Fear as A Political Motivator

[Abu Suleyman]

Perhaps this is what I get for being overly rhetorical, and using an emotionally charged word such as 'fear'. So instead let me abandon the rhetoric completely.

What I am saying is that in the Middle East we have a nearly absolute Hobbesian "Natural State." According to Hobbes (and I am going to distill an exceedingly long book into a few pages) in our natural state, violence is ubiquitous and life is "nasty brutish and short." Because everyone has a right to everything we are constantly trying to kill each other, or harm each other to take it. We have may have a desire, or greed, that wants us to take everything, but we have an aversion to the outcome which is a high probability of violent death. Therefore society came together and ceded some of the rights that we had to the sovereign in exchange for the protection that the sovereign gives us against violent death caused by each other.

In the modern world the sovereign is not the theoretical individual that Hobbes posits, but instead a system or 'regime' in political speak. Mr. Friedman is saying that because the aversion that is motivating current changes is an aversion by a third party that will not participate in a regime there is a limit to how much progress can be made with the current situation. I maintain that there is sufficient aversion to a variety of situations, caused by a variety of actors, that are the philosophical equivalents of violent death that a Hobbesian bargain can be struck and we can see peace, or at least stability.

This is not manipulation of fear. This is how governments are formed. John Locke built upon the ideas of Hobbes, and said that by dividing powers we could keep the Sovereign from taking over our individual live. Nevertheless, he conceded the original motivation for the contractual theory of government. Hobbes' idea, by way of Locke is a major inspiration of the U.S. Constitution, and is specifically referenced throughout may founding documents including the very important Federalist Papers. Lest we be too American centric these ideas also underpin essentially every liberal government in the world, usually by way of the British or French government which serve as models, and themselves reference Hobbes and Locke. And while Marx and Nietzsche differed on many counts with the goals of contractual government, as far as I know they never repudiate the responsibility of the government to provide security (that was left for other 'theorists' who followed them.)

To require Arabs to find a stable and liberal form of government without acknowledging and understanding the foundations of our own, and worse yet without allowing them to appeal to the same basic human motivations is hypocritical. It is like requiring a first time cook to bake a cake without looking at your recipe or using flour.

This is social science. I am asserting clearly and unequivocally a traditional liberal political theory view of the Middle East. If this is not a valid theory I would like to hear about it, but on its own merits, not because of some aesthetic aversion to the word fear. And if it isn't valid then I would like to hear a counter-theory to the way governments and regimes form, so that we can test that, and perhaps advocate that as a way of resolving our small wars.

I got a little fired up in writing this. I hope I don't come across as too much of an ideologue. I really do want a discussion on this, because I believe that we are trying to create solutions without understanding what human nature and political nature are. I see also that others have posted since I started this post so it may not be particularly sequitur Theorists and scientists are the people who help us understand the nature of the things we are dealing with. And that is why this post is in this forum.