What was life like before we emerged from
hunter-gatherer tribes and pulled ourselves into the civilised
world? Notoriously, this same question was asked by the great
philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century. His answer?
The state of nature is a ‘time of war, where every man is enemy to
every man’; where all live in ‘continual fear’, and in ‘danger of
violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short.’ This is human nature. Left to our
own devices, we are led to fight by diffidence, competition, and
glory. Here our inner demons come out to play: predatory,
revengeful, dominant, and sadistic. We are survival machines, but
ultimately, the best way for us all to survive is to create a new
machine, a great Leviathan - viz, the dawn of the state.
Thirty years after Hobbes’ death saw the birth of his
rival, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is here, at the origin of the
state, says Rousseau, where human nature is
corrupted: society is the curse of humankind. In his own
words, ‘many writers have hastily concluded that man is naturally
cruel, and requires civil institutions to make him more mild;
whereas nothing is more gentle than man in his primitive state…
according to the axiom of the wise Locke: There can be no injury,
where there is no property.’ Be sure not to listen to Hobbes the
imposter. We are lost, but we can find ourselves again.