Locke, Hobbes, and Disaster...

I've been preparing this afternoon for the upcoming lesson on the philosophy behind the creation of the American government. Whether I can engage the kids on such heady matters is yet to be determined, but I always enjoy some good philosophical reading. Within the subject matter, of course, is the Social Contract theory. I've been reading excerpts from Hobbes' Leviathan and Locke's Two Treatises.


All the while I've been keeping up with the madness that is New Orleans. The contrast between the political philosophers mentioned above seems to be playing itself out in real time in the streets of that ravaged city. Locke took a friendly view of the State of Nature: claiming that in Nature we would all live relatively peacefully because of the Law of Nature which lends a moral compass (paraphrased loosely). I can see this particular viewpoint in the thousands and tens of thousands who left with no civil authority are taking their own flat bottomed boats and going out on search and rescue missions, who are looking out for neighbors in many cases before they consider their own well being...

And then there's Hobbes version. The two both agree on the necessity of a Social Contract to form some sort of civil government--but I'll leave that for my lucky students tomorrow--, but their vision of the State of Nature are quite contradictory. Hobbes sees an all out war as the original Nature. One in which every man is warring with every man. One in which the chaos is so tremendous that people begin to long for some sort of authority.... But this version of the State of Nature is also present in the Big Easy. (not such a fitting name anymore) The thugs that are raping and carjacking and killing and looting--yeah I can accept the difference between stealing food and water and even clothing. Ones who shoot at helicopters that are attempting to evacuate people from hospitals. It seems that Hobbes was right. And so was Locke.

What causes these differences? The desperation argument only takes me so far. I can't move with that cause into the reports of gang rape and senseless murder. Can anyone help me out on this one?

dt