The Semester in Review

     For my sixth and final blog post, I wanted to go through a few of the readings that stick out most for me and see what I got from them, and what strange concoction of ideas a semester of political theory has mixed in my cranial cauldron.
     The first reading I'd like to talk about is Menand's theories of higher education. I think all of them have merit, and are true for some individuals in some contexts. I don't think they're mutually exclusive, and they all seem, at least to me, to operate simultaneously. As an RC student, I definitely identify most with theory 2, which values a liberal-arts education and says that college is more about learning and personal development than grades. But as an ambitious student, I take theory 2 with a dash of theory 1, which says that grades are important and that college is a sorting method.

A Hobbesian state of nature
("The Triumph of Death," Pieter Bruegel, public domain)

     The next thing I'd like to discuss is the idea of a state of nature. I think Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were all full of it when they wrote about humankind in prehistory. My reason for thinking this is that we now have scientific evidence that suggests a different and messier kind of society than any of them thought. But their ideas have merit as political theory because they offer up reasons for the way things are and justifications for the way each man thought things ought to be. They also all contain a partial truth. For example, Hobbes thought that man lived alone in the state of nature. We now know that humans have always traveled in small groups, and that although our tribal ancestors' lives may have been nasty, poor, brutish, and short, they were not solitary. But I see where Hobbes is coming from with the idea that humans in a state of nature are more or less equal, self-interested, and deathly afraid of... well, death. I still think Hobbes' idea of the root of power (the weak making a covenant with the strong) is a crock, though, and here's why: groups of humans kept in check by fear are unstable and never last. Groups of humans kept in check by the assurance of mutual benefit are able to withstand the trial of time.
     Locke, on the other hand, at least has some useful things to say about individual liberty, even if I think the foundation of his argument is flawed. I like the idea that labor legitimizes property, and I like the idea that governments are instituted among men to protect one another against the caprices of anarchy. And I think the distinction Locke makes between express consent and tacit consent is important, and immediately applicable to modern life. I expressly consented to membership in the United States by voting, but what about before that? In elementary school, I pledged allegiance to the flag all the time. But at such a young age, were my pledges legitimate? I'm inclined to say no, but I think the asking of the question is more important than the answer (as with a lot of political theory).
     Rousseau, maybe my personal favorite of the three, came closest to the truth by speaking at length about orangutans. I may disagree with him as to the extent to which a person should be devoted to the state, but I like how much value he places on the community. As I've said before, I think it's interesting that in Rousseau's mind, if you have a community of 100 people, each person gives up 1 unit of freedom and gets back 100 units of strength. I also like how Rousseau introduces the distinction between citizen and subject - a citizen participates in the state, a subject is subservient to the state. Looking back, I actually see a lot of similarity between Rousseau and Marx.

http://rtone.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/balance.jpg

     I really appreciate Mill's and Bentham's ideas of utilitarianism. I think if any of the theorists in this course are easily tweetable, it's them. "An act is good if total pleasure > total pain." There's something to be said for that kind of elegant simplicity. I am likewise a fan of Mill's idea of "justified true belief," at which point a person has a right to say one knows something.
     That's about all I have to say. I've written at greater length about some other thinkers, but I wanted to review some stuff from earlier on in the course. To summarize, this course basically taught me that I'm a classical liberal, and helped me understand why.
     Farewell, my fellow grasshoppers and ants.