Love does NOT make the world go 'round
Love: we all fall victim to it at one point or another in our lives, in varying forms and degrees. It is tremedously tempting to view love as this wonderful thing that makes the world go 'round, the driving force behind our dreams and aspirations. While we all explicitly seek love, not all of us seek power (or do we?--I'll get to this). As Iain eloquently put it (while horribly misspelling 'eloquently'--sorry Iain, I had to say something), "[Love] is both our best and favorite drink and we all cannot get enough". Hobbes reduces love and hate to mere appetites, inclinations we have towards and away from things (6.3-4). He too recognizes that while we may each desire different things, we all desire (11.1); ie: we all "love" (and hate). However, Hobbes argues that we all have "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power" (11.2), not "love after love" as Iain (and Cher) would say. Hobbes argues that our pursuit of power is "not always ... for a more intensive delight", but simply because we always require "power and means to live well" (11.2).
Nicely put, Hobbes, but I can't help but ponder if one can reach a state of living in which one does not require more power to live well? There is always pressure from others, competition, which forces one to constantly compete in order to maintain a means to live well. This is true in any society, whether there is a Leviathan figure or not, due to the very nature of work, labour, money exchange, etc. One way to avoid this competition would be if there was a purely utopian communist state, in which everything is shared equally among everyone, and then one wouldn't have to work harder than his fellow man in order to ensure a means to live well (then we could ask what's the motivation for anyone to work, other than the continuing everything runs smooth, in which case would technology ever progress? Mind you, that's a whole other debate). The only other way to avoid this competition and thus our relentless pursuit of power, is if one chooses to live in solitude, isolated from society. If a person is completely self-sustaining, then one does not require to pursue any more power than is necessary to provide food, water, and shelter for oneself. This would be a constant amount of power yeilded over nature, not any fellow man. This is fine and dandy, however, I do not believe Hobbes would find this very relevant, because human beings are social animals and this is an extreme case. So as I see it, in any democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy, we are required to constantly seek power in order to ensure a means to live well.
I wanted to touch on something that came up in seminar on Monday. Someone argued that without love we would not aspire and dream, and thus we wouldn't have wonderful inventions like airplanes and the like. Hobbes argues that imagination is nothing more than decayed sense; we experience the world through our senses, and then recall this experience later when we imagine something. He also points out that it is impossible to imagine something that we have never experienced. We can combine previous experiences in order to form what he calls "compound imaginations" such as unicorns or centaurs, but we can never imagine something that cannot be broken down into constituent parts--by definition that thing would be inconceivable. So then our dreams can be nothing more than the remenants of our senses. A motivating dream, or aspiration, is then merely a decayed sense that we have a favourable appetite towards. We can call this favourable appetite "love", but that's just a name really. More importantly, love is certainly not always the motivational factor in our aspirations. Take the airplane, for example. The Wright Brothers were able to piece together an imagination which consisted of a flying contraption later called the airplane. And yes, they were motivated by their favourable appetite towards being able to fly. However, it wasn't until WWI that the airplane was heavily developed--for the use of war (power by acquisition). If it wasn't for that motivational factor, we wouldn't have the technology we have today. In fact, looking back on history, war was the motivational factor more frequently than "love" or should I say "favourable appetites" (of course this is something that is very hard to prove, as it would require a vast multitude of examples, but just think about it for yourself... the space race, airplanes, explosives, nuclear engergy--these are just recent ones!).
Wow it's late... I think I've set a new record even for myself, having school in a few hours that is. The point is, love does not make the world go 'round. Although we all love, or should I say we all have favourable appetites and inclinations, this is not the motivational factor behind most of our actions.
Nicely put, Hobbes, but I can't help but ponder if one can reach a state of living in which one does not require more power to live well? There is always pressure from others, competition, which forces one to constantly compete in order to maintain a means to live well. This is true in any society, whether there is a Leviathan figure or not, due to the very nature of work, labour, money exchange, etc. One way to avoid this competition would be if there was a purely utopian communist state, in which everything is shared equally among everyone, and then one wouldn't have to work harder than his fellow man in order to ensure a means to live well (then we could ask what's the motivation for anyone to work, other than the continuing everything runs smooth, in which case would technology ever progress? Mind you, that's a whole other debate). The only other way to avoid this competition and thus our relentless pursuit of power, is if one chooses to live in solitude, isolated from society. If a person is completely self-sustaining, then one does not require to pursue any more power than is necessary to provide food, water, and shelter for oneself. This would be a constant amount of power yeilded over nature, not any fellow man. This is fine and dandy, however, I do not believe Hobbes would find this very relevant, because human beings are social animals and this is an extreme case. So as I see it, in any democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy, we are required to constantly seek power in order to ensure a means to live well.
I wanted to touch on something that came up in seminar on Monday. Someone argued that without love we would not aspire and dream, and thus we wouldn't have wonderful inventions like airplanes and the like. Hobbes argues that imagination is nothing more than decayed sense; we experience the world through our senses, and then recall this experience later when we imagine something. He also points out that it is impossible to imagine something that we have never experienced. We can combine previous experiences in order to form what he calls "compound imaginations" such as unicorns or centaurs, but we can never imagine something that cannot be broken down into constituent parts--by definition that thing would be inconceivable. So then our dreams can be nothing more than the remenants of our senses. A motivating dream, or aspiration, is then merely a decayed sense that we have a favourable appetite towards. We can call this favourable appetite "love", but that's just a name really. More importantly, love is certainly not always the motivational factor in our aspirations. Take the airplane, for example. The Wright Brothers were able to piece together an imagination which consisted of a flying contraption later called the airplane. And yes, they were motivated by their favourable appetite towards being able to fly. However, it wasn't until WWI that the airplane was heavily developed--for the use of war (power by acquisition). If it wasn't for that motivational factor, we wouldn't have the technology we have today. In fact, looking back on history, war was the motivational factor more frequently than "love" or should I say "favourable appetites" (of course this is something that is very hard to prove, as it would require a vast multitude of examples, but just think about it for yourself... the space race, airplanes, explosives, nuclear engergy--these are just recent ones!).
Wow it's late... I think I've set a new record even for myself, having school in a few hours that is. The point is, love does not make the world go 'round. Although we all love, or should I say we all have favourable appetites and inclinations, this is not the motivational factor behind most of our actions.
posted by Sean C at 6:04 AM
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