Science shows Thomas Hobbes was right – which is why the Right-wing rule the Earth
In the Right-wing corner we have Thomas Hobbes, founding father of
political philosophy, who argued that man is born wicked and must be
civilised"
And on the Left we have Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the
original romantic, whose gist was that humans start out innocent and get
corrupted by society.
The author says that science shows Hobbes was right. From my own personal experience and thoughts, it seems to me Rousseau was certainly wrong. Society doesn't make us
nasty -- peoples' nastiness is innate. But it teaches the innately
nasty people to put on an act so they are accepted by others.
However,
I do not believe Hobbes is entirely correct either. In my opinion, not everyone is
born nasty. Others are not quite so nasty, and a minority actually nice.
However, the nasty people -- the callous, the unfeeling, those
indifferent to others -- set the agenda. They bring everyone down
to the lowest common denominator. The innately nasty individuals will take advantage of others if given the chance and if it doesn't reflect badly on them.
As a consequence, many people tend and should distrust others -- at least until we get to know them and can judge whether they are trustworthy or not
More generally I find the idea that we are born "blank slates" and all differences can
be explained by “nurture” and “class” to be preposterous. However, this emphatically does not justify the gross inequality we find in modern western societies, especially in the USA (I live in the UK).
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