Reading Thomas Hobbes as a Contemporary Commentator on the Anxiety and Political Apathy of the 21st Century

In this paper, I connect ideal theory with realism through the work of the notorious ideal thinker who is widely used in realist debates as well, Thomas Hobbes. My purpose is to generate new insights into the cognitive dissonance of man and politics. In contemporary democracies, people experience discordant desire and are pulled away from politics which has engendered a form of political apathy, and at the same time are experiencing anxieties of not being political enough, manifesting itself in the form of populist tendencies in many countries. I read Hobbes as the perfect realist, yet the most ambitious idealist, who in his work Leviathan tries to find a solution to his own and the political cognitive dissonance of his times. Hobbes provides us a possible idea that human beings or in Hobbes’ term men, can relate to each other because of the very dark emotions which separates them, through his political thought experiment. Anxiety and fear in Leviathan which is the very emotion which leads to war on Hobbes’ account, provides the very reason of people relating to each other to form a secure political community. Through this Hobbes was presenting a powerful commentary on the internal dissonance of each of his political subjects. My first thesis on what was this solution to the internal dissonance of each Man in the Leviathan is to suggest that Hobbes propounded to allow people to occupy the minimal of political and still feel political. In doing so he was trying to find a way to allow men to be political while not wanting to be political and proposing to us that it is possible to solve the political anxieties of Man. Moving ahead with this thesis, I propose to look at Hobbes’ commentary in light of contemporary debates on modes of engaging with a (legally) bounded community and what impact does that have on accepting new members into the political community. I argue that if we are to take Hobbes’ insights seriously, trying to place heavy demands on people such as that of a republican idea of citizenship, mirrored in contemporary deliberative democrats might not lead us to the inclusive democracies we are aiming for. Instead, following Hobbes what if we start with relaxing the requirements on people to be a part of the body politic and to feel political? I will connect this with debates on immigration in western societies to argue that relaxing the modes of political engagement might lead us to a more robust argument for not controlling immigration the way it is being attempted today in western advanced democracies. What I am trying to connect here from Hobbes is that people can relate to each other based on recognizing shared passions and possibly come to solve their internal dissonance. This might be the first step in thinking of new creative solutions for the anxiety and political apathy people are experiencing in various democratic regimes in the 21st century. Second Choice: S49 Political Theory: Public Values and Normative Guidance