WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.840 Welcome to the deep dive, the place where we 00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:04.379 cut through the noise, bypass the textbooks and 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:06.839 get straight to the foundational ideas that shape 00:00:06.839 --> 00:00:09.900 our modern world. Today, we are diving deep into 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:13.400 a figure whose influence is so, so pervasive 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:15.699 you might not even realize it. We're talking 00:00:15.699 --> 00:00:19.460 about John Locke, born in 1632, died in 1704. 00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:22.980 He's often called the father of liberalism. And 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.940 he is. But to just leave it at that label is 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:28.140 to miss the incredible complexity of the man. 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:31.620 His ideas are, and this is no exaggeration, the 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.380 literal blueprint for modern governance. But 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:36.759 the man himself is a study in contradictions, 00:00:36.759 --> 00:00:38.579 some of them pretty troubling. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:38.859 --> 00:00:41.179 That's right. So our listeners shared a really 00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:44.079 comprehensive stack of sources on Locke, the 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:47.039 physician, the philosopher, the pragmatic political 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.840 operator. And our mission today is to rapidly 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:52.340 dissect that impact. And we need to understand 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:54.880 not just the big famous principles he laid down, 00:00:54.899 --> 00:00:56.899 like the tabula rasa, you know, the blank slate 00:00:56.899 --> 00:00:59.000 and natural rights. Right. We also have to get 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.740 into the messy real world context of his personal 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:04.299 choices and his political actions. That dual 00:01:04.299 --> 00:01:07.370 focus is just essential. We have to look at the 00:01:07.370 --> 00:01:09.989 lofty universal theories. The ones that end up 00:01:09.989 --> 00:01:12.109 in the U .S. Declaration of Independence. Exactly. 00:01:12.170 --> 00:01:14.230 And we have to put those right alongside the, 00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:16.950 let's say, contradictory ways he participated 00:01:16.950 --> 00:01:19.349 in the systems of his time. We're talking about 00:01:19.349 --> 00:01:22.269 colonial administration, wealth, and yes, the 00:01:22.269 --> 00:01:24.189 slave trade. It's a journey that takes us from 00:01:24.189 --> 00:01:27.329 a quiet Oxford college to the high stakes world 00:01:27.329 --> 00:01:30.609 of London politics and back again. So let's unpack 00:01:30.609 --> 00:01:33.010 this life story and start with the man in his 00:01:33.010 --> 00:01:35.959 context. Let's do it. So. John Locke was born 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:39.680 in 1632 in a town called Rington in Somerset. 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:42.200 And the environment he grew up in is just crucial, 00:01:42.379 --> 00:01:44.900 isn't it? It's everything. His family was deeply 00:01:44.900 --> 00:01:48.109 Puritan. And this wasn't just a casual affiliation. 00:01:48.150 --> 00:01:50.609 This was the core of their identity. Which put 00:01:50.609 --> 00:01:52.870 them on the side of dissent, of skepticism toward 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:54.950 the established church and the crown. And his 00:01:54.950 --> 00:01:56.849 father was an attorney, but more importantly, 00:01:56.909 --> 00:01:59.310 he was a cavalry captain for the parliamentarians 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:01.329 during the English Civil War. Okay, so imagine 00:02:01.329 --> 00:02:04.250 growing up in that house. The dinner table conversation 00:02:04.250 --> 00:02:07.090 is about whether a king's power comes from God 00:02:07.090 --> 00:02:10.469 or if it comes from the people. Precisely. That 00:02:10.469 --> 00:02:12.870 conflict plants the seeds of skepticism toward 00:02:12.870 --> 00:02:15.889 absolute monarchy from day one. So he gets a 00:02:15.889 --> 00:02:18.909 very traditional, elite education. He goes to 00:02:18.909 --> 00:02:20.849 Westminster School and then on to Christchurch, 00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:25.069 Oxford. But he wasn't exactly thrilled with what 00:02:25.069 --> 00:02:27.569 they were teaching, was he? Not at all. This 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:30.530 is a really key detail about him. He found the 00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:32.530 traditional curriculum, which was mostly just 00:02:32.530 --> 00:02:36.629 rehashing Aristotle, just incredibly dull, stultifying. 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:39.039 So while they're pushing Aristotle on him, he's 00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:41.699 off reading the moderns. He's secretly devouring 00:02:41.699 --> 00:02:44.900 philosophers like Rene Descartes. He was drawn 00:02:44.900 --> 00:02:47.740 to this new philosophy that was based on observation 00:02:47.740 --> 00:02:50.800 and reason, not just on ancient authority. So 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:52.780 that frustration with the old way of thinking 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.360 pushes him towards something new. It pushes him 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:57.699 towards science and medicine, a decisive shift. 00:02:57.879 --> 00:02:59.560 And that's what brings him into contact with 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.000 the real cutting -edge thinkers of the 17th century. 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:06.000 Exactly. Through friends, he gets exposed to 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.340 the experimental philosophy being practiced at 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:11.180 the Royal Society, which he later joined. And 00:03:11.180 --> 00:03:13.500 his study of medicine wasn't a hobby. He had 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:16.560 a Bachelor of Medicine in 1675. And he starts 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.419 working with absolute giants of the era. People 00:03:19.419 --> 00:03:21.500 like the chemist Robert Boyle and the polymath 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:24.199 Robert Hooke. This period was completely transformative 00:03:24.199 --> 00:03:26.979 for him. So this grounding in empirical science 00:03:26.979 --> 00:03:30.659 and medical observation. That's the engine for 00:03:30.659 --> 00:03:32.560 his whole philosophy. It's the engine. It gives 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:35.319 him the tools, the methodology to look at the 00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:37.919 human mind as a system you can actually study, 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.580 just like Adi. His medical training gives him 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:42.860 the empirical mindset. And his Puritan background 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.460 gives him the political skepticism. And you fuse 00:03:45.460 --> 00:03:47.819 those two things together and you get the revolutionary 00:03:47.819 --> 00:03:50.639 John Locke. OK, so now we get to the moment that 00:03:50.639 --> 00:03:53.460 really catapults him from academia into the absolute 00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:56.199 highest levels of English politics. Anthony Ashley 00:03:56.199 --> 00:04:00.110 Tuber, Lord Ashley. later the first Earl of Shaftesbury. 00:04:00.330 --> 00:04:02.210 Tell us about that meeting. It sounds like something 00:04:02.210 --> 00:04:04.289 out of a movie. It really does. It's high stakes 00:04:04.289 --> 00:04:07.009 medical drama. Shaftesbury, who's already this 00:04:07.009 --> 00:04:09.729 huge figure in the court of Charles II, comes 00:04:09.729 --> 00:04:13.750 to Oxford in 1666 and he has a life -threatening 00:04:13.750 --> 00:04:16.089 liver infection. And the standard treatments 00:04:16.089 --> 00:04:18.170 of the day, the bleeding and so on, they're not 00:04:18.170 --> 00:04:20.569 working. They're failing. It's an abscess. It's 00:04:20.569 --> 00:04:24.389 incredibly dangerous. And somehow Locke, who's 00:04:24.389 --> 00:04:26.470 still basically just an academic studying medicine, 00:04:26.670 --> 00:04:29.220 gets called in. The pressure must have been immense. 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:32.060 Immense. But he handled it with this incredible 00:04:32.060 --> 00:04:35.279 methodical calm. He didn't just act as the doctor. 00:04:35.339 --> 00:04:38.060 He coordinated all the advice. And he and the 00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:40.360 other physicians came to a terrifying conclusion. 00:04:40.699 --> 00:04:43.000 Surgery. Surgery. Which at that time was often 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.470 a death sentence. But... Locke oversaw this procedure 00:04:46.470 --> 00:04:49.550 to insert a silver tube into Shaftesbury's abdomen 00:04:49.550 --> 00:04:52.129 to drain the abscess. And it worked. He saves 00:04:52.129 --> 00:04:54.069 the life of one of the most powerful men in England. 00:04:54.250 --> 00:04:57.069 He does. And that act cements this lifelong bond 00:04:57.069 --> 00:05:00.410 of loyalty and gratitude. Shaftesbury was so 00:05:00.410 --> 00:05:03.490 impressed with Locke's mind, his skill, his trustworthiness. 00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:05.610 He basically tells him to get out of Oxford and 00:05:05.610 --> 00:05:08.509 come to London. Pretty much. He says, your ideas 00:05:08.509 --> 00:05:10.629 are too important for the classroom. Come with 00:05:10.629 --> 00:05:12.829 me and I'll show you how the world really works. 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:16.759 And so in 1667, Locke moves into Shaftesbury's 00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:19.860 London home, Exeter House. And he's transformed 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.540 from a quiet academic into a high -level political 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:26.279 operator. Instantly. He's plunged right into 00:05:26.279 --> 00:05:28.459 the heart of what would become the Whig movement, 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:31.199 which was all about opposing absolute monarchy 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.019 and a Catholic succession to the throne. And 00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:35.600 he wasn't just sitting on the sidelines. He's 00:05:35.600 --> 00:05:38.639 given actual jobs. Very hands -on roles. He was 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.220 secretary to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:43.500 and secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:46.139 So he's writing colonial policy. He's dealing 00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:49.560 with trade, economics, and... And, controversially, 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:51.480 the administration of colonies that were built 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:54.050 on servitude and exploitation. This is where 00:05:54.050 --> 00:05:56.129 you see the Lockean paradox in its earliest form. 00:05:56.269 --> 00:05:58.449 Yeah. The philosopher of liberty is writing policy 00:05:58.449 --> 00:06:01.509 for colonial expansion. OK, so this background 00:06:01.509 --> 00:06:04.430 medicine, science, hard politics is the perfect 00:06:04.430 --> 00:06:06.730 crucible for his major works. Let's talk about 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:08.769 the timing of those. This is one of the biggest 00:06:08.769 --> 00:06:11.509 changes in how we understand Locke. I'm talking 00:06:11.509 --> 00:06:13.709 about his most famous political work, The Two 00:06:13.709 --> 00:06:16.389 Treatises of Government. Right. For a long time, 00:06:16.410 --> 00:06:18.269 everyone thought he wrote it after the glorious 00:06:18.269 --> 00:06:22.029 revolution of 1688. As a justification for what 00:06:22.029 --> 00:06:24.410 had already happened, making him seem like a 00:06:24.410 --> 00:06:27.290 defender of the new status quo. But modern scholarship 00:06:27.290 --> 00:06:29.589 has completely flipped that idea on its head. 00:06:29.750 --> 00:06:33.069 It has. The work of Peter Laslett in the 1960s 00:06:33.069 --> 00:06:35.990 was groundbreaking. He argued that the bulk of 00:06:35.990 --> 00:06:38.709 the two treatises was actually written much earlier, 00:06:38.870 --> 00:06:42.709 around 1679, right in the middle of a major political 00:06:42.709 --> 00:06:45.829 crisis. At Shaftesbury's urging. Almost certainly. 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.639 So that changes everything, doesn't it? It means 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:50.800 the book isn't a justification after the fact. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.920 It's a revolutionary argument against absolute 00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:56.519 monarchy. It's a call to arms written when the 00:06:56.519 --> 00:06:58.920 fight was still happening. It was treasonous. 00:06:58.939 --> 00:07:01.500 It was an explosive argument against the divine 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:04.420 right of kings, challenging thinkers like Robert 00:07:04.420 --> 00:07:06.920 Filmer and Thomas Hobbes. It was arguing for 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:08.839 a government based on the consent of the people. 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:11.560 And of course, the political situation went south 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:15.019 for his side. Shaftesbury's plots failed. He 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:18.060 fled, and Locke was implicated. He had to flee 00:07:18.060 --> 00:07:21.720 too. He went to the Netherlands in 1683, under 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:23.819 suspicion for being part of the Rye House plot 00:07:23.819 --> 00:07:26.519 to assassinate the king. He lived there for five 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:29.779 years, under a fake name, Dr. van Linden. But 00:07:29.779 --> 00:07:32.279 that exile, as difficult as it must have been, 00:07:32.459 --> 00:07:35.339 was incredibly productive for him. He gave him 00:07:35.339 --> 00:07:37.860 the space he needed. He's in Holland associating 00:07:37.860 --> 00:07:39.660 with these free -thinking dissenting Protestant 00:07:39.660 --> 00:07:42.660 groups, some with connections to Spinoza's circle. 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:44.740 Which would have reinforced all his ideas about 00:07:44.740 --> 00:07:47.180 tolerance. Absolutely. And it's during this period 00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:49.339 that he composes his letter concerning toleration 00:07:49.339 --> 00:07:51.740 and does the bulk of the work on his masterpiece 00:07:51.740 --> 00:07:54.899 of epistemology, an essay concerning human understanding. 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:58.779 And then the big return, 1689. The Glorious Revolution 00:07:58.779 --> 00:08:01.259 is a success and he comes back to England with 00:08:01.259 --> 00:08:03.939 the new queen, Mary II. And then comes the publishing 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:06.360 spree. In just a couple of years, the essay, 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:08.560 the two treatises, and the letter concerning 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:10.800 toleration all come out. It's this incredible 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:13.180 burst of intellectual output that cements him 00:08:13.180 --> 00:08:15.980 as the hero of the new Whig government. He lived 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:18.540 out his final years as a kind of elder statesman, 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:21.199 didn't he? He did, at the country home of his 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:23.639 friend Lady Masham, corresponding with people 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:26.579 like Isaac Newton, a pillar of the new establishment 00:08:26.579 --> 00:08:29.480 he had helped, in secret, to create. A perfect 00:08:29.480 --> 00:08:32.580 transition. Let's move from the life to the radical 00:08:32.580 --> 00:08:35.340 ideas themselves, starting with his theory of 00:08:35.340 --> 00:08:37.799 the mind. Let's do it. So when Locke turns that 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:40.399 empirical medical mind of his to the question 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:42.960 of how do we know what we know, he starts a revolution. 00:08:43.179 --> 00:08:47.019 And it all begins with one core idea. The tabula 00:08:47.019 --> 00:08:49.899 rasa. The blank slate. Exactly. It's a Latin 00:08:49.899 --> 00:08:51.700 phrase for a scraped tablet when you could write 00:08:51.700 --> 00:08:53.960 on. Locke's whole system is agreed on this one 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:57.860 postulate. At birth, the mind is empty. So no 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:00.720 pre -existing concepts, no innate idea of God 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:03.460 or good and evil? Nothing. It's a direct contradiction 00:09:03.460 --> 00:09:05.600 of the philosophers who came before him, especially 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:08.059 Descartes, who believed we were born with certain 00:09:08.059 --> 00:09:11.320 innate ideas already in place. Okay, so if the 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.860 mind is empty at birth, everything we know has 00:09:13.860 --> 00:09:16.240 to be built from scratch. Where does the information 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:18.940 come from? For Locke, it comes from one place 00:09:18.940 --> 00:09:23.080 and one place only. Experience. This is the absolute 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.840 foundation of empiricism. All our ideas, which 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:29.059 are the building blocks of knowledge, come from 00:09:29.059 --> 00:09:31.379 what he called two distinct fountains. Let's 00:09:31.379 --> 00:09:33.379 break those down. What's the first one? The first 00:09:33.379 --> 00:09:36.220 is sensation. This is the most obvious one. It's 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:38.580 just the perception of the outside world through 00:09:38.580 --> 00:09:41.539 our senses. Looking at a blue sky, feeling heat 00:09:41.539 --> 00:09:44.919 from a fire, tasting salt. All simple ideas derive 00:09:44.919 --> 00:09:46.879 directly from sensation. And the second fountain 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:49.519 is more internal, right? Yes. The second is reflection. 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:53.019 This is our perception of our own mind's operations, 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:55.500 the act of thinking, doubting, believing, willing. 00:09:55.919 --> 00:09:59.440 It's the internal sense. So sensation gives us 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:01.779 ideas about the external world. And reflection 00:10:01.779 --> 00:10:04.120 gives us ideas about our own internal world, 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:07.600 our consciousness. Which every person, as he 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:10.179 puts it, has wholly within himself. So you sense 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:11.980 the apple, that's sensation. And then you think 00:10:11.980 --> 00:10:13.500 about the apple, you remember other apples, you 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:15.240 decide you want the apple. That's reflection. 00:10:15.799 --> 00:10:19.519 Precisely. And all complex knowledge, ideas like 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:22.679 justice or government or art, are just built 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:25.799 up by combining these simple ideas from sensation 00:10:25.799 --> 00:10:28.240 and reflection. It's so methodical. It's like 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:30.940 he's describing a machine for creating knowledge. 00:10:31.100 --> 00:10:32.919 And that's exactly what it was. It was a mechanism. 00:10:33.139 --> 00:10:35.960 Yeah. And it completely reoriented philosophy 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:39.139 towards subjective experience. It's not about 00:10:39.139 --> 00:10:42.139 some external truth anymore. It's about how you 00:10:42.139 --> 00:10:44.899 build truth from your own perceptions. And this 00:10:44.899 --> 00:10:48.080 work on how the mind processes information leads 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.519 him directly to defining what it means to be 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:53.100 a person, what it means to be a self. Yes, and 00:10:53.100 --> 00:10:54.940 this is maybe his most profound contribution, 00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:58.159 even if it's less famous than his politics. He 00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:00.519 completely detaches personal identity from any 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:03.539 specific substance, like a soul or even a body. 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:06.340 So what is it then? What makes you you? It's 00:11:06.340 --> 00:11:08.659 consciousness. Simple as that. How does he phrase 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:11.059 it? He defines the self as, and I'm quoting here, 00:11:11.179 --> 00:11:13.799 that conscious thinking thing. which is sensible 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:16.679 or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:18.840 happiness or misery, and so is concerned for 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:20.840 itself, as far as that consciousness extends. 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:23.720 So my identity is just the continuous stream 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:26.600 of my memories and my self -awareness. That's 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:29.179 it. It's a radical break. Your identity isn't 00:11:29.179 --> 00:11:32.039 guaranteed by God or by your physical form. It's 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:34.419 psychological. It's dynamic. And intellectual 00:11:34.419 --> 00:11:37.299 historians argue this is basically the birth 00:11:37.299 --> 00:11:39.840 of the modern Western self. It is. This is the 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:42.600 self that is defined by its inner life. It's 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:46.200 personal history. And it's this conscious remembering 00:11:46.200 --> 00:11:49.500 self that is capable of consenting to be governed, 00:11:49.659 --> 00:11:52.159 which connects his psychology directly to his 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:55.139 politics. And his theory about how ideas get 00:11:55.139 --> 00:11:57.039 linked together in the mind, this association 00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:59.919 of ideas, that had a huge influence on psychology, 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:02.519 didn't it? It's the basis for what became known 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:06.059 as associationism. He was fascinated and a bit 00:12:06.059 --> 00:12:09.000 worried by how the mind gets wired. especially 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:11.340 in childhood. He noticed that if two ideas get 00:12:11.340 --> 00:12:13.779 presented together over and over, the mind links 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:15.919 them, even if there's no logical connection between 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.159 them. Exactly. And that connection can become 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:20.799 so strong that you can't have one without the 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:22.919 other popping into your head. This is the mechanism 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:25.279 for learning, but it's also the mechanism for 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:27.679 prejudice and irrational fear. Which brings us 00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:30.059 to that. Very famous example he used, the one 00:12:30.059 --> 00:12:32.500 about the goblins and sprites. Right. He warns 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:35.419 parents and educators to be so careful about 00:12:35.419 --> 00:12:38.220 what impressions are made on the tender infancies 00:12:38.220 --> 00:12:40.639 of children because those early associations 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:44.480 are incredibly powerful and lasting. And his 00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:46.860 example is a pretty common domestic scene. He 00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:49.120 says, imagine a foolish maid who wants to keep 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:51.700 a child from wandering off in the dark. So she 00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:54.149 tells him stories about. goblins and sprites 00:12:54.149 --> 00:12:56.909 that live in the dark. So the child's natural 00:12:56.909 --> 00:13:00.129 unease with darkness gets powerfully, irrationally 00:13:00.129 --> 00:13:02.730 associated with the terrifying idea of a ghost. 00:13:02.990 --> 00:13:05.370 And even when that child grows up and his reason 00:13:05.370 --> 00:13:07.669 tells him that sprites aren't real, the association 00:13:07.669 --> 00:13:10.830 is still there. The feeling of terror is permanently 00:13:10.830 --> 00:13:13.149 linked to darkness in his mind. So the grown 00:13:13.149 --> 00:13:16.009 man, as Locke puts it, can no more bear the one 00:13:16.009 --> 00:13:18.149 than the other. It's a powerful illustration 00:13:18.149 --> 00:13:21.309 of his point. The blank slate is incredibly vulnerable 00:13:21.309 --> 00:13:23.669 to its environment. If you control the input, 00:13:23.870 --> 00:13:26.049 you control the output. You control the person. 00:13:26.210 --> 00:13:29.250 And he formalizes this in his book, Some Thoughts 00:13:29.250 --> 00:13:32.149 Concerning Education. He says that nine parts 00:13:32.149 --> 00:13:34.649 of 10 are what they are, good or evil, useful 00:13:34.649 --> 00:13:37.460 or not. by their education. And this is where 00:13:37.460 --> 00:13:39.980 the idealist philosopher runs headlong into the 00:13:39.980 --> 00:13:42.399 hard -nosed economic pragmatist. This is where 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:44.659 we get the really controversial stuff, the child 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.659 labor advocacy. His essay on the Poor Law from 00:13:47.659 --> 00:13:50.580 1697, it's a policy paper about how to deal with 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:53.740 poverty in England. And Locke was obsessed with 00:13:53.740 --> 00:13:56.700 productivity and utility. His main concern wasn't 00:13:56.700 --> 00:13:59.919 welfare. It was waste. Total economic waste. 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:02.519 He looked at the children of the poor and he 00:14:02.519 --> 00:14:04.480 lamented that they were being kept in idleness 00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:07.320 until they were 12 or 14. All that potential 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:10.159 labor, as he saw it, was being lost to the public. 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:13.159 So what was his solution? It was severe. He proposed 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:15.259 setting up working schools in every parish for 00:14:15.259 --> 00:14:17.559 poor children. The goal was to instill a work 00:14:17.559 --> 00:14:19.600 ethic and make them profitable. And he proposed 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:23.179 they start when? He specifically suggests they 00:14:23.179 --> 00:14:25.480 start from infancy. He names the age of three. 00:14:25.659 --> 00:14:29.190 Three years old. Working. Yes. They would be 00:14:29.190 --> 00:14:32.149 brought to the school, taught simple tasks, and 00:14:32.149 --> 00:14:35.409 their labor would, in theory, pay for their upkeep 00:14:35.409 --> 00:14:37.990 and even generate a profit for the parish. That 00:14:37.990 --> 00:14:40.850 is just a brutal focus on economic utility. It 00:14:40.850 --> 00:14:43.549 is. And it's a stark, unavoidable contradiction 00:14:43.549 --> 00:14:46.730 to his grand principles of natural liberty. It 00:14:46.730 --> 00:14:49.669 shows how even in his own mind, the demands of 00:14:49.669 --> 00:14:52.529 a new capitalist economy could collide with the 00:14:52.529 --> 00:14:55.169 ideals of human dignity. A perfect bridge then. 00:14:55.549 --> 00:14:58.289 Let's move from shaping the individual mind to 00:14:58.289 --> 00:15:00.649 shaping the political state. Let's do it. So 00:15:00.649 --> 00:15:02.690 Locke's political philosophy, like his rival 00:15:02.690 --> 00:15:05.710 Thomas Hobbes, starts from this idea of a state 00:15:05.710 --> 00:15:08.159 of nature. but they go in completely different 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:10.039 directions. They share the starting point of 00:15:10.039 --> 00:15:12.200 a social contract, that government is an invention 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:14.940 in agreement. But their ideas about what came 00:15:14.940 --> 00:15:17.799 before, about human nature itself, are poles 00:15:17.799 --> 00:15:20.720 apart. Everyone knows Hobbes. He saw the state 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:23.039 of nature as chaos, a war of all against all. 00:15:23.100 --> 00:15:26.379 Life was nasty, brutish, and short. Right. Whereas 00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:28.879 Locke believed that human nature is fundamentally 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:32.279 characterized by reason and tolerance. In the 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.600 state of nature, people are governed by natural 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:37.519 law, which they can discover through reason and 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:39.940 which teaches them not to harm one another. Okay, 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:42.220 so if the state of nature is generally peaceful 00:15:42.220 --> 00:15:44.620 and reasonable, why leave it? Why do we need 00:15:44.620 --> 00:15:47.159 government at all? Locke says it's not that it's 00:15:47.159 --> 00:15:49.779 terrible, it's that it's inconvenient. The main 00:15:49.779 --> 00:15:52.299 problem is that in the state of nature, every 00:15:52.299 --> 00:15:55.659 person is their own judge, jury, and executioner 00:15:55.659 --> 00:15:58.539 when a dispute arises. And that leads to bias 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:01.600 and endless cycles of revenge. Exactly. But he 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.059 also identifies a specific thing that makes the 00:16:04.059 --> 00:16:07.360 state of nature much more unstable. And that's 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:08.940 the invention of money. That's the invention 00:16:08.940 --> 00:16:12.000 of money. Because currency allows for unlimited 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.980 accumulation, it introduces significant inequality 00:16:14.980 --> 00:16:18.179 and selfishness, which generates much more conflict. 00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:21.500 So people agree to form a civil society, a government, 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:24.720 not to escape terror, but to get an impartial 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:27.220 referee. Precisely. Government isn't there to 00:16:27.220 --> 00:16:29.279 create our rights. It's there to protect the 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:31.259 rights we already have by nature and to resolve 00:16:31.259 --> 00:16:33.679 our conflicts in a civil way. And this brings 00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:36.659 us to arguably his most famous and influential 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:39.919 idea, the definition of those natural rights. 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:42.659 He defines them as inherent, pre -political. 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:46.200 They exist before any government. Every person 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:47.960 has a natural right to defend their audience. 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:52.320 And this phrase is crucial. Life, health, liberty, 00:16:52.539 --> 00:16:55.159 or possessions. Life, liberty, and possessions, 00:16:55.259 --> 00:16:58.309 or property. That's the bedrock. And any government 00:16:58.309 --> 00:17:00.590 that fails to protect those rights forfeits its 00:17:00.590 --> 00:17:03.169 legitimacy. That simple list has so much power, 00:17:03.309 --> 00:17:05.289 it's a direct challenge to the idea that rights 00:17:05.289 --> 00:17:07.690 come from a king or a state. It's revolutionary. 00:17:08.069 --> 00:17:10.869 Against the idea of absolute power, Locke offers 00:17:10.869 --> 00:17:13.690 this elegant, universal set of rights that no 00:17:13.690 --> 00:17:16.069 government can legitimately violate. And this 00:17:16.069 --> 00:17:17.950 list is, of course, the direct blueprint for 00:17:17.950 --> 00:17:20.789 the American experiment. Without question. You 00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:23.279 can draw a straight line. from Locke's life, 00:17:23.460 --> 00:17:26.440 liberty, and property to Thomas Jefferson's life, 00:17:26.539 --> 00:17:28.500 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the 00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:30.420 Declaration of Independence. Jefferson called 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:32.359 Locke one of the three greatest men who ever 00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:35.740 lived. He did, along with Bacon and Newton. And 00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:38.369 the influence isn't just thematic. The language 00:17:38.369 --> 00:17:40.730 is there. The Declaration justifies revolution 00:17:40.730 --> 00:17:44.069 after a long train of abuses by the king. And 00:17:44.069 --> 00:17:46.490 that's a direct quote from Locke. Verbatim from 00:17:46.490 --> 00:17:49.109 the Second Treatise. He uses a long train of 00:17:49.109 --> 00:17:52.250 abuses, prevarications, and artifices to describe 00:17:52.250 --> 00:17:54.410 the point at which a ruler has broken the trust 00:17:54.410 --> 00:17:56.390 of the people. And his influence on the American 00:17:56.390 --> 00:17:59.309 founders goes beyond just the Declaration, right? 00:17:59.369 --> 00:18:01.009 It's in the structure of the government itself. 00:18:01.109 --> 00:18:03.150 Oh, absolutely. He advocated for a separation 00:18:03.150 --> 00:18:06.490 of powers, legislative and executive, as a check 00:18:06.490 --> 00:18:09.000 against tyranny. He demanded a government that 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:11.799 was limited, representative, and based entirely 00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:13.920 on the consent of the governed. And then there's 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:16.279 the most radical idea of all, the one that gave 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:18.660 the American Revolution its philosophical license. 00:18:19.079 --> 00:18:21.779 The right to revolution. Locke argued that if 00:18:21.779 --> 00:18:24.079 a government becomes a tyranny and fundamentally 00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:27.220 violates the social contract. Revolution isn't 00:18:27.220 --> 00:18:30.240 just a right, it's an obligation. It's a moral 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.119 duty. The people are not only permitted, but 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.460 are required to dissolve that government and 00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:38.500 create a new one. That idea alone made him a 00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:40.980 hero in the American colonies. But it's interesting, 00:18:41.059 --> 00:18:44.059 as we noted, his two treatises didn't have that 00:18:44.059 --> 00:18:46.779 same explosive impact in England right away. 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:49.660 That's a fascinating historical detail. For years, 00:18:49.859 --> 00:18:52.339 the book was mostly ignored or just cited by 00:18:52.339 --> 00:18:54.519 people who wanted to attack it. So who were the 00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:56.480 English Whigs reading at the time? They were 00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:59.259 much more into Algernon Sidney's discourses concerning 00:18:59.259 --> 00:19:01.970 government. Sidney also argued for resisting 00:19:01.970 --> 00:19:04.910 tyranny, but he based his arguments on the ancient 00:19:04.910 --> 00:19:07.309 historical rights of Englishmen and the English 00:19:07.309 --> 00:19:09.230 Constitution. So it was a more conservative, 00:19:09.329 --> 00:19:12.230 more traditional argument. Exactly. It felt more 00:19:12.230 --> 00:19:15.410 English. Locke's argument based on abstract, 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:18.210 universal, God -given natural rights that anyone 00:19:18.210 --> 00:19:21.349 could figure out through reason. That felt a 00:19:21.349 --> 00:19:23.569 bit too radical, too abstract for the British 00:19:23.569 --> 00:19:26.470 establishment. Locke really becomes a superstar 00:19:26.470 --> 00:19:29.309 decades later when the Americans needed exactly 00:19:29.309 --> 00:19:31.869 that kind of universal argument. Let's dig into 00:19:31.869 --> 00:19:35.230 the concept that drives so much of this. His 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:38.750 theory of property. How does he justify private 00:19:38.750 --> 00:19:41.109 ownership in the first place? It all comes down 00:19:41.109 --> 00:19:43.990 to his labor theory of property. The starting 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:46.990 point is that God gave the earth to all of humanity 00:19:46.990 --> 00:19:49.670 in common. So everything is shared. Everything 00:19:49.670 --> 00:19:52.569 is shared until an individual mixes their labor 00:19:52.569 --> 00:19:56.180 with... A part of it. When you exert your effort, 00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:58.759 your energy on something in nature, you remove 00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:00.500 it from the common state and make it your own. 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:03.839 So if I pick an apple from a wild tree, my labor 00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:06.859 of picking it makes it my apple. That's the basic 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:10.220 idea. But, and this is crucial, his original 00:20:10.220 --> 00:20:12.660 theory had two major limits on it. Okay, what 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:14.599 were they? First was the anti -waste principle. 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:16.819 You could only take as much as you could use 00:20:16.819 --> 00:20:19.740 before it spoiled. If you gather 100 apples and 00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:22.180 90 of them rot, you've taken more than your share 00:20:22.180 --> 00:20:24.299 and violated natural law. That makes sense. And 00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:26.339 the second one is the really famous one. The 00:20:26.339 --> 00:20:28.759 Locking Proviso. It says you can take property 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:31.019 for yourself, at least where there is enough 00:20:31.019 --> 00:20:33.980 and as good left in common for others. So you 00:20:33.980 --> 00:20:35.960 can't just take the only water source in the 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:39.079 desert for yourself. Exactly. You have a social 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:43.619 obligation not to harm others through your appropriation 00:20:43.619 --> 00:20:47.380 of property. These two rules together. make his 00:20:47.380 --> 00:20:50.319 initial theory sound very limited, almost egalitarian. 00:20:50.599 --> 00:20:53.720 So how do we get from that to the world of unlimited 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.619 accumulation and massive inequality that we have 00:20:56.619 --> 00:21:00.400 today? The answer is one brilliant and world 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:04.079 -changing intellectual maneuver, the introduction 00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:07.349 of money. How does money change the rules? Locke 00:21:07.349 --> 00:21:10.170 argues that money is made of durable goods like 00:21:10.170 --> 00:21:12.430 gold and silver. And the key thing about gold 00:21:12.430 --> 00:21:14.869 and silver is that they do not spoil or decay. 00:21:15.230 --> 00:21:16.990 So they don't violate the anti -waste principle? 00:21:17.150 --> 00:21:19.529 They don't. I can't hoard thousands of apples 00:21:19.529 --> 00:21:22.029 because they will rot. But I can trade all those 00:21:22.029 --> 00:21:24.670 perishable apples for a few durable gold coins. 00:21:24.809 --> 00:21:27.049 And I can hoard those coins forever without any 00:21:27.049 --> 00:21:29.069 of them spoiling. And just like that, the natural 00:21:29.069 --> 00:21:31.250 limit on accumulation is gone. It's completely 00:21:31.250 --> 00:21:33.839 gone. And Locke knew this. He acknowledged that 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:36.240 this would lead to massive inequality. But he 00:21:36.240 --> 00:21:38.400 argued that this inequality didn't come from 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:40.299 the social contract or the government. Where 00:21:40.299 --> 00:21:42.920 did it come from? He said it came from the tacit 00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:45.859 agreement of humanity to put a value on money. 00:21:46.259 --> 00:21:50.119 By agreeing to use money, we all implicitly consented 00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:52.819 to a system of unlimited accumulation and the 00:21:52.819 --> 00:21:55.079 inequality that comes with it. That's a huge 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:58.700 claim. So did he offer any solution to the conflict 00:21:58.700 --> 00:22:00.480 this would obviously create between the rich 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.650 and the poor? This is where his theory kind of 00:22:02.650 --> 00:22:05.490 runs out of steam. He recognizes the problem, 00:22:05.589 --> 00:22:08.569 and he says it's the government's job to moderate 00:22:08.569 --> 00:22:11.369 the conflict that arises. But he never really 00:22:11.369 --> 00:22:13.869 tells us how. He doesn't lay out the principles 00:22:13.869 --> 00:22:16.849 for taxation or regulation. He basically gives 00:22:16.849 --> 00:22:19.230 us the philosophical engine for capitalism, but 00:22:19.230 --> 00:22:21.109 leaves it without any breaks. And that tension 00:22:21.109 --> 00:22:23.190 is the perfect place to start looking at the 00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:25.670 deeper contradictions in his life and work. The 00:22:25.670 --> 00:22:28.220 deepest of which is slavery. Let's go there. 00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:30.359 The paradox of Locke and slavery is impossible 00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:33.220 to ignore. It is the great stain on his legacy. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.119 Here you have the man who declared liberty to 00:22:36.119 --> 00:22:38.619 be an inalienable natural right, and he was an 00:22:38.619 --> 00:22:40.779 investor in the Royal Africa Company. The company 00:22:40.779 --> 00:22:43.779 that ran the British transatlantic slave trade. 00:22:43.980 --> 00:22:46.480 He was a stockholder. He profited from the buying 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:49.019 and selling of human beings. And his involvement 00:22:49.019 --> 00:22:51.799 was more than just financial, wasn't it? As secretary 00:22:51.799 --> 00:22:53.920 to Shaftesbury, he was involved with the founding 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:56.799 of the Carolina colony. He was. He helped graft 00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.720 the fundamental constitutions of Carolina. And 00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:03.059 that document contained a chilling clause. It 00:23:03.059 --> 00:23:05.779 granted the planters absolute power and authority 00:23:05.779 --> 00:23:09.079 over their Negro slaves. So he's literally helping 00:23:09.079 --> 00:23:12.460 to write the legal code for chattel slavery in 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:14.880 America while he's formulating his theories of 00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:17.240 liberty. Which is why many historians like James 00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:20.420 Farr just call him a hypocrite. They argue his 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:23.319 work helps lay the legal and philosophical groundwork 00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:26.480 for a system of brutal exploitation But the sources 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:28.779 also show there's a debate here. Some historians 00:23:28.779 --> 00:23:31.680 try to add more nuance to his role. There is 00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:34.329 a revisionist take The historian Holly Brewer, 00:23:34.410 --> 00:23:36.410 for instance, argues that his role in the Caroline 00:23:36.410 --> 00:23:38.829 Constitution was more like a paid clerk, that 00:23:38.829 --> 00:23:41.109 he was just revising and copying a document whose 00:23:41.109 --> 00:23:43.490 core principles were already set. She also points 00:23:43.490 --> 00:23:45.410 out that he sold his stock in the Royal Africa 00:23:45.410 --> 00:23:48.690 Company after just a few years. Right. And Brewer 00:23:48.690 --> 00:23:51.150 argues that later in his life, after the Glorious 00:23:51.150 --> 00:23:54.069 Revolution, he actually worked to undermine slavery. 00:23:54.509 --> 00:23:57.490 He attacked policies that gave huge land grants 00:23:57.490 --> 00:24:00.250 to slave owners in Virginia, and he encouraged 00:24:00.250 --> 00:24:02.950 the Christian baptism of enslaved children. Which 00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:05.089 was significant because the justification for 00:24:05.089 --> 00:24:07.190 slavery often rested on the idea that they were 00:24:07.190 --> 00:24:10.309 heathens. So baptism was a way to challenge their 00:24:10.309 --> 00:24:13.329 legal status as property. It was a subtle but 00:24:13.329 --> 00:24:15.569 potentially powerful challenge to the whole system. 00:24:15.849 --> 00:24:17.990 And then there's the contradiction within his 00:24:17.990 --> 00:24:21.089 own masterpiece, the two treatises. He does provide 00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:23.369 a justification for slavery, but it's an incredibly 00:24:23.369 --> 00:24:25.650 narrow one. It's so narrow that it basically 00:24:25.650 --> 00:24:27.730 invalidates all the slavery that was actually 00:24:27.730 --> 00:24:30.259 happening. He says slavery is only legitimate 00:24:30.259 --> 00:24:33.519 for captives taken in a just war. They forfeited 00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:36.259 their lives and their conqueror can enslave them 00:24:36.259 --> 00:24:38.259 instead of killing them. But that definition 00:24:38.259 --> 00:24:40.960 would specifically rule out kidnapping people 00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:43.519 from another continent. It would rule out hereditary 00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:45.680 slavery. It would rule out enslaving children. 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.740 It rules out the entire basis of the Atlantic 00:24:48.740 --> 00:24:51.740 slave trade. So by his own philosophical standard, 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:54.259 all the slavery happening in the British Empire 00:24:54.259 --> 00:24:58.920 was illegitimate. enslaved, had a moral right, 00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:01.920 even an obligation to escape. Exactly. So what 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:03.900 do you do with that? Was he a hypocrite whose 00:25:03.900 --> 00:25:07.019 philosophy accidentally condemned his own investments? 00:25:07.380 --> 00:25:10.660 Or was it a very clever way of creating a philosophical 00:25:10.660 --> 00:25:13.519 loophole that sounded good but changed nothing 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:16.440 in practice? It's an unavoidable tension. Let's 00:25:16.440 --> 00:25:18.819 shift to his views on women in the family. It's 00:25:18.819 --> 00:25:20.660 another area where he's both progressive for 00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:23.019 his time and deeply conventional. He definitely 00:25:23.019 --> 00:25:25.059 took a hammer to the old patriarchal structure. 00:25:25.319 --> 00:25:28.680 He directly attacked Robert Filmer's idea that 00:25:28.680 --> 00:25:31.599 the father had absolute God -given power over 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:34.269 his family. How did he do that? By making a simple 00:25:34.269 --> 00:25:36.869 but profound change in language. He insisted 00:25:36.869 --> 00:25:39.490 on talking about parental power, not just paternal 00:25:39.490 --> 00:25:42.710 power. He explicitly wrote that a mother have 00:25:42.710 --> 00:25:45.329 an equal title to her children. Which is a huge 00:25:45.329 --> 00:25:47.609 elevation of the mother's status in the family. 00:25:47.910 --> 00:25:51.250 It is. He saw marriage as a contract. He argued 00:25:51.250 --> 00:25:53.490 that women had the right to negotiate terms, 00:25:53.730 --> 00:25:56.569 to have custody of their children, even to divorce. 00:25:57.269 --> 00:25:59.829 Within the domestic sphere, he was quite progressive. 00:26:00.410 --> 00:26:02.809 But that domestic equality didn't translate into 00:26:02.809 --> 00:26:05.549 the political world. Not at all. When it comes 00:26:05.549 --> 00:26:07.869 time to form a government, he's very clear. He 00:26:07.869 --> 00:26:11.089 writes that it is men who unite into commonwealths. 00:26:11.109 --> 00:26:13.950 So women are left out of the original social 00:26:13.950 --> 00:26:16.430 contract. That's the argument from critics like 00:26:16.430 --> 00:26:18.890 Carol Pateman. They say women aren't partners 00:26:18.890 --> 00:26:21.369 in the contract, they're subjects of it. Their 00:26:21.369 --> 00:26:23.869 sphere is the home, and they're excluded from 00:26:23.869 --> 00:26:26.279 the political liberty that men enjoy. And yet 00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:29.759 that very exclusion created an opening for later 00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:32.759 feminist thinkers. An opening that Mary Wollstonecraft 00:26:32.759 --> 00:26:35.900 walked right through. She brilliantly used Locke's 00:26:35.900 --> 00:26:38.900 own ideas, the blank slate against the patriarchal 00:26:38.900 --> 00:26:41.440 system. How so? Well, if Locke is right that 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:43.900 our rationality depends entirely on our education 00:26:43.900 --> 00:26:46.160 and experience. Then Wollstonecraft could argue 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:48.880 that society keeps women subordinate by deliberately 00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:52.359 denying them a proper education. Precisely. She 00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:55.200 argued that society trains women to be alluring 00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:58.240 mistresses rather than rational wives, deliberately 00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:00.660 stunting their rational development to keep them 00:27:00.660 --> 00:27:03.440 dependent. She used Lockean principles to demand 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:05.759 equality. It's a fantastic intellectual move. 00:27:05.980 --> 00:27:07.839 Just before we move on, let's touch on a less 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:10.480 discussed topic. His views on animals. Again, 00:27:10.539 --> 00:27:13.079 he's pushing back against Descartes. He is. He 00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:16.279 completely rejected the Cartesian idea that animals 00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:18.900 are just unthinking machines, biological robots 00:27:18.900 --> 00:27:21.160 with no feelings. So he thought they could think. 00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:23.960 He did. He wrote that animals have perception 00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:26.779 and memory in some degree. He even says oysters 00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:28.880 and cockles have some kind of dull sensation. 00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:32.180 He believed they felt pleasure and pain. So where 00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:34.200 did he draw the line between humans and animals? 00:27:34.579 --> 00:27:36.640 For him, the defining line was the ability to 00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:39.819 form abstract ideas. An animal can recognize 00:27:39.819 --> 00:27:43.019 this specific man or this specific apple. But 00:27:43.019 --> 00:27:44.940 it can't conceive of the general idea of mankind 00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:48.039 or apple -ness. That's the line. The ability 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:50.539 to use language and reason about universal concepts. 00:27:51.069 --> 00:27:53.509 That, for Locke, was the unique and defining 00:27:53.509 --> 00:27:56.009 feature of human consciousness. Let's move on 00:27:56.009 --> 00:27:58.789 to Locke's ideas about faith and economics, which 00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:01.869 are deeply intertwined. His arguments for religious 00:28:01.869 --> 00:28:04.230 tolerance were born from a very bloody history. 00:28:04.630 --> 00:28:07.029 Absolutely. He's writing in the aftermath of 00:28:07.029 --> 00:28:10.089 Europe's devastating wars of religion. So his 00:28:10.089 --> 00:28:12.470 arguments in the letters concerning toleration 00:28:12.470 --> 00:28:15.609 aren't just an abstract philosophical exercise. 00:28:15.910 --> 00:28:19.380 They're a desperate... practical plea for peace. 00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:22.299 And he builds his case on three main pillars, 00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:24.740 all aimed at convincing the government to stay 00:28:24.740 --> 00:28:27.480 out of the business of saving souls. Right. The 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:30.480 first argument is about humility. He says earthly 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:33.519 judges, the state, simply cannot know for sure 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:36.339 which religion is the one true religion. Only 00:28:36.339 --> 00:28:39.119 God knows that. So the government has no authority 00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:42.259 to enforce a specific doctrine. Exactly. The 00:28:42.259 --> 00:28:44.559 second argument is psychological. He says you 00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:49.839 cannot compel belief with violence. All you can 00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:52.519 do with force is create hypocrites. You can make 00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:54.299 people say the right words, but you can't make 00:28:54.299 --> 00:28:56.880 them believe. Coercion is ineffective for salvation. 00:28:57.319 --> 00:29:00.220 And the third argument is purely pragmatic. It's 00:29:00.220 --> 00:29:02.920 the most powerful one, politically. He argues 00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:05.420 that trying to force everyone into one church 00:29:05.420 --> 00:29:08.279 leads to more social disorder, more rebellion, 00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:10.940 and more chaos than just allowing people to worship 00:29:10.940 --> 00:29:13.609 as they see fit. Diversity is more stable than 00:29:13.609 --> 00:29:15.890 forced uniformity. But his tolerance had its 00:29:15.890 --> 00:29:18.329 limits, didn't it? He made a couple of pretty 00:29:18.329 --> 00:29:20.710 big exceptions. He did. He argued that the state 00:29:20.710 --> 00:29:23.190 should not tolerate atheists. Why not? Because 00:29:23.190 --> 00:29:26.109 for Locke, the entire social order rested on 00:29:26.109 --> 00:29:28.769 a belief in God. God was the ultimate source 00:29:28.769 --> 00:29:31.049 of natural law. If you don't believe in God, 00:29:31.230 --> 00:29:33.609 you don't believe in the basis for morality, 00:29:33.990 --> 00:29:37.450 for contracts, for oaths. So an atheist, in his 00:29:37.450 --> 00:29:40.170 view, couldn't be trusted to be a part of civil 00:29:40.170 --> 00:29:42.230 society. He believed it would lead to chaos. 00:29:42.410 --> 00:29:45.970 It reveals how deeply his entire liberal philosophy 00:29:45.970 --> 00:29:48.210 is grounded in his Protestant Christian worldview. 00:29:48.529 --> 00:29:51.210 Natural law and biblical revelation were, for 00:29:51.210 --> 00:29:53.549 him, basically the same thing. And his deep religious 00:29:53.549 --> 00:29:55.730 engagement went into some surprising places. 00:29:56.150 --> 00:29:58.609 His private papers show he was really interested 00:29:58.609 --> 00:30:02.490 in end times prophecies. Yes, he was deep into 00:30:02.490 --> 00:30:04.960 the millenarian debates of his time. just like 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:07.720 his friend Isaac Newton. He was fascinated by 00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:10.299 prophecies about the restoration of the Jews 00:30:10.299 --> 00:30:13.180 to the land of Israel. What did he believe would 00:30:13.180 --> 00:30:15.619 happen? In his private notes on the Bible, he 00:30:15.619 --> 00:30:18.700 interpreted a passage from St. Paul as a prophecy 00:30:18.700 --> 00:30:20.599 that the Jewish people would one day convert 00:30:20.599 --> 00:30:23.140 to Christianity and be restored to their ancestral 00:30:23.140 --> 00:30:26.460 homeland. It shows a side of him that's very 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:28.460 different from the cool, rational philosopher 00:30:28.460 --> 00:30:31.140 of politics. Let's pivot back to the more worldly 00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:33.920 topic of economics. He had a very modern theory 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:37.200 of value and price. He did. In a work from 1691, 00:30:37.380 --> 00:30:39.519 he lays out what is basically a supply and demand 00:30:39.519 --> 00:30:42.240 theory. He said the price of anything is set 00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:44.359 by its quantity in proportion to their vent. 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.539 Vent meaning demand or sales? Exactly. Quantity 00:30:47.539 --> 00:30:49.720 is supply, vent is demand. That relationship 00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:52.690 sets the price. And he applied this idea to money 00:30:52.690 --> 00:30:54.950 itself, which led to the quantity theory of money. 00:30:55.289 --> 00:30:57.869 Right. He argued that since the demand for money 00:30:57.869 --> 00:31:00.410 is more or less constant, its value is determined 00:31:00.410 --> 00:31:02.990 almost exclusively by how much of it is in circulation. 00:31:03.309 --> 00:31:05.369 If you double the amount of money without creating 00:31:05.369 --> 00:31:09.349 more goods. Prices will double. Inflation. A 00:31:09.349 --> 00:31:12.150 critical insight. He also distinguished the two 00:31:12.150 --> 00:31:15.009 main functions of money. He said it acts as a 00:31:15.009 --> 00:31:17.269 counter. which is a way to measure the value 00:31:17.269 --> 00:31:20.210 of things. And a pledge. A pledge, which is a 00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:22.430 way to claim goods in the future. And this is 00:31:22.430 --> 00:31:24.829 why he was so insistent on using gold and silver 00:31:24.829 --> 00:31:27.849 for international trade. Because unlike paper 00:31:27.849 --> 00:31:29.970 money, which is only a promise from one government, 00:31:30.309 --> 00:31:33.890 gold and silver have intrinsic universal value. 00:31:34.309 --> 00:31:36.410 They hold their value as a pledge across all 00:31:36.410 --> 00:31:38.450 of humanity, which makes international trade 00:31:38.450 --> 00:31:41.130 and debt possible. And his overall view of national 00:31:41.130 --> 00:31:44.029 economies was very much in the mercantilist camp. 00:31:44.309 --> 00:31:47.210 Very much so. He believed that the world's supply 00:31:47.210 --> 00:31:49.950 of money, meaning gold and silver, was constantly 00:31:49.950 --> 00:31:52.789 growing. Therefore, for a nation to stay powerful, 00:31:52.990 --> 00:31:54.950 it had to constantly get a bigger piece of that 00:31:54.950 --> 00:31:57.309 pie. So you need a favorable balance of trade. 00:31:57.549 --> 00:32:00.029 Export more than you import. Always. You had 00:32:00.029 --> 00:32:02.049 to be constantly enlarging your national stock 00:32:02.049 --> 00:32:04.549 of gold and silver, or you would fall behind 00:32:04.549 --> 00:32:06.849 your rivals. It's a very competitive view of 00:32:06.849 --> 00:32:09.109 the global economy. Before we wrap up, we should 00:32:09.109 --> 00:32:12.089 touch on Locke the Man, the scholar. He was an 00:32:12.089 --> 00:32:14.670 obsessive collector and organizer of information. 00:32:15.069 --> 00:32:18.009 He really was. His personal library was enormous 00:32:18.009 --> 00:32:21.269 for the time. He had over 3 ,000 books when he 00:32:21.269 --> 00:32:23.490 died. And it wasn't just English books? Not at 00:32:23.490 --> 00:32:26.670 all. Almost 40 % of his library came from France 00:32:26.670 --> 00:32:28.910 and the Netherlands, which shows how connected 00:32:28.910 --> 00:32:31.750 he was to continental European thought, especially 00:32:31.750 --> 00:32:34.579 after his exile. And the subjects tell a story, 00:32:34.619 --> 00:32:37.000 don't they? They really do. The biggest category 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:39.539 was theology, which was nearly a quarter of his 00:32:39.539 --> 00:32:42.240 library. That really underscores the religious 00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:45.240 foundation of everything he thought. Then came 00:32:45.240 --> 00:32:48.599 medicine. then politics and law. It's the perfect 00:32:48.599 --> 00:32:51.019 map of his mind. And we're lucky so much of it 00:32:51.019 --> 00:32:53.339 survived. We are. Most of it ended up at the 00:32:53.339 --> 00:32:56.339 Bodleian Library at Oxford. So scholars can literally 00:32:56.339 --> 00:32:58.880 trace the development of his ideas through his 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:01.140 books and manuscripts. And he wasn't just a reader. 00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:04.160 He was known as a master note taker. He believed 00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:05.920 that managing information was a philosophical 00:33:05.920 --> 00:33:09.039 task in itself. He said a good notebook should 00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:11.039 be like a chest of drawers for your ideas so 00:33:11.039 --> 00:33:14.000 nothing gets confused. And he had his own unique 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:16.900 indexing system to make it work. It's brilliantly 00:33:16.900 --> 00:33:20.059 nerdy. He used a grid and a system of keywords 00:33:20.059 --> 00:33:22.960 based on the first letter and first vowel of 00:33:22.960 --> 00:33:26.079 a word. So a note on epistle would be filed under 00:33:26.079 --> 00:33:28.839 I. A note on obedience would be filed under O. 00:33:29.099 --> 00:33:31.440 A 17th century life hack. And he thought it was 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:34.000 so useful that he had it published after he died 00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:36.160 so other people could use it. It just speaks 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.019 to his methodical, empirical approach to absolutely 00:33:39.019 --> 00:33:42.599 everything. So as we pull it all together, what's 00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:45.079 the lasting legacy? He seems to be the architect 00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:49.240 of modernity in a few key ways. First, our concept 00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:52.119 of the self. Absolutely. He redefined what it 00:33:52.119 --> 00:33:54.900 means to be a person. The idea that your identity 00:33:54.900 --> 00:33:56.960 is your consciousness, your experience, your 00:33:56.960 --> 00:33:59.160 memory. That is the foundation of modern psychology. 00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:01.400 It's how we think about ourselves today. Second, 00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:04.119 obviously, in politics and law. He's the foundational 00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:07.019 theorist of classical liberalism, limited government, 00:34:07.220 --> 00:34:09.760 consent of the governed, and the idea that the 00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:12.199 entire purpose of the state is to protect our 00:34:12.199 --> 00:34:15.239 basic inherent rights to life, liberty, and property. 00:34:15.500 --> 00:34:17.619 And finally, there's that core conflict we've 00:34:17.619 --> 00:34:20.599 returned to again and again. The deep, fascinating 00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:23.139 tension between the universal power of his principles, 00:34:23.420 --> 00:34:26.480 natural liberty for all. and his own personal 00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:28.800 involvement in the exploitative systems of his 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:31.699 day, from slavery to his proposals for child 00:34:31.699 --> 00:34:34.619 labor. It forces us to ask if these grand ideals 00:34:34.619 --> 00:34:37.539 can ever really be separated from the messy economic 00:34:37.539 --> 00:34:40.239 compromises of the real world. It's a remarkable 00:34:40.239 --> 00:34:42.699 legacy. It shows that even the most brilliant 00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:45.400 thinkers are products of their time, trapped 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:47.860 in that gap between high ideals and economic 00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:50.679 reality. And that leads us to our final provocative 00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.440 thought for you, our listener. Locke's philosophy 00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:55.719 creates the intellectual framework for unlimited 00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:57.699 wealth accumulation through the use of money. 00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:00.559 But he also insists that government exists to 00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:03.719 moderate the conflict that this inequality will 00:35:03.719 --> 00:35:06.659 inevitably create. So the system he helped design 00:35:06.659 --> 00:35:09.599 is now a global reality with vast, infringed 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:12.039 inequality. The question for you to explore is 00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:14.780 this. If John Locke were alive today, looking 00:35:14.780 --> 00:35:17.579 at the world his ideas helped build, what specific 00:35:17.579 --> 00:35:19.980 pragmatic principles would he advise our governments 00:35:19.980 --> 00:35:22.880 to apply to solve this inequality without betraying 00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:25.000 his own core principle of the natural right to 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:28.099 property? What does moderating the conflict actually 00:35:28.099 --> 00:35:31.260 look like in the 21st century? Something to ponder. 00:35:31.300 --> 00:35:32.860 Thanks for diving deep with us.