.jpeg){kind=small}
Another excellent work in the Red Rising series. If anything, the swings from rescued to captured and back again, or betrayed and aided unexpectedly, become almost emotionally exhausting. To Brown's credit, many of his plot twists do involve the unexpected, even if the timing sometimes leave a sense of inevitability about them. This one finishes what was originally a trilogy very well, though obviously enough strands were left open that Brown is apparently coming out with a sixth book in the continuing series... I wonder if he'll be able to keep up all the elements that made the first three so satisfying to read, but their commercial success so far seems to indicate that Brown manages in the sequels. I look forward to finding out for myself. Definitely a good read, a welcome addition to contemporary science fiction!
Obviously a very important and influential work, yet most people read only snippets in high school or college. His arguments concerning sovereignty--that it is absolute, unchecked, and can make unlimited demands of the subjects--do have a certain simplicity and internal logic. Given the background he came from, civil war and disorder in Great Britain, one can understand a preference for order and even strength in government. But horrors had been inflicted by sovereigns on their subjects before, and a century of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other such would murder more than 100 million, mostly of their own subjects.
He admires geometry for being the only method "whose Conclusions have thereby been made indisputable" by beginning "from the Definitions, or Explications of the names they are to use." (p 43) He is quite convinced that his own reasoning is based on just such a solid ground of indisputable reasoning based on empirical definitions. Yet a glance at some of his definitions might give a modern reader laughing fits, for instance, "Sudden Dejection is the passion that causeth WEEPING; and is caused by such accidents, as suddenly take away some vehement hope, or some prop of their power; and they are most subject to it, that rely principally on helps external, such as are Women." (p 56)
He perhaps understandably places the right of sovereignty in the person of the sovereign, being almost indistinguishable from the office of the sovereign in the case of a monarch (his admittedly preferred system of government). However, when he insists that such sovereignty is in the person of each individual among a sovereign assembly, one begins to see the error of this reasoning more plainly. After all, even in monarchy, "The king is dead, long live the king!" It is the office, and not the individual, that is sovereign, regardless of how much (or little) sovereignty is actually wielded.
As he sees sovereignty as only belonging to individuals, he can see no way to share or check such sovereignty without actually making the sharing or checking individual(s) the actual sovereign(s). He could in no way understand how an entire people might claim to be sovereign, and then delegate some of that sovereignty, on a conditional and limited basis, to representatives chosen or assigned by them to carry out the serving tasks of a state structure (police, courts, military, etc.). Too bad Rose Wilder Lane was still so far to Hobbes' future, she gives a terrific explanation in The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority.
Another error is one frequently honed in on by libertarians and anarchists, namely that concerning the so-called social contract. As Hobbes himself insists, "nor can any Law be made, till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it." (p 125) When was the last time someone I voted for actually entered into elected office? I might as well vote in North Korea for as much as my vote counts for anything in the United States. Am I not bound by the laws of that country then? I wasn't around when the social contract was first written (the Constitution, in that case), so I never agreed to it, either. Or as Hobbes himself says, "For no man is obliged by a Covenant, whereof he is not Author; nor consequently by a Covenant made against, or beside the Authority he gave." (p 162)
Hobbes says "when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his Right; then is he said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he Ought, and it his DUTY, not to make voyd that voluntary act of his own: and that such hindrance is INJUSTICE, and INJURY, as being Sine Jure; the Right being before renounced, or transferred." (p 130) Again, in my case, I was not conquered by the present government and never surrendered my rights, nor did I immigrate voluntarily, but rather was born into it. Hobbes would answer that a father can bind his children, so I guess I inherited the capitulation of my ancestors, but that would seem to undermine Hobbes' above argument for agreement and personal authorship being a necessary precondition.
Hobbes does try to salvage his theory from the objections of dissidents by insisting, "because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a Soveraigne; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest." (p 178) I can't say Hobbes doesn't offer reasons for this bald assertion, but they are of the gymnastic sort that will make your head hurt, especially as they seem to implicitly accuse the dissenters of having entered into conference with the majority to decide the question in the first place, and thereby obliged them to submit to the final outcome no matter what. What then of quietists who entered into conference with no one? Or those who perhaps weren't invited, or those who are not yet even born? His "reasons" don't come close to addressing such objections.
Another problem with Hobbes' line of social contract argument is the fact that non-delivery in a contract voids it, and since the business of the sovereign is "Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety)" (p 8), does any injury to my (or others') safety render the contract void? The first time any of us are victims of crime? Whenever we suffer from food poisoning, or a dangerous or faulty product, or just cause harm to ourselves of our own volition?
Had he limited his work to the political side of things, this would have rated four stars. However, once he ventures in completely over his head with theology and philosophy, the book becomes quite painful. He is completely out of his depth. He explodes scores of scripture passages as metaphor, parable, or the like that are plainly narrative in nature, while referring to those (like the entire book of Job) that are parable as direct explanation of the way things are. He denies the existence of any incorporeal bodies whatsoever. He mocks those that take alternative points of view, yet he makes no attempt of his own to explain what, then, is God Himself. Is He merely another corporeal being, a person walking around somewhere, or merely an idea in the minds of people?
He insists religion can only exist as it conforms to the dictates of the sovereign and he insists that Jesus made it so when declaring "give unto caesar..." Hobbes seems conveniently forgetful that Jesus was not only convicted as a criminal by the civil authority of his day, but executed for his crimes. Hobbes excuses the martyrdom of the apostles and other disciples in that they were eyewitnesses, and somehow (he doesn't really explain how) discharged from their unconditional duty to obedience, but then skips 300 years of human history to when Christianity became legal, without addressing the thousands of martyrs who were not eyewitnesses to the life of Christ. Nor does he take on Julian the Apostate...
In fact, his whole philosophy, both the political and religious aspects, seem custom designed to apologize for and justify Henry VIII and Elizabeth. He reordered everything else, redefining all his precious geometry-precise definitions with all the elasticity needed to bend and twist to prove his starting point as if it were actually conclusion. I would quote more of his absurdities here and offer robust refutations, but a glance through my highlights and notes should be sufficient for most.
I wouldn't exactly call it a good read, but because of its impact, it is an important one. For the die-hards, good luck with reading the whole thing cover-to-cover, perhaps switch hit with lighter reading to get through it all. For others, you could probably pick up at about Chapter X and finish at about Chapter XXX, perhaps adding in the Review and Conclusion for good measure. I would skip the entire section on religion unless you really get off on hating the Pope and the Catholic Church and you don't mind seeing both scripture and logic butchered to get there, in which case you'd probably find at least some of it amusing. Honestly though, one could do a better job of going after the Catholic Church than Hobbes, if that's your thing. Perhaps the snippets you got in high school or university were more than enough, after all...