New Technology

Maybe we forgot what democracy is and therefore, don’t really know what we might lose in these coming years. So we might start from the beginning.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) started with the premise that “good”, what is good for each of us, is what people seek on an individual level. The good is what he or she desire.  And that this “good” he believed and search of good is a “state of nature.”  Pg. 74; The World Philosophy Made, Scott Soames. And this “good” is what allows each of us to survive. Hobbes says the best process for maximizing one’s own “good” means that each of us, depending on oneself alone, must have the freedom to maximize ones abilities to gain that “good” for our survival.

And recognizing that we can’t survive alone, we formed societies. In doing so, by forming these societies, we established a “state” and that we agree to submit to this “state” authority because in doing so, it is in our interest.

“Imagine a species of rational creatures who didn’t have social values – each of whom cared only for him or herself, and placed no value on the well being of others. They might be as intelligent and rational as we are, but without any desire to form social attachments. They might cooperate when they believe it to be to their own individual advantage, but they would always be on the lookout for ways to cheat the system, and bend it to their own selfish interests. Hence, they wouldn’t trust one another and they would have no socially inculcated morality.” ….. “Their systems of cooperation would be much more fragile and limited that ours. Because of this, their chances of evolutionary success might not be very great.” Pg. 85; The World Philosophy Made, Scott Soames.

Each of us can immediately recognize that it would be in our own self interest to forgo some of our “selfish interests” and desires to gain support within the society/state we created, enabling each of us to “maximize” our good/interest together. Hobbes considered this to be the state of nature. Hobbes imagined a possible social structure in which we each give up our natural right to seek our own advantage and we transfer this right to the state with the intention that the state that we formed has our best interests at heart. Since we cannot survive alone, this state allows us to cooperate with each other in seeking our desires not to the expense or exploitation of others and this system is our society. Cooperation promotes survival and as such, human beings are social animals.

So in these troubling times, we should look to the essential nature of our social contract with each other and examine if our behavior falls inline with out survival.