The Leviathan

While the rest of the country's youth are busy studying to become nurses, I have been studying political philosophy. Whoopee. Anyway, Its Sunday and its time some "philosophical" rambling.

In our class, we were discussing the book, "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes, as you may have heard of him, is one of the greatest thinkers in political science. The book is named after an all-powerful sea monster from the bible that lived in the Mediterranean that was so awesome, it could swallow the waters of Jordan and make water boil from it's mouth. Also, the book talks about government. Okay, so in the beginning, there was a state of nature where man lives without civil society in the jungle probably. Life sucked balls for man as he not only had to struggle for himself, but he had to fight off the other assholes who tried to kill him and take his stuff. Basically, in the state of nature, man is completely free. Man is so free in fact, that he can kill you , steal your house/cave and rape your wife. Life is every man for himself and property is what you can hold onto with your bare hands.

Since life is so damned miserable, man decides to come together to form society. Man gives up his awesome freedom to form a contract and a "Leviathan", a person or entity with absolute power whom man obeys in exchange that the Leviathan impose order in society and stop people from killing and raping each other while they sleep. Think of the Leviathan as the big brother who's got your back. Justice exists when people obey the Leviathan and I mean total obedience. We are not talking about some gay constitutional monarchy here or something but absolute freaking power which means the Leviathan has the power to kill anyone opposing him or making trouble. (For the benefit of the rest of course) Whether or not the Leviathan is good or evil is irrelevant. Hobbes was not exactly living in fun times and the need for order was so great. So man surrenders his freedom to form a Leviathan, who in exchange makes sure there is order and people don't get killed.

So why write about the Leviathan? Well, let's just say that in this country, we have a little peace and order problem. Recently in my home city of Cebu, someone was shot dead twice in the chest probably with hollow-point rounds by masked men on motorcycles. What made this stand out from the hundred similar cases was that this was someone who the media deemed "important" enough to deserve the front page and our small attention spans. Shit, what about the other guys who got deep-sixed that we didn't hear about? I remember months ago, some lawyer in a high profile case was offed in pretty much the same way. Yes, it seems that if you step on the wrong toes in this place, you will be killed by motorcycle riding marksmen with bullets that explode into little pieces inside your body that gleefully embed themselves in your vital organs. And the police? What police? Totally useless. Do we ever hear about these hit men being caught? Not really, everyone will forget in a week until another one comes along. All this pretty decorations and slogans about how good society is getting under the leadership of politician [Brand Name] is a bullshit facade to hide the rot underneath this country. The truth is anyone can pay to have anyone killed and the perpetrators probably won't get caught. Its only a matter of time before things fall apart. If a crime wave were to hit the city, I doubt the police has the resources to stop them all. Truth is that we are not safe. I am not safe. If someone stole your cellphone or bicycle, tough shit. Someone kill your wife? Cry me a river.

How about that Leviathan? In a recent poll, It was discovered that Asians are typically willing to tolerate an unsavory leader as long as he "gets the job done" *wink**wink*. How far are we willing to go? Can we really agree to give a leader so much power? "Never again!" We might say as we remember good ole' Marcos. But remember, that bastard Marcos imposed his power on the people and frankly, we can't really give consent when being dragged away to a cold prison but if things get worse and society becomes as lawless as Mindanao's ass region, Leviathan would make a cool name for a government position.