The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1218: Continental Philosophy and Its Origins - Pt. 6 - Hobbes (Cont.) w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

62 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series on the subject of Continental Philosophy, which focuses on history, culture, and society. In this episode he continues his talk about Thomas Hobbes. Although Hobbes is not traditionally regarded as a continental philosopher, he remains a significant figure with whom many contemporaries engaged in discourse. Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Continuing the Continental Philosophy series, Thomas 777 is with us. How are you doing today, Thomas? I know it pretty well. I know, like I said, last episode that it probably seems peculiar to focus this much on Hobbs and a continental philosophy discussion, but it's essential. And Hobbs and Machiavelli are the key thinkers of modern political theory in terms of its origins. I mean, obviously, I'd privilege Hegel is the most important. political theorists to ever lived, but the transition from the classical view of the political to the modern, you've got to understand Hobbes and Machiavelli, and continental theorists, particularly those from a

juristic or mathematical school, which again, all things encompassing theoretical mathematics were referred to as geometry in the early modern era. All of those thinkers were in dialogue with Hobbes. And Hobbs credited himself as the discoverer of the science of politics, whether you accept the existence of such a thing or not. Hobbs considered himself to be the founder or discoverer, rather, of that paradigm. And basically everyone's subsequent who accepts that,

postulate views him that way too. It's not accidental that he called his book Leviathan. What Leviathan is is significant to the symbolic psychological aspect of what he was talking about in basic capacities. If you're a Protestant, you mostly know a Leviathan from the book of Job. Leviathan features in the Psalms in the book of Job in Isaiah. and in a lot of the apocrypha, Leviathan is in the book of Enoch. You know, and Catholics and Orthodox,

I believe Leviathan is depicted within a lot of this medieval artwork and subsequent as the sin of envy. Okay. That's not really what it represents in scripture. significantly the ophites or the ophites i'm sure i'm butching that pronunciation they were a gnaistic sect in rome in the third and fourth centuries a d they revered serpents in totemic capacities a lot of the stuff including in the conan movie where people are worshipping sets

you know the the Egyptian deity I think sets Lord of the Dead or something okay but anyway these sorts of sinister pagans or depicted as worshipping snakes well that was that was the ophites that's where that comes from okay specifically they believe that the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis was like an instantation of of wisdom and sacred knowledge.

And they also revered Leviathan. What was far as to say, they worship Leviathan. Leviathan was the embodiment of the world's soul that encapsulated all living things in animate matter. And it was depicted almost like the Viking world serpent. Leviathan spans and surrounds the earth like an equator. and, you know, presumably he straddles, you know, the corporeal realm as well as whatever is beyond. You know, narcissism is essentially neoplatonist, okay?

But in the Bible, the most that's written about Leviathan is Job 41. and Hobb specifically was referring to Job 4134, which says he, he meaning Leviathan, he beholdeth all high things. He is a king over all the children of pride. So in other words, Leviathan is this terrible monstrosity and it's so powerful it can crush pride out of men, like all kneel before it. you know, no matter how pridefully are or how much humorous has possessed them. Okay.

What Leviathan is literally in physical terms, it's a giant sea monster. It's a sea serpent. It's Lord of the Sea. And when God created the cosmos and the earth and the sea, there was all these primordial demons that ruled the earth. Leviathan ruled the sea, and there was none more powerful. at sea. Behemoth was this beast of the land. He's depicted either as an elephant, behemoth is, or this kind of chimeric monster.

And Ziz is Lord of the Air. Ziz is a giant terror bird. Kind of like a crossing at Griffin and a terraced act. Okay, so these, in earliest creation, these monstrous, massively powerful, chaotic, almost a little crafty and creatures, they rolled over certain aspects of creation. But then they were ultimately subjugated by God and literally made to heal when they were turned into kind of almost pets. But this makes sense that an Englishman would view the absolute sovereign, the most great and terrible thing as Leviathan. Because obviously the sea encapsulates Great Britain, you know, and it's the source of its power, you know, even back then.

And something that was going to subjugate and crush even the mightiest warlords and would-be sovereigns and self-appointed messiahs. It very much tracks with kind of the psychology of the people native to Britannia that it would be the sea monster. You know, but that's, but the key, the key to it is what I said. It's Joe 4134. Like, Leviathan looks upon all the highest things, and he is a king overall in his domain. You know, he can only be subjugated by God, and he's so powerful and terrifying. He can crush pride out of all men who aspire to power and greatness. Now, this seems that there's an over-emphasis on fear emanating from.

the essence of the sovereign. It's not an accident. Because that's the essence of sovereignty. It's not just mortal decisionism and the power to, you know, determine matters of life and death over those subjugated in the body politic. But fear is the mechanism of sovereignty that facilitates political. order within this mathematical paradigm or geometric paradigm rather you know Hobbs's view of virtue was pragmatic the entire book leviathan is in dialogue is in punitive dialogue with aristotle and the

aristotle and the Aristotelian concept of virtue um to hobbs virtue was in the past in most political writing, and especially that, which was written for the benefit of princes and nobles, it was basically a rationalization for how powerful people are able to exploit and invent their own strength to enrich themselves and create value. And Hobbes wasn't saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, but to pretend that there's this kind of metaphysical value to it, beyond that which is pragmatic is misguided.

I've declared that virtue is nothing more than the habit of doing what tends towards one's own self-preservation, but owing to its fundamental condition and essence, you know, part of what contributes to one's own self-preservation and enrichment is to facilitate permitting others to do the same. You know, and acting like a brute ultimately is counterproductive and sabotages that self-interested enterprise. You know, so there is a balancing calculus here.

Vice, contra, this pragmatic orientation towards virtue, is basically anything to the contrary that is offensive to order. and that is self-samitizing. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design. They move you, even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range. For Mentor, Leon, and Teramar.

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Gawattah Deiard We're talking in one of unwaugh in funif in oneah There's oath lecturers on the government, on the Skafezzly the people

tariffewanthewan. There's a cooctew agnes more in Ergaret Pongaii. And we'll get into this in a minute because first we've got to defy more about the essence of sovereign authority but this is why even from a pragmatic perspective things like modern government are illegitimate

like sabotaging the fortunes of entire classes of people based on this like, based on this like imaginary appeal to you know the dignity of some race or population that's the definition of tyranny it's also self-sabotaging of the enterprise um of sovereignty which only exists derivative of consent to the body politic you know so this is important because some people misread hobbs and and and say that well you know once once leviathan is anointed it can do whatever it wants that's not true but moving on one of the reasons why hobbs is credited to is kind of the father of liberalism capital liberalism even though in america people generally

assign that um significance to john locke because the american system as it existed i mean it hasn't existed for you know um since age and 60s five. Lock drew upon a lot of Hobbs' political ontology but he frankly softened it and also his view of the social contract

at totally different parameters and also Locke wasn't nearly as hostile to the concept of aristocracy. We talked about the last episode Hobbs were a rejected the Aristotelian postulate that, you know, some men are by nature, you know, more worthy to command and others, you know, axiomatically worthy to serve.

They rejected that based on the economy of violence and that in the Habeasian state of nature, which precedes political order, you know, any man can murder an individual in command and seize that command for himself. you know, there's nothing in nature precluding that. And beyond that, Hobbs makes the point that in government, one must do everything in their power to prevent the emergence of pride within representatives of the sovereign. And in order to abide this, in order to abide this conceptual framework where this philosophical orientation, where some men are the natural aristocracy

that does nothing if not inculcate people with pride and an overweening pride at that. And even if they believe themselves to be good men and even if by some measure they are, you know, what derives from their decisionism is always going to be rationalized as, you know, deriving from some essential

benevolence in you know contain within um their essential nature as you know the natural elite you know and that's i don't accept that argument but it's persuasive and it's internally logical and within the geometry of politics that hobbs generally believes that he had discovered that makes perfect sense you know and beyond that hobbs says even if even if aristotle's right even if men are fundamentally unequal by nature individual men, particularly those of great ambition, will always consider themselves equal, or at least on equal terms before the law, and certainly before God. So they'll be unwilling to make peace unless this is acknowledged, you know, beyond superficial terms. There's got to be some basic equality of status that's structurally coded in to the sovereign mechanism, as well as that's internalized by,

the individuals that constitute the body politic and it can't just be a perfunctory thing that's acknowledged in passing or by storing language in some official document it's got to actually be believed and it's got to be a court tenant of how equity is realized and procedural as well as substantive terms. So for the sake of peace within the parameters of sovereign authority, this has to be acknowledged even if it doesn't exist. So even if it's a fiction, it is a law of nature in the Habeasian sense that all men must acknowledge each other as equal by nature, even if it is a fiction. You know, this renders natural differences within the body politic, irrelevant. Okay, and again, we're talking about the domain of the

political, which is the discrete sphere of human activity. We're not talking about in absolute existential terms or something like that, and people misconstrue that as well. So the purpose of this geometry of politics, it's got a single purpose and invoking the laws of nature to rationalize, you know, the, the architecture of that purpose. All this tends to make men sociable and peaceable and to abolish or to reduce to a minimum or as minimal as possible. Friction, resentment, hostilities deriving from pride or partiality or discrete ambition or excessive self-love or exploitative covetousness.

All of these, that's what the purpose of the entire science of politics is. And the Habeasian conceptual framework of nature, what they represent are guiding poll stars and rules and laws for unbiased arbitration and impartial distribution of goods and the creation of incentives to avoid ingratitude, becoming endemic within the body politic, and to breed a basic absolute respect for the law. So when he's talking about nature and natural laws,

he's not resorting to ethics. He's not talking about natural law arguments as we think of them in legal theory, or that, you know, we think of in the terms that theologians and these liberal moralists like John Rawls talked about. He's talking about the basic architecture of the natural world as regards human affairs and the absence of a governing sovereign. He literally believed himself to be discovering identifiable and quantifiable

geometric variables relating to power paradigms within the within human social existence. Okay, so that's important. He's not passing a value judgment on it. Hobbes have learned in the Bible, you know, like any Englishman of his cast and education, would be and he was a believing Christian and Hobbs absolutely suggested I don't look at this later wanted to go into a part three he absolutely suggested that to

purposefully and with malice of forethought make hash with these laws of nature there there'll be a terrible punishment derived from God's architecture and in the case of a sovereign, you know, who ignores these things, you know, owing to his own hubris, or owing to fact he believes himself to be a god on earth, you know, he will probably, he will probably be murdered in a rebellion if he's too much of a tyrant, or if he merely gross, he mismanages his role as sovereign. And obviously, you know, anything he accomplishes, in legacy terms will be rapidly dismantled as whatever structures he erected,

literal and figurative, will be unable to serve their function of, you know, reducing friction within a body politic to minimal quantities, such that, you know, the regime that he serves and in some cases created, will exist in perpetuity. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design, they move you, even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range

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The big critique From subsequent Liberal schools of thought as well as, you know, from classically oriented theorists and reactionaries was, well, how can, how can this geometry of politics be sustainable if there's no true moral framework and disincentive? There are disincentives, though. You know, again, what constitutes and virtue in political terms is do not do unto others, what you would not have them doing to you. So acting, violating natural laws of political geometry to enrich oneself at the expense of others, you know, is barbarism under a veneer of some sort of abiding rationale? You know, whether it's some contrivance of divine right, whether or, you know, a claim that One is a natural lord and those that he oppresses are natural slaves.

Or, you know, a man claiming that he's part of a minority race or sect. And that affords him special privileges and protections contra the majoritarian ethnos. I mean, it can be anything. but this is ultimately self-defeating and we're seeing this right now in the American situation and I shouldn't need to I shouldn't need to paint a simple this picture of what I mean the subs are smart so I'm sure they discern that um the uh and also too you know the central defect of trying to extrapolate Christian ethics to politics

is that the essential defect of saying that, well, Logos, you know, and higher reason should like alone should rule politics. Because you're presuming that every subject of the

political sovereign is some sort of god-fearing actor. Because the only thing that binds men in such conditions is their is their is their is their consciences in the individual and the inner witness of the individual. You know, and beyond that even, you know, all men are sinners. So even men who fear God and even men who believe in the living Christ, you know, the punishment they have to fear is that of their, you know, immortal soul and judgment. meant before God. You know, if there's an immediate hope of reward, they'll probably take their chances.

You know, even men who are otherwise, you know, basically decent people. This is what Hobbs called the fear of, quote, invisible powers, you know, that exists in the state of nature and it's ubiquitous, but that's not powerful enough. The political is man's domain, not gods. You know, you're ultimately accountable to God for everything you do,

but God's not some arbiter of the political. You know, what is needed is the establishment of conditions that reward people for obeying the natural law of political geometry and punish people horribly who don't. You know, in short, the essence of the essence of, sovereignty is visible power, contra invisible powers. You know, and security, first and foremost, within the body politic, must be paramount. Some people suggested, particularly the 20th century, where I think even intelligent people

with a long view of historical processes. They developed a skewed perspective, owing the anomalous violence of it, and interstate warring becoming normal, when in fact, that's totally abnormal. But a lot of these people said, well, Hobbes was overly concerned with the internal situation and the body politics' ability to come to consensus without violence, you know, because, you know, the 30 years war in the War Three Kingdoms was what set the tenor for this. You know, so he was, his objectivity was compromised by the specter of murderous civil war. But that's the wrong way to look at it.

Because if you don't, peace within the body politic is what makes all other security possible. You know, that's what facilitates security and the ability to defend against enemies of alienage, you know, and foreign threats. Like, the converse isn't the case, you know, and Hobbs is really the essence of a sovereign polity, the brass tax of it, is the ability to achieve consensus within a body policy. that is ossified around a consensus that thus then precludes civil war, you know, and men voluntarily take themselves out of the state of war of all against all in order to identify as a body politic, whereby a moral consensus allows the selection of a sovereign who will then wield the absolute power of life and death over every individual. individual constituent element to the body politics. You know, so it's not, the issue isn't whether civil war is rare or common or that doesn't figure into the calculus. What it is is it's a prerequisite for the creation of sovereignty and its establishment and it's

and it's functioning according to the, you know, parameters of the previously identified natural law. And this is why and this is important because it's another issue of first impression. A key to Hobbs' political ontology is that the sovereign must political union of the body politic, authority, conceptual and actual

deriving from sovereignty and the sovereign itself, this has to be concentrated within an actual person. You know, justice and injustice in political terms and what people owe to the sovereign and what the sovereign owes the body politic, this all rests upon, to this a day, the abstraction of legal personhood. But an essential postulate. of Habesian politics, political theory, is that this must be an actual person. And that, again, that's an issue of first impression. You know, there were great kings in Athens, obviously, you know, like Pericles and stuff. And Caesar was revered as a god on earth, you know, at zenith.

But this hadn't been proposed before. People didn't claim that the essence of sovereignty can only exist within the man of the king himself. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs. When the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. Newbridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Lidl, more to value. You catch them in the corner of your eye.

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Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunbiog, Kush Farage. You know, and the reason why there's a pragmatic aspect, obviously, because it's comforting to people and it also allows them to orient themselves correctly. If they can point to like a sovereign king or queen or emperor or a lord protector, you know, warlord like Cromwell and say, you know, that man is the emperor or that man is the king

or that man is the lord protector, you know, and embodied within him is the will of the body, politic because your individual will is sacrificed to the sovereign in the interest of, you know, security being sustained internally in perpetuity, as well as, you know, allowing justice and equity to be realized. You know, you give up your right to punish privately. You give up your right to make war, you know, and identify criteria for war and to identify You know, who the ability to identify private rivals as public enemies, you sacrifice all of that to the sovereign. And, you know, the sovereign, his will becomes the collective will of the body politic. You know, and when he takes action either as warlord or his lawgiver, you know, that is where his power derives from.

You know, this can't be vested in some abstract assembly, you know, or this can't be reduced to some sort of procedure that can be executed by any, like, counsel of men or women or by some random guy. You know, that's, that's not how it works. And that's an ontological nullity. You know, as a consequence of that, too, you know, the legislature. legislature, any other branch of government, sovereignty does not invest in those branches. So it'd be perverse for a president to claim or an emperor to claim that he's bound by the court. Now, part of the essence of sovereignty, a sovereign can say, I'm going to forego wielding sovereign power over this court decision and allow its decision to stand. but this idea that he's not sovereign, you know, a court is or a legislature is that's logically perverse.

And it flies in the face of the entire basis of sovereign authority, you know, both the theory of it and its praxis. And this incidentally is one reason why America makes no sense. post-watergate because that's basically what's being alleged, you know, and you can't, you can't declare that 300 million people decided that John Roberts or Elaine Kagan, you know, represents the body politic and is some sovereign authority. You know, like I'm being, I'm being obtuse, but, you know, the point is valid, you know, and that's why it's not an accident. and it's not some contrivance of, you know, horse trading or something at the original constitutional convention that the President of the United States is the only nationally elected representative, you know. This is the lineage between from Hobbs to the founding of the United States is more proximate in conceptual linear terms direct.

than people think. Okay. And also, what preceded Hobbs' identification of a geometry of politics was an understanding

whether, again, whether I or any other man accepts this or not, was an understanding that was extant at the time of Leviathan being devised and written that there was a science of the law and you know a science of equity you know so hobbs is defining the social contract in legal terms and uh the commonwealth was defined um in terms of legal personhood and hobbs takes it a step further

And, you know, again, owing to the fact that if there is, in fact, a political geometry that can be discovered, the architecture of which is what facilitates, you know, the permanent peace within the body politic and the psychological acceptance, the sovereign authority, you know, according to. to the terms contained within and intrinsic to the laws of nature, you know, obviously this derives from the same basis as the science of the law. And there's got to be not just a theoretical agreement, there's got to be actual praxis there that comports with both conceptual structures. you know, not just for the appearance of harmony, but for the actual harmonious exercise, or execution, rather, of these things. Give me one second. Let me see what time we got. Okay. So the social contract is the basis of political order, facilitated by sovereign authority, you know, which can only, which can only be derivative of, of, you know, a consensus among the body politic. And the criteria for who and what constitutes the body politic is important, too,

especially in the present day when these concepts are deliberately amusegated or simply just not defined other than in the most abstract of terms. But we'll probably have to get to that next time. The social contract has two components, according to Hobbes. One is a covenant. Each member of the body politic, the initial founding act of the creation of Leviathan is a covenant between each member of the body politic. to acknowledge, you know, an intent to create a civil society, presided over by a man or a body of men,

as long as these people, you know, are discreetly identifiable in whom absolute sovereignty is to vest. Okay? And this is critical because this is a kind of ascending authority. You know, like a sovereign, him deciding, you know, what the criteria are sua sponte that

facilitates its authority that's that's tyrannical but it's a logical fallacy that's not how it works you know or a sovereign deciding that

he wants the body politic to include more people than it does you know based on criteria that will not be accepted by the actual body politic. You know, again, that's, that's not as a tyrannical dictat, but it's also, it's, it's also at odds, it frustrates the purpose of the entire procedure. And it contradicts the laws of nature that give rise to political authority in the first place.

But moving on, the second component. of the social contract is quite literally the vote determining who or what is to be the sovereign. We're talking about the vote in somewhat metaphorical terms, some act of decisionism, some formal act of decisionism that represents the covenants and the compact between each member of the body politic to acknowledge the sovereign authority, the person of the sovereign. Now, how that person is chosen, you know, how that man is vested with that authority that can take, like what due process constitutes for those purposes can take any number of forms. There's not there's not some hard and fast, um, paradigm or set of criteria by which that has to be conducted,

say, you know, again, that it reflects, you know, an extant and actual and verifiable covenant, that is accepted by each party to that compact, which presumably would be, you know, adult men of full majority capable of bearing arms, but that we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. You catch them in the corner of your eye, distinctive by design, they move you, even before you drive.

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The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. And now this is chagull go over the next to Hampshire. It's a leargoal gilege in Gwina in Aondoon and leant a gaolah to ghaegha gaunt a deird. In Ergrid, we're in order to in one-whunah with funiving voneuvre. It's a lot of yelike in angoch-lectreches

on as to refer to every thielach, gnaw, and people, tariff in one tachy. There's a year of cooct-do, again, I'm more, at Ergrid Pongahy. But, um, you know, And presuming a true consensus, you know, not just a raw majority of 51, 49%, but presuming that there's an actual cohesiveness and this covenant is accepted, you know, by something more I would think than a super majority would be the criteria by which legitimacy attaches.

but the people who are outside of the covenant and who refuse to avail themselves to the contract, you know, people who are an open revolt against it, they remain in the state of war, according to the laws of nature, and thus they become the enemies of the body politic. Okay. and that's manageable you know it begs the question as to what what ratio constitutes a tipping point into civil war but um that's somewhat tautological you know a consensus is uh kind of like what's in for purposes of the social contract is probably kind of like what the Supreme Court said about pornography. Like, you know it when you see it.

But this is why, you know, again, and we won't have time to get to this in this episode. But Hobbs very much believed that there had to be a basic homogeneity within the body politic, at least in terms of moral agreement. Because you can't have a third of the body body politic saying that they'll abide to the covenant, but with these qualifications, you know, because, you know, and they'll reject certain affirmative criteria on grounds that, you know, they worship a different God or that, you know, they don't accept certain parameters that the majority does of what is, you know, properly within the scope of sovereign authority, you know, based on a sectarian objection,

you know, and that's why Hobbs goes out of his way in Leviathan to make clear that the sovereign has the authority to ban or censor. you know, matters of religious belief. You know, not because he's the Pope or not because, you know, he has any legitimate authority to regulate men's inner witness and their consciences. But if people arrive or if people take on, you know, a sectarian belief structure, contra the majority, you know, that you're sowing the seeds of civil war. and you're allowing yourself as part of the minority faction a sort of repudiation device whereby you can return to the state of war if it suits you based on appeal to a theological preference.

you know and that that that puts the a private right of war into the hands of a minority element of the body politic and again a sovereign can't surrender his sovereignty

that's that's um you know a self-refuting postulate you know and it contradicts the essential nature of what we're talking about but um you know and there's no suggesting that the essence of sovereignty is fear and the ability to to kill that makes people queasy and the lowercase liberal objection to that is that well you know

the dignity of the individual and the dignity of the group that individual belongs to must be honored and compliance can't be based on fear, but all compliance is based on fear. Like, again, men are sinners and avarice is the norm. You can't rely upon invisible power and men's inner witness to make them abide political authority. That's preposterous. We're not talking about, Hobbs is not talking about, rather, what is actually virtuous and what is aspirational. He's saying that,

quoted into nature, there are literally natural laws of power. Politics, the political, is a discrete sphere of human activity, the subject matter of which is violence and power derived from violence and the threat of violence. And according to this geometry,

this literal geometry, the only way that a sovereign can perpetuate itself or himself, because it's literally a person we're talking about, is by resort to the power of life and death. And inculcating members of the body politic, who despite their initial consent, or that of their sires, which they inherited,

and moral as well as ontological terms. The only thing that truly prevents them from resorting to acts derived from destructive ambition is the fact that they will be murdered if they rise up against the sovereign. That's not to say that there's, there are no remedies before the government, or that a sovereign cannot lose his mandate. But he cannot lose it when acting lawfully and within the scope of his authority, some cadre of men simply decide

that they don't want to obey his dictates anymore. Or that they want to seize power for themselves based on a sectarian imperative or an ideological rationale. You know, and people confuse those things, especially because one of the reasons why the what I think was the conceptual syntax

of political theory in the 20th century and we're very much mired in that paradigm conceptually. One of the reason that's so poignant is because it exclusively derives from moralizing language. You know, even that which is nominally atheist or purports to be a science. You know, it's just endless moral postulating.

And there's something rather profound there. I mean, yeah, part of it is just kind of like the vulgarization and discourse and things, obviously. And the breakdown of the majoritarian consensus such that all discursive language aims to agitate certain segments of the body politic. you know, and to exploit these sorts of divisions. It's all those things, but it's more than that. You know, it's, and one of the reasons why I view the return of general religiosity as a corrective is because a lot of I just described, I believe it's born of, you know, a kind of moral impoverishment from

religious quarters where moral education should be emanating, obviously. In the absence of that, countessly or not, people look to public authority as a source of those things or what should be. Pervers, as that may be, it's sort of in any port than a storm sort of thing. But, yeah, next time we'll get into Hobbs' view of Christ and things. you know, and that's so to be clear, there are remedies

held not as up by the body politic as a collective but individuals constituent therein. And to be clear, Hobbs viewed according to the natural law

the body politic to be discreet individuals contracting with one another this isn't a Rousseau sort of notion of some some sort of psychological or metaphysical whole

that you know possess of a collective will this is important okay and this is one of the things that defines the angle sex and tradition contra than of the continent

of the continent to be clear Hobbs absolutely believed in precise of remedies contra sovereign authority you know but he viewed as these things but he viewed these things as one would a controversy in mathematics or in science you know so the emergence of political hostility at scale it had to be resolved to resort to precise variables deduced from the social contract, the law, which itself is derived from natural

laws, you know, and the rights and duties of the sovereign and his obligation to those subjugated. and, you know, in kind, the rights, duties, and obligations of the subjects to the sovereign, you know, and to one another. So, this idea that, well, revolution just happens. You know, or there's a lifespan of every government, and, you know, we've got to just accept that civil war, like all war arrives like the,

seasons. Hobbs projected that outright. You know, he, he posited that it would be tantamount to stating that there's an equation that simply can't be answered, you know, where there's some, or an engineering of bridge, there's just no way to, you know, devise a proper load-bearing beam, you know. And again, I don't accept that ontology. But if, internally consistent and not going to be wrong and hob was one of the most disciplined and methodical the political theorists who ever lived like he absolutely this was this truly was like a complete conceptual structure you know like from inception but even if it wasn't you know the internal consistency

has to be sustained before it to hold any merit. You know, so even if you reject the substance of these partial, it's there's really no other

criteria that could sustain the paradigm. You know, other than this kind of mathematical model that almost

that almost parallels Newtonian physics if that makes any sense but I'm going to end it here I'm going to change gears a bit I hope this isn't going on too long again I'd want to discuss Anglophone philosophy and a continental philosophy series but as we move on you'll see why I did this

and I didn't want to start talking about I don't want to start talking about Kant or Schmidt and make reference to Hobbs and then I have to you know kind of drop a capsule summary of these street concepts and things but um I um I hope people are are getting something valuable out of this from the feedback we got at OGC told me that they were because it got a lot of props and that makes me very happy Well, anyone who's wondering why you would cover Hobbs, Paul Gottfried's book, it's his textbook. I think he taught college course with it on Schmidt is basically all about Hobbs. Yeah. No, like, Gaffreig's a great, a great guy, a great thinker. Like, he's, I really get a lot out of his scholarship. Yeah, no, it's a good point, man. I should dig that book out and, like, refresh my record. I read it years ago, and it was awesome.

I read after liberalism lately, which I mean, all Godfrey's stuff is compelling. But yeah, thanks for reminding me of the Schmidt book. I'll dig it up. Well, a mutual friend of ours talked to Paul Gottfried on Monday and told them that there was a whole bunch of young kids running around who were reading Paul, you know, reading him. And his comment was, I'm glad that my friends are getting younger and my enemies are getting older. yeah there's some yeah yeah no i i i sympathize um i mean gaffrey really is old he's like he's 83 he's 83 yeah and he's still going which is great but no i i even in my own life i i see that axi'm kind of coming to fruition and yeah i uh i take some pride in this

yeah awesome well yeah yeah yeah just uh plug your plug your sub stack and anything else and we'll get out of here yeah my online home is substack. It's Real Thomas 777.7.7.com. That's that's like where all the magic happens and all the felonies happen. But I'm a, I shouted out earlier today. I need a few days recover from the road and stuff, but pursuant to me like restructuring my brand and content and us getting new from Discord, I decided Rumble is going to be our home for our weekly live stream. This Saturday, I got a much of stuff to do, and I got a couple social engagements. I mean, relating to partisan stuff, you know, just like friends of ours I got to

connect with. But a week from Saturday, we'll start the stream again, the weekly stream. It'll be on Rumble. Like, don't worry, I'm going to like pin the link where everybody can find it on the substack and stuff. And you'll be able to find my other social media platforms through substack and I'm restructuring and rebuilding my website in coming weeks so but yeah for now head up substack I'm also on tgram and instagram I'm kind of ubiquitous I'm on youtube but like seek and you shall find but yeah for now find me on substack and we'll go from there as kind of things grow and develop we were doing a stream recording last night about um the OGC of the event and just doing a recap of the speeches.

And one of the things, Bagby's speech came up. And one of the things that I said was, I said, go subscribe to Thomas's substack. The talks that he's having with Bagby in this season of Mind Faser, you are going to want to hear.

That's great. Thank you, man. Yeah. And I am 100%. Yeah. I'm not, you know, You're my friend. I'm not doing this because you're my friend.

I'm doing this because you people want to hear the conversation that's happening. Yeah, thank you, man. Yeah, Bagby's a dear friend. And, yeah, he's a brilliant guy, man. And I've been really blessed. I mean, I'm always blessed that you and Jay Burton want to collab with me because you guys always bring a lot of fire. But Bagby and Josh Neal, like both of them guys are super intelligent.

and I think we have a good rapport like I do and they do. Our subject matter concentrations are different, but they dovetail. And yeah, I owe both of those guys a tremendous debt, man. John Slaughter, too. He wrote a great book. I mean, he's a great dude too. And he's every bit as intelligent as these other guys. But I'm very much a, I'm very much like a theoretical guy. And Baby and Josh Neal really kind of compliment my subject matter concentrations.

So yeah, no, that's tremendous, man. Thank you for that endorsement. Yeah, this weekend's busy, but we can reconvene any time next week and continue this series. We will. Thank you, Thomas. Appreciate it. Yeah, man. Bye, guys.