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ANoteOnCohenAndHobbes 1 - 29 Jan 2008 - Main.JesseCreed
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In the spirit of some concerns posted on the discussion under the rubric of free speech, I would like to turn some ears over to Cohen's gloss on Hobbes's conception of the 'state' as an institution channeling our collective force, which, I think, calls into question many ethical issues noteworthy for our discussion: "The process by which government is created and its commands formulated is a process of human bargaining, based upon mutual consent but weighted by the relative power of conflicting individuals or groups" (837). This statement is overflowing with theoretical richness and practical significance: (1) creation of government and formulation of laws stem from continuous negotiations between private individuals and collective interests; (2) the terms of the offer generated by this bargaining is accepted and consented to; (3) and yet everybody's influence in this process is not on an equal playing field, but, rather, is separated along lines of relative and unequal densities, assigned, in this choir, tenor and baritone voices according to the social order of "mutual consent...weighted by the relative power of conflicting individuals or groups."
Reading Hobbes in this way conceals a danger largely prevalent in our society: corruption. To return to a familiar question: Why has the chief clerk of the Supreme Court found so much resistance in Congress to change the judicial register as to render it more legible? Because mutual consent in our contemporary society brings with it a crucial caveat - mutual does not mean equal, and the law is not indifferent to the refracted forces at play. I wonder whether there is hidden in this idea an echo of Holmes's distinction, quoting Hegel, between the appetite and the opinion, money and the command of ideas. It would be great to hear your thoughts on (1) the 'practicality' of the Hobbesian world (2) the potential for corruption in this model and (3) how much our process disguises and consequently legitimizes this corruption with political and legal rhetoric and systems, "appeals to reason or goodness" (837)?
-- JesseCreed - 29 Jan 2008
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