasy; it was what 1640s England looked like. It was the political equivalent of a black hole, a state of total collapse that society could fall into if its central authority failed. Kevin: That makes it so much more powerful. He’s not just saying, "Imagine if we had no rules." He's saying, "Look out the window. This is what happens. This is the default state of humanity when things fall apart." Michael: And that universal, paralyzing fear is what Hobbes believed could, paradoxically, be our salvation. It's the one thing everyone has in common. It's the very thing that pushes us to desperately seek a way out. Kevin: A way out that, I'm guessing, leads us to his big, scary solution. Michael: It leads us directly to the Leviathan.

Michael: So, faced with a life that is nasty, brutish, and short, what does a rational, self-interested person do? They look for an escape route. Hobbes argues that we use our reason to discover what he calls "Laws of Nature." The most fundamental of these is to seek peace. Kevin: That makes sense. Anything is better than a constant state of war. So how do you get peace? Michael: You make a deal. A contract. A covenant. Everyone in the state of nature gets together and agrees to give up their "right to all things"—which is basically the freedom to do whatever you want to preserve your own life, including killing others. Kevin: Okay, so everyone agrees to lay down their weapons. But you can't trust anyone to keep their word. I might agree, but the moment your back is turned, I might just take all your stuff. Words are just words. Michael: "Covenants, without the sword, are but words," is almost exactly what Hobbes wrote. You're right. An agreement is useless without an enforcer. So, the social contract has a second, crucial part. Everyone agrees to surrender their right of self-governance to a single entity—a man or an assembly of men—and authorize all of its actions. This entity is the sovereign. This new, all-powerful sovereign is the Leviathan. Kevin: Hold on. Let me get this straight. The solution to the chaos of everyone having power is to give one person or one group all the power? Unconditionally? Michael: Unconditionally and absolutely. The Leviathan holds the sword. Its job is to enforce the contract and keep the peace, using fear to ensure obedience. The sovereign is not a party to the contract; it’s a product of it. It’s above the law because it is the source of the law. Its power cannot be divided, and it cannot be justly overthrown by its subjects, because they have all authorized its actions in advance. Kevin: That sounds like trading one monster for another, potentially much bigger one! This is where the book gets incredibly controversial, isn't it? It sounds like a blueprint for absolute dictatorship. Michael: Absolutely. And it was seen as such immediately. He was accused of being an apologist for tyranny. But you have to look at it from Hobbes's perspective. He forces you to make a choice. On one hand, you have the state of nature—chaos, fear, and constant, violent death. On the other, you have the Leviathan—an all-powerful sovereign that might be oppressive, but provides peace and order. For Hobbes, the choice was obvious. Even the worst tyrant is better than a civil war. Kevin: I’m not sure everyone would agree with that. A brutal dictator can be just as deadly as a civil war. Michael: Hobbes’s argument is that the sovereign, however powerful, has a rational self-interest in keeping the commonwealth prosperous and peaceful. A king who rules over a pile of ashes and corpses isn't much of a king. The chaos of civil war, however, has no such rational constraint. It's pure destruction. What's also fascinating is how this idea was radical in other ways. He wasn't defending the divine right of kings. He grounds the sovereign's legitimacy not in God's will, but in a rational contract made by the people themselves. It's a secular, almost scientific justification for power. Kevin: So the power comes from the people, but once they give it away, they can't take it back. That’s a one-way ticket. Michael: It's a one-way ticket. The frontispiece of the original book is this incredible image of a giant man, the Leviathan, whose body is made up of thousands of tiny little people. He holds a sword in one hand and a scepter in the other, towering over a peaceful landscape. The people aren't just his subjects; they literally are him. They have fused their individual wills into his. Kevin: That's a powerful and frankly creepy image. It makes me think about the trade-offs we make today for security or convenience. We give up our data to tech giants for a seamless online experience. We accept increased surveillance in the name of public safety. Are we constantly making these little Hobbesian bargains without even realizing it? Michael: I think that's the most profound way to read Hobbes today. He exposes the fundamental tension that exists in every society. The tension between freedom and security. He just takes it to its most extreme and logical conclusion. He’s asking a question that we are still wrestling with every single day.

Kevin: So when you boil it all down, the book isn't really an argument for dictatorship, is it? It feels more like a stark, terrifying warning about what happens when social trust completely collapses. The Leviathan is the emergency protocol for humanity. Michael: That’s a perfect way to put it. It’s a last resort. Hobbes isn't celebrating absolute power; he's presenting it as the only logical alternative to self-destruction. His core insight is that peace is not our natural state. It’s an artificial creation. It’s a fragile, carefully engineered truce that we build out of our deepest, most primal fear. The Leviathan is the machine we build to save us from ourselves. Kevin: And that machine requires us to give up a part of our own nature, our own freedom, to make it work. Michael: Yes. And the book’s influence is just immense. It laid the groundwork for all of modern political philosophy. Thinkers like John Locke and Rousseau wrote in direct response to him. Every debate we have about the role of government, about the balance between individual rights and collective security, is in some way a conversation with the ghost of Thomas Hobbes. Kevin: It’s amazing how a book written over 370 years ago, in response to a specific English war, can feel so relevant. It’s because he’s not just talking about politics; he’s talking about human nature. Michael: He is. He forces us to look in the mirror and confront the darkest potential within ourselves and our societies. And he leaves us with that one, deeply uncomfortable, and timeless question. Kevin: What’s that? Michael: What are you willing to give up to not be afraid? And is the price ever too high? Kevin: That is a heavy question to end on. It really makes you look at the world, and the rules we live by, a little differently. We'd love to hear what you all think. What's the biggest 'Leviathan' in your life—the thing you grant power to in exchange for peace or security? Let us know. We're always curious to hear your perspectives. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.