The last 3 years revealed the overwhelming evil that resides in government.  The Corona scamdemic, with an IFR of less than 1%, and for the under 70s 0.05%, or the same as the flu, was used a pretence to lock down populations, terrify them, face-mask them, and stabbinate them with mRNA experimental poisons, which are now a part of many governments stabcine schedule.  Socialised health care, funded and bought news (fake) and funded and bought ‘science’ ($cience) along with the obvious capture of large swathes of big government by the criminal pharmaceutical industry, allowed the midget mediocrities residing in government to annihilate reality.  The stabbinations have killed in the UK and probably most everywhere, 3x or 4x as many, as those who actually died ‘from’ not with the dreaded 0.03% IFR Corona.  Yet the mass of the population beholden to authority, the state and socialised health care, ready to believe anything the $cience says, complied, many died, and many more would like to do it all again.  How did we get to such a supine, stupid state?

Philosophy and words which inform culture matter.  Since the Age of the ‘Enlightenment’ the cult of the state and of ‘reason’ has been forwarded as the salvation of man.  Follow reason as demanded by the expertise of the state.  Let the state and government run your life, tell you what to do, and inform all of your actions.  Obey and comply.  This mentality of the all-powerful Leviathan, has a long history, stretching back into pre-history, but today with the technological and financial apparatus now at hand, it can be fully realised. 

Hobbes' Leviathan is one of the major works of political theory and its import is obvious in today’s world of Corona, Climate and $cience. It was in reality a prophecy and its impact is obvious and real. Hobbes was a Royalist during the English Civil Wars meaning he was on the wrong side of history and reality. He was a tutor to Charles II who acceded to the throne in 1660 after the fall of Cromwell and the Puritan Parliament. In 1651 Hobbes penned Leviathan, which is in essence is an ode to 'Divine Right' rule, and the unflagging power and inherent morality, of state might. It is an important book because it eloquently presents the case for state coercion and omnipotence. Such ideals were au-courant during the dynastic Kingships of early modern Europe. They are more relevant even now. Today our secular Leviathans can trace their lineage to Hobbes' theory which met the modern political order.

The crux of Hobbesian theory can be seen in the illustration covering his work. On it is a gigantic and majestic monarch who holds sway over the land. His body is composed of countless small citizens who have given up their freedom to form the corpus of the Leviathan state. The state in return will provide succor and safety to its 'children'. All that is needed is for the average person to give up his or her 'smallness' by joining the greater body of 'good' reflected in state power.

Hobbes wrote his work after the first phase of the bloody English civil war, which never really ended until the ascension of the Protestant William of Orange to the crown in 1688 and his victory over the Catholic James at Boyne in 1689. 1651 must have been a difficult time for Royalists after the Presbyterian victory in the civil war's opening act, and the granting of Parliament rights that had once been the exclusive domain of the monarchy. Post civil-war is usually a period of social disturbance and uncertainty. For Hobbes only state power refracted through the crown of divinely sanctioned royal, had the moral and social strength necessary to bring peace and stability to a civil-war scarred state. Indeed the Leviathan of state power was the only order which should govern society – represented solely by a monarchical house:

“This is the generation of the that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence....it is one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author....And he that carrieth this person, is called SOVEREIGN, and said to have sovereign power...”

Thus, the creation of a state Leviathan, must be managed by a 'great man' or divinely appointed superior in the guise of a monarch. By destroying the individual ego, and much of individual freedom, the society en generale will gain peace, industry, and stability.

Hobbes' theory as developed in the mid-17^th century was certainly nothing new. Divine right rule had long been practiced dating back to the times of Sargon the Great in 2500 BC. Tribal leaders, Pharaohs, city-state despots, caliphs, Kings, Tsars, National Socialists, Communists and every civilizational expression had long used the 'strong man' theory to justify totalitarian or despotic governance. Merging the church and state into one body, and even better, one man, has long been an objective of the power-hungry.

Hobbes' theory is little more than justification for the eradication of a parliamentary balance of power, and by extension, the crushing of freedoms, both real and theoretical of the population. In effect Hobbes would have the world turn away from the division of powers encased in the US Constitution, or the late modern period of British parliamentarism, to a pre-modern world of arbitrary governance by one man, who ruled over a sedate and subordinated commons:

“The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the earth, they many nourish themselves and the live contentedly, is, to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will…..to be acted, in those things which concern the common peace and safety; and therein to submit their wills everyone to his will, and their judgements to his judgement.”

Hobbes is calling for a cult. A cult of the state and a cult of the monarch. The problems with a cult are too many to list in full but could include inter-alia, a loss of free speech, expropriation of property, a loss of independent action, no check on state power, corruption, arbitrary laws, and even rule by inbred dunces. Hobbes seems to believe that 'royals' are designated by the immortal God as our superiors and are infallible. In actual fact royalist history reveals many incompetents, inbreds, sociopaths, miscreants and immoderate imbeciles. Not all 'great man' are bad or foolish, but too many turn out to be murderous psychotics along the lines of a Napoleon or Hitler.

Hobbes stands at odds with Locke, and the orthodox liberal position of Jefferson, JS Mill and Gladstone. History was moving on and Hobbes was standing still. Yet his ideas found a receptive audience and embedded themselves in the sub-conscious of our culture. The modern secular state is a monstrous Leviathan, more completely omnipotent than anything Hobbes could have fantasized. In an age of tepid Globalization, we were told that the nation state would be obsolete or mortally wounded. It would be a 'race to the bottom' in social security and welfare nets. The poor, the young, the old and the sick would all perish. Of course, the opposite has happened. With an increase in technology, trade and financial exchange, the state has accrued enormous strength and reach.

Hobbes' book is thus a prophecy. The monarch is the state. The state is King. Our individual wills have been neutered and transferred to the monarchical state. The process of the state is the all-power monarch. It rules and we the small little yeomen peasant on the front cover of Hobbes Leviathan jacket, swarm together to be warmly joined in the body politic of our great new master and King – the state. Hobbes' poem to the morality and omnipotence of Kingly power did not find its relevancy until the 20th century. It is doubtful that many in the 17^th century believed that an all-powerful despot was the only organizational framework for society. But 360 years on his ideas have become the de-facto template for state power. This fact is not a positive, but it does make Mr. Hobbes a seer of bad tidings and unfortunate cultural and societal degradation.