… ideas like “representative government” are cracked, probably beyond repair. I’m going to argue that they always were cracked; that the “social contract” was a patchwork solution to a historically contingent problem; that, in effect, it sounded good, but was doomed to failure, because it rested on an obvious untruth. Hobbes’s version of “all men are created equal” was much closer to reality than Jefferson’s goofy hippie nonsense, but it was false for all that, and Hobbes himself most certainly knew it.
Put simply but not inaccurately, the American Founding was based on Montesquieu, who was based on Locke, who was based on Hobbes, who based his entire political theory around a “thought experiment”, which is also known as “a 3am dorm room bull session”, which is glaringly false, as anyone who has ever solved the world’s problems over a few righteous bong rips with his fellow freshmen knows.
But if I’d just said that, with no prep, I’d sound like a lunatic.
Having established (1) that the “social contract” fails theoretically, I want to argue (2) that it fails practically, too, since it rests on the consent of the governed, which a combination of (a) irreducible complexity, (b) instant communications, and (c) caloric surplus renders moot.
In other words: it would be impossible to know what you’re actually “consenting” to in the first place, even if you could consent, which you can’t.
Severian, “Anticipations and Objections (I)”, Founding Questions, 2020-12-16.B
September 13, 2023
QotD: The social contract
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