Although I did recently vote in my first election, I would nevertheless not consider myself to be very politically aware. I hardly even know the names of our representatives for North Carolina. Throughout this semester though, a spark, as to the political origins of our nation and what our forefathers dreamed of creating when first writing our constitution, began to grow inside of me. These are the reasons that I felt reading Hobbes Leviathan could help me gain some understanding and insight into these issues. Hobbes Leviathan: Analysis of its Impact on the Framing of our Democracy Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, written against the backdrop of the horrors of the English Civil War, in the mid 1600 s, is a discussion about the principles of man s basic need for peace, unity, and security, in both nature and civilization.
Essentially arguing in favor of a sovereign monarchy, Hobbes writes in such a manner as to present these basic principles so they could apply to any political system, including that of a democracy. To achieve this, Hobbes presents several questions in this novel. What kind of being is man? What is the nature of man? What comprises a commonwealth that can successfully govern man? These are the pivotal questions presented in Hobbes Leviathan. According to Hobbes, man is a creation of God not dissimilar to that of man manufacturing watches. Both have moving parts; a spring or heart to keep them alive, strings or nerves to hold them together, and wheels or joints to give motion to the whole body. But it is more than just this that Hobbes says makes up man. Man has, or at least should have sense, imagination, speech, and reason. Sense is an instrument for conception in man s mind. Without the senses, man cannot see the......
