{"id":14963,"date":"2020-07-24T13:29:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T17:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=14963"},"modified":"2020-09-17T12:16:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T16:16:42","slug":"how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"How Intellectuals Cured &#8216;Tyrannophobia&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-7857\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes-520x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes-520x800.jpg 520w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes-97x150.jpg 97w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes-666x1024.jpg 666w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes.jpg 1304w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>American Conservative, July 24, 2020<\/h3>\n<h1 class=\"c-single-blog__title c-title wow animated\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/\"><span class=\"c-title-inner\">How Intellectuals Cured \u2018Tyrannophobia\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__subtitle c-subtitle \">\n<p class=\"c-subtitle__inner\"><em>American presidents have adopted Hobbesian levels of power.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__post-meta c-post-meta \">\n<div class=\"c-post-meta__inner\"><a class=\"c-post-meta__author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/author\/jim-bovard\/\">by\u00a0 Jim Bovard <\/a><\/div>\n<section class=\"c-post-meta__social-share c-social-share c-social-share--default\">\n<div class=\"c-social-share__group\" data-module=\"socialShare\" data-initialized=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__content c-content \">\n<p>Almost 400 years ago, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote a book scoffing at tyrannophobia\u2014the \u201cfear of being strongly governed.\u201d This was a peculiar term that Hobbes invented in <em>Leviathan<\/em>, since civilized nations had feared tyrants for almost 2000 years at that point. <strong>But over the past 150 years, Hobbes\u2019 totalitarianism has been defined out of existence by apologists who believe that government needs vast, if not unlimited power. Hobbes\u2019 revival is symptomatic of the collapse of intellectuals\u2019 respect in individual freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Writing in 1651, Hobbes labeled the State as Leviathan, \u201cour mortal God.\u201d <strong>Leviathan signifies a government whose power is unbounded, with a right to dictate almost anything and everything to the people under its sway.<\/strong> Hobbes declared that it was forever prohibited for subjects in \u201cany way to speak evil of their sovereign\u201d regardless of how badly power was abused. Hobbes proclaimed that \u201cthere can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hobbes championed absolute impunity for rulers: \u201cNo man that hath sovereign power can justly be put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his subjects punished.\u201d Hobbes offered what might be called suicide pact sovereignty: to recognize a government\u2019s existence is to automatically concede the government\u2019s right to destroy everything in its domain. Hobbes sought to terrify readers with a portrayal of life in the \u201cstate of nature\u201d as the \u201cwar of all against all\u201d that made even perpetual political slavery look preferable. John Locke, in his Second Treatise of Government published a few decades later, scoffed at Hobbes\u2019 \u201csolution\u201d: \u201cThis is to think that men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats and foxes, but are content, nay think it safety, to be devoured by lions.\u201d As Charles Tarlton, a professor at the State University of New York in Albany, noted in a superb 2001 article in <em>The History of Political Thought<\/em>, Hobbes \u201cdespotical doctrine\u201d rests upon \u201can absolute and arbitrary political power joined with a moral demand for complete, simple and unquestioning political obedience and, second, the concept that no action of the sovereign can ever be unjust or even criticized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hobbes\u2019 treatise succeeded in making \u201cLeviathan\u201d the F-word of political discourse. In the century after Hobbes wrote, there was rarely any doubt about the political poison he sought to unleash<\/strong>. David Hume, writing in his <em>History of England <\/em>declared that \u201cHobbes\u2019s politics were fitted only to promote tyranny.\u201d Voltaire condemned Hobbes for making \u201cno distinction between kingship and tyranny \u2026 With him force is everything.\u201d Jean Jacques Rousseau condemned Hobbes for viewing humans as \u201cherds of cattle, each of which has a master, who looks after it in order to devour it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hobbes\u2019 views were derided as long as political thought was tethered to the Earth. Unluckily for humanity, philosophers found ways to sever ties to both history and reality.<\/strong> The most influential political philosopher of the 19th century may have been Germany\u2019s G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel proclaimed, \u201cThe State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth\u201d and is \u201cthe shape which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes.\u201d Hegel also declared that \u201cthe State is \u2026 the ultimate end which has the highest right against the individual, whose highest duty is to be a member of the State.\u201d Hegel had a profound influence on both communism (via Marx) and fascism. Political scientist Carl Friedrich observed in 1939, \u201cIn a slow process that lasted several generations, the modern concept of the State was \u2026 forged by political theorists as a tool of propaganda for absolute monarchs. They wished to give the king\u2019s government a corporate halo roughly equivalent to that of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By the twentieth century, as Tarlton noted, \u201cHobbes\u2019s interpreters and commentators had worked to make Hobbes\u2019s appalling political prescriptions more palatable.\u201d Experts scoffed at \u201ctyrannophobia\u201d because they believed tyrants were necessary to \u201cfix\u201d humanity.<\/p>\n<p>Hobbes\u2019 revival in America was aided by John Dewey, probably the philosopher with the most impact on public policy in the first half of the 20th century. In 1918, Dewey shrugged off Hobbes\u2019 affection for despotism: \u201cUndoubtedly a certain arbitrariness on the part of the sovereign is made possible, [it] is part of the price paid, the cost assumed, in behalf of an infinitely greater return of good.\u201d And why presume \u201can infinitely greater return of good\u201d? Because the government would be following the prescriptions of Dewey and his intellectual cronies. Two years earlier, Dewey championed government coercion as a social curative: \u201cNo ends are accomplished without the use of force. It is consequently no presumption against a measure, political, international, jural, economic, that it involves a use of force.\u201d Dewey declared that \u201csqueamishness about [the use of] force is the mark not of idealistic but of moonstruck morals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two decades later, Dewey discovered utopia during a visit to Moscow and proclaimed that the Soviet people \u201cgo about as if some mighty, oppressive load had been removed, as if they were newly awakened to the consciousness of released energies.\u201d Dewey had no qualms about the artificial famine that Stalin caused in the Ukraine that killed more than five million peasants. Perhaps Dewey agreed with Stalin: \u201cOne death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Franklin Roosevelt never invoked Hobbes but his Hobbesian approach to power made FDR a darling of the intelligentsia. In his first inaugural address, FDR called for a Hobbesian-like total submission to Washington: \u201cWe now realize\u2026 that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership can become effective.\u201d The military metaphors and call for everyone to march in lockstep was similar to rhetoric used by European dictators at the time. Roosevelt sometimes practically portrayed the State as a god. In his 1936 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he declared, \u201cIn the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.\u201d In 1937, he praised the members of political parties for respecting \u201cas <em>sacred<\/em> all branches of their government.\u201d In the same speech, Roosevelt assured listeners, in terms Hobbes would approve, \u201cYour government knows your mind, and you know your government\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As governments throughout the western world seized vastly more power, British professors took the lead in consecrating Hobbes. In 1938, on the eve of World War Two, British philosopher A.E. Taylor wrote an influential book that bizarrely proclaimed \u201cthat, in spite of his absolutist leanings, what Hobbes is trying to express by the aid of his legal fictions is the great democratic idea of self-government.\u201d Eight years later, Michael Oakeshott, one of favorite British philosophers of American conservatives, hailed<em> Leviathan<\/em> as \u201cthe greatest, perhaps the sole masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English language.\u201d Oakeshott assured readers that \u201cwe need not greatly concern ourselves\u201d about critics who warned of Hobbes\u2019 dark side because Hobbes\u2019 vision \u201ccould never amount to despotism.\u201d Signaling the total vanquishing of classical liberal interpretations, a major academic review of recent writings on Hobbes declared in 1982 that \u201cseeing Leviathan as tyranny is now only to be found in new editions of old books.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the United States, many liberals display a Hobbesian love of vast government power.<\/p>\n<p>University of Chicago professor Stephen Holmes gushed in his 1995 book, <em>Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy:<\/em> \u201cIt now seems obvious that [contemporary Statist] liberalism can occasionally eclipse authoritarianism as a technique for accumulating political power\u2026. For good or ill, liberalism is one of the most effective philosophies of state building ever contrived.\u201d Holmes hailed Hobbes as a \u201cpre-liberal\u201d\u2014which makes as much sense as touting Hitler as a \u201cpost-liberal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLeviathan\u201d has long since lost its onus among the academic elite. In 2012, Princeton University professor John Ikenberry\u2019s <em>Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order <\/em>was published. The publisher, Princeton University Press, summarized the book: \u201cIn the second half of the twentieth century, the United States engaged in the most ambitious and far-reaching liberal order building the world had yet seen. This liberal international order has been one of the most successful in history.\u201d Tell that to the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Somalians, and many other victims of U.S. foreign policy. Writing recently in the <em>Washington Post<\/em>, DePaul University political science professor David Lay Williams hailed <em>Leviathan<\/em> as \u201cperhaps the greatest work of political philosophy ever written in English.\u201d Williams is finishing a book titled,<em> The Greatest of All Plagues: Economic Inequality in Western Political Thought<\/em>, so perhaps he favors tyranny as the cure for inequality.<\/p>\n<p>Especially since 9\/11, America has suffered presidents who acted entitled to Hobbesian-levels of unlimited power. Bush administration lawyers secretly decided that neither federal law nor the Constitution could limit the power of the president, who was even entitled to declare martial law in America at his whim. President Barack Obama promised to restore civil liberties but vastly expanded illegal surveillance, bombed seven nations, boosted drone attacks by 500%, and claimed a prerogative to kill American terror suspects without a trial. <strong>President Donald Trump proclaimed earlier this year, \u201cWhen somebody is President of the United States, his authority is total.\u201d Trump neglected to clear his statement with the ghost of James Madison, the father of the Constitution.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The issue here is not the reputation of one long-dead philosopher but the seachange in verdicts on tyranny. The more powerful government becomes, the more homage Leviathan receives from professors and pundits. Will average citizens recognize the folly of a bunch of intellectual lemmings plunging over a cliff? \u00a0As<\/strong> Professor Tarlton warned, \u201cThe theory of Hobbes is a theory of unadulterated despotism, or it is nothing.\u201d<strong> Is it too much to ask the champions of despotism to cease pretending to be friends of liberty?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>James Bovard is the author of\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2LsDHUb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lost Rights<\/a><i>,\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2uSsrq2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attention Deficit Democracy<\/a><i>, and\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2mN0dbO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Policy Hooligan<\/a><i>. He is also a\u00a0<\/i>USA Today<i>\u00a0columnist. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>@JimBovard<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Conservative, July 24, 2020 How Intellectuals Cured \u2018Tyrannophobia\u2019 American presidents have adopted Hobbesian levels of power. &nbsp; by\u00a0 Jim Bovard Almost 400 years ago, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote a book scoffing at tyrannophobia\u2014the \u201cfear of being strongly governed.\u201d This was a peculiar term that Hobbes invented in Leviathan, since civilized nations had feared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[449,2484,2485,504,1885,2482,1889,164,38,93,910,1179,751,708,2483],"class_list":["post-14963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-911-attacks","tag-charles-tarlton","tag-david-h-ume","tag-franklin-roosevelt","tag-hegel","tag-hobbes","tag-john-dewey","tag-leviathan","tag-obama","tag-rousseau","tag-stalin","tag-stephen-holmes","tag-targeted-killing","tag-trump","tag-tyrannophobia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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James Bovard","og_description":"American Conservative, July 24, 2020 How Intellectuals Cured \u2018Tyrannophobia\u2019 American presidents have adopted Hobbesian levels of power. &nbsp; by\u00a0 Jim Bovard Almost 400 years ago, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote a book scoffing at tyrannophobia\u2014the \u201cfear of being strongly governed.\u201d This was a peculiar term that Hobbes invented in Leviathan, since civilized nations had feared [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2020-07-24T17:29:57+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-09-17T16:16:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1304,"height":2004,"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"How Intellectuals Cured &#8216;Tyrannophobia&#8217;","datePublished":"2020-07-24T17:29:57+00:00","dateModified":"2020-09-17T16:16:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/"},"wordCount":1711,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes.jpg","keywords":["9\/11 attacks","Charles Tarlton","David H ume","Franklin Roosevelt","Hegel","Hobbes","John Dewey","leviathan","Obama","Rousseau","stalin","Stephen Holmes","targeted killing","Trump","tyrannophobia"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/24\/how-intellectuals-cured-tyrannophobia\/","name":"How Intellectuals Cured 'Tyrannophobia' - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14963"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15065,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14963\/revisions\/15065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}