John Gray: fresh Leviathans. Reflections on Liberalism

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Centuries ago, Thomas Hobbes described you as a Leviathan, a biblical monster. A prominent political philosopher John grey says Hobbes would not have met today's “Leviaans”.The states have dropped the limitations of the liberal era. The objectives of the fresh Leviathans are more far-reaching and disturbing. The future seems uncertain, so their mission has become to supply the subjects with the meaning of life.Are these not dangerous temptations? Will the “new Leviathans” not scope again for the ambition of soul engineers? And what precisely is simply a modern state?John grey answers these questions bravadoly in the latest book. The author of the best-selling “Seven Types of Atheism” and “Cat philosophy” invariably casts us out of the lost beliefs. Drugs, charms, yet – convinces (Jarosław Kuish).

The Liberal Culture Publishing home thanks you for sharing a passage for publication. We encourage you to read the full book.

Return of Leviathan

[...] erstwhile people live, having no power over themselves to hold them all in fear, they are in a state called war; and in a state of specified a war as if everyone were in a war with everyone else [...]

In specified a condition you have no place for industriousness, for the fruit of work is uncertain; and consequently, you have no place to work the earth or to sail, for there is no usage for the goods that can be brought by the sea; there is no convenient construction; there is no tools to decision and decision things, which requires much strength; there is no cognition of the earth's surface, nor of the time, nor of art, nor of the skill, nor of the art of word, nor of the community. And worst of all, there is constant fear and danger of violent death. And man's life is lonely, poor, sunless, animal and short. ‘Leviathan’ — 13, 8–9

The 21st century states become Leviathans, the offspring of the biblical sea monster mentioned in the book of Job.

Seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes utilized it to depict sovereign power, which can only bring peace to undisciplined humanity. Only by surrendering to unlimited governments could it escape from the state of nature—a war of all against all in which no 1 is protected from his fellow men.

As Hobbes writes in his masterpiece, “Levites”, the state of nature refers not to the distant past before the emergence of society, but to the hazard of this society turning into anarchy. And that could happen at any time. It didn't substance if the sovereign was king or president, parliament or tyrant.

Only a state with unlimited power was able to supply the conditions of a "decent life" in which industry, discipline and art could make in peace.

In the following centuries, Hobbes seemed wrong. States were born where power was limited by law. Democracy developed, where governments could be held accountable. In the 20th century, the defeat of Nazism and communism seemed to show that liberal government was mostly more effective than dictatorship. After the Cold War, many believed that liberal democracy was gaining a universal dimension.

In schools and universities, young people are inspired to follow the ideology of progress.

The art is assessed on the basis of whether it serves the policy objectives set.

Dissidents unorthodoxly addressing issues of race, gender, or power are obliterated, their careers are overturned, and they themselves excluded from public life. These repressions are not the work of governments. The existing canons formulate and enforce civilian society. Libraries, galleries and museums regulation out views they consider reactionary. Large technological corporations wield power over censorship, and non-liberal institutions control society and themselves.

Global pandemics, progressive climate change and war in Europe have only accelerated these changes.

Like many historical returns, however, they began with the apparent triumph of the reverse trend. The collapse of the russian Union – celebrated in the West as a foreshadowing the spread of liberal values throughout the planet – was the beginning of the end of liberalism in its present sense.

John Gray, fresh Leviathans. Reflections on Liberalism, Foundation of Liberal Culture, 2024, translated by Szymon Żuchowski

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