Hodgepodge of Studies

  Last week my philosophy teacher went over the rationalist and empiricist (I'm forever wanting to spell that last word with an 'I,' it just seems so imperial). This morning we started on Immanuel Kant. He's more of an rational-empiricist I guess, so he gets two whole days devoted just to him. It's strange, to hear all these theories of how the world works, or what the world actually is. By the time you've gone through the arguments and counter-arguments your head is in quite a tizzy. We realize how much we don't really think of these things. But I think we also realize how much we don't need to.  When it comes right down to it, as my teacher pointed out, the past two thousand years of philosophy haven't exactly cleared up any issues.  

I was reading Hobbes's Leviathan for one of my English classes today (I love how pretentious that sounds. I'll never be a real bluestocking, but with homework like this I can pretend I am). Pretty deep stuff. It's this kind of literature that makes me glad language is in motion. But it was interesting, and there are some elements of his style that I do miss in today's books. It's deeper because of it's content, but it's also deeper because of it's wordy richness. Like a thick bed of moss, it's nice to sink into it. You can't really sink into the more modern books, you kind of have to jump in to avoid being run over. 

It's Hobbes's ideas, though , that we are supposed to be noticing, and they were disturbing enough. His main tenet is that all men are at war with each other, and thus personal safety is our biggest concern. From this he derives all his laws – those of liberty, preservation, and honesty – ultimately ending with the idea that the most reasonable thing we can do is swear our  allegiance to the government and never look back. 

I guess his views are scary because I agree with so many of them. I agree, for one, that if you leave men to themselves they will dissolve into chaos and conflict. This is called anarchy, and there is no wonder it has it's own special little word, for it's a pretty loaded opinion. It assumes that people aren't naturally kind and peaceful, and that laws are  necessary if we are to be civilized. I don't think anyone likes the idea of looking up to someone, but if your leader has honor and integrity it can be nice to have someone to follow. It gets tiring, trying to find your own way all the time. 

But don't worry, I'm not buying into the mechanization of the human mind. And you won't be hearing me define injustice as "the not performance of a covenant." I think that powers which have shown themselves to be unworthy, or unable, to govern should be kindly dismissed; and there is a right or wrong beyond "what is good for me," and even beyond "what is good for us." 

In the end, despite all these mind opening classes, I'm more of an opposer than a thinker.