WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.280 Imagine waking up tomorrow and discovering that 00:00:04.280 --> 00:00:07.419 every single rule, law, and social expectation 00:00:07.419 --> 00:00:10.300 has just vanished overnight. Oh man, just totally 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:13.039 gone. Totally gone. Like there are no police, 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:17.210 no courts, no property lines. You have absolute 00:00:17.210 --> 00:00:19.670 unrestrained freedom to do whatever you want, 00:00:19.789 --> 00:00:21.210 take whatever you want, go wherever you want. 00:00:21.269 --> 00:00:23.050 Which, you know, it sounds incredibly liberating 00:00:23.050 --> 00:00:25.910 for about five seconds. Exactly, five seconds 00:00:25.910 --> 00:00:28.929 max. Because then the realization hits you. Your 00:00:28.929 --> 00:00:31.210 neighbor, that stranger down the street, and 00:00:31.210 --> 00:00:32.770 everyone else in the world suddenly has that 00:00:32.770 --> 00:00:35.210 exact same absolute freedom. Right, and your 00:00:35.210 --> 00:00:37.570 freedom to take whatever you want directly collides 00:00:37.570 --> 00:00:40.070 with their freedom to do the exact same thing. 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:42.149 Yeah, it's terrifying. It really is. We tend 00:00:42.149 --> 00:00:44.689 to, like, romanticize freedom as this universally 00:00:44.689 --> 00:00:47.640 beautiful harmony. harmonious concept, but in 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.340 its purest, most unchecked form, it is fundamentally 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:53.219 terrifying. Without a mechanism to resolve disputes, 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:56.200 every single interaction becomes a potential 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:58.759 zero -sum game for survival. Which is just a 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:02.460 wild thought experiment. And welcome to today's 00:01:02.460 --> 00:01:05.260 custom -tailored deep dive. The terrifying scenario 00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:08.000 we just described isn't from some sci -fi movie. 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:11.200 It's actually the core of a 17th century Latin 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:14.040 phrase that changed how we view civilization 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:16.420 itself. Yeah, it's a massive shift in human thought. 00:01:16.599 --> 00:01:19.120 For sure. Today, for you listening, we are pulling 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:22.340 from a single really fascinating Wikipedia article 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:25.260 that details the history and the huge cultural 00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:28.680 impact of the phrase Bellum Omnium Contra Omnis. 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:31.719 A very heavy sounding phrase. It is. And our 00:01:31.719 --> 00:01:33.900 mission today is to explore how this incredibly 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:36.379 dark thought experiment about the origins of 00:01:36.379 --> 00:01:38.739 society evolved over the centuries. We're going 00:01:38.739 --> 00:01:41.239 to trace how it became a lens for understanding, 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.400 like everything from the legitimacy of our governments 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:46.750 to the exhausting modern economic rat race. really 00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:49.510 is the ultimate philosophical what -if scenario. 00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:51.849 Let's unpack this. What exactly does this phrase 00:01:51.849 --> 00:01:55.349 mean, and where did the concept even originate? 00:01:55.549 --> 00:01:58.650 So the phrase bellum andium contra omnes translates 00:01:58.650 --> 00:02:01.469 literally to the war of all against all. The 00:02:01.469 --> 00:02:04.450 war of all against all. Wow. Yeah, it's intense. 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:07.769 And it's basically the foundational concept that 00:02:07.769 --> 00:02:10.330 attempts to explain why human beings tolerate 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:13.259 authority at all. like why we pay taxes and follow 00:02:13.259 --> 00:02:15.960 rules in our daily lives. The phrase was coined 00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:18.379 by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Right, 00:02:18.379 --> 00:02:21.280 Hobbes. Yep. It first appeared in Latin in the 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:25.719 preface of his 1642 book Deceive, well, specifically 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.520 in a revised edition printed in Amsterdam in 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.780 1647. Gotcha. And then he brought the concept 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:33.560 to an English -speaking audience a few years 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:36.960 later in his incredibly famous 1651 book Leviathan, 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:39.900 where he spelled it out as a war of everyone 00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:41.990 against everyone. one. And Hobbes was trying 00:02:41.990 --> 00:02:43.870 to describe what he called the state of nature. 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:47.189 Exactly, the state of nature. Which is this hypothetical 00:02:47.189 --> 00:02:49.689 pre -social condition where humanity existed 00:02:49.689 --> 00:02:52.250 before any government's laws or societies were 00:02:52.250 --> 00:02:55.090 ever formed. And in this state, because there's 00:02:55.090 --> 00:02:57.770 no legal code dictating who owns what, everyone 00:02:57.770 --> 00:02:59.610 has an absolutely equal right to all things. 00:03:01.209 --> 00:03:03.830 Equal right is the catalyst for the conflict. 00:03:04.270 --> 00:03:06.009 I mean, if you and I both have an equal right 00:03:06.009 --> 00:03:08.629 to the same apple tree, and there is no judge 00:03:08.629 --> 00:03:11.990 to appeal to, the only way to settle who gets 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:15.789 the apples is through force. Or, you know, the 00:03:15.789 --> 00:03:18.469 threat of force. But what is crucial to understand 00:03:18.469 --> 00:03:22.050 here is Hobbes' very specific, highly psychological 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:25.430 definition of the word war. Hobbes makes a vital 00:03:25.430 --> 00:03:28.750 distinction between a war and a battle. Oh, interesting. 00:03:29.210 --> 00:03:31.949 Yeah. War, in his framework, doesn't just mean 00:03:31.949 --> 00:03:34.870 active fighting or actual physical combat. He 00:03:34.870 --> 00:03:37.930 points out that war is the known will to contend 00:03:37.930 --> 00:03:39.909 by battle. Wait, let me make sure I'm following 00:03:39.909 --> 00:03:42.069 this. Are you saying the war isn't the physical 00:03:42.069 --> 00:03:44.530 punch? It's like the anticipation of the punch? 00:03:44.650 --> 00:03:47.930 Yes. That is the exact mechanism. It's the psychological 00:03:47.930 --> 00:03:50.009 terror of knowing you could be attacked at any 00:03:50.009 --> 00:03:51.930 moment and no one would come to your rescue. 00:03:52.050 --> 00:03:54.689 Right. It's a state of constant pervasive insecurity. 00:03:54.969 --> 00:03:57.129 It's the psychological weather you live in. Think 00:03:57.129 --> 00:04:00.169 of like a Cold War scenario, but on an individual 00:04:00.169 --> 00:04:03.110 level. You might go weeks without physical violence, 00:04:03.110 --> 00:04:06.009 but you know that at any moment your neighbor 00:04:06.009 --> 00:04:09.009 could decide they want what you have. Because 00:04:09.009 --> 00:04:11.229 there is absolutely no higher authority to deter 00:04:11.229 --> 00:04:14.180 them, you have to constantly be on guard. building 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:17.120 defenses, and maybe even planning a preemptive 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:19.860 strike just to stay safe. That paints such a 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:21.959 vivid, stressful picture. I actually want to 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.319 read the famous quote from Chapter 13 of Leviathan, 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:26.579 where Hobbes describes what life is actually 00:04:26.579 --> 00:04:28.300 like in this state of nature. Oh, please do. 00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:37.740 It's a classic. He writes, And he goes on listing 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:40.740 things like no navigation, no building, no arts, 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:43.379 no society. And then comes the real kicker. Yeah, 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:45.759 the really famous part. He says, and which is 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.959 worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:52.660 death and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, 00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:56.639 brutish and short. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish 00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:58.920 and short. I mean, it is arguably one of the 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:01.259 bleakest descriptions of the human condition 00:05:01.259 --> 00:05:05.439 in all of Western philosophy. It's so dark. But, 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:07.459 you know, when you break down the logic, it makes 00:05:07.459 --> 00:05:10.079 perfect sense. I keep thinking of the tense, 00:05:10.300 --> 00:05:13.079 paranoid first few days in a post -apocalyptic 00:05:13.079 --> 00:05:16.279 movie. Oh, totally. Like zombies or an EMP or 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:18.699 something? Right, you know the trope. Civilization 00:05:18.699 --> 00:05:20.980 has just been wiped out. The characters are wandering 00:05:20.980 --> 00:05:23.500 around, and they realize the lack of rules means 00:05:23.500 --> 00:05:25.579 they can't even close their eyes to sleep. Because 00:05:25.579 --> 00:05:28.360 someone will just take your stuff. Exactly. And 00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:31.019 more importantly... Why would you bother planting 00:05:31.019 --> 00:05:33.860 a garden or building a house or inventing a new 00:05:33.860 --> 00:05:36.240 technology if someone stronger can just come 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:38.259 along tomorrow and take it from you? The time 00:05:38.259 --> 00:05:41.800 horizon just shrinks to zero. It shrinks to immediate 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.560 survival. Yeah, the fruit of your labor is uncertain, 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:46.920 as Hobbes put it, so you just stop laboring and 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:49.199 start hoarding. Right. In that post -apocalyptic 00:05:49.199 --> 00:05:52.040 scenario, all human energy is diverted away from 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:55.259 progress, art, long -term building. It is funneled 00:05:55.259 --> 00:05:57.959 entirely into sheer moment -to -moment survival. 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:00.720 You cannot have a functioning economy or a scientific 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:03.660 community when everyone is perpetually bracing 00:06:03.660 --> 00:06:06.060 for an attack. Because collaboration requires 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:10.199 trust. Exactly. And the state of nature completely 00:06:10.199 --> 00:06:13.720 obliterates trust. So... We've established how 00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:16.720 utterly terrifying Hobbes' vision of absolute 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:21.540 freedom is. But why did he create this incredibly 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:23.279 bleak picture? I mean, he wasn't just writing 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:25.220 dystopian fiction to entertain people. There 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:27.240 was a deliberate political purpose to this thought 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.519 experiment. Very much so. He had an agenda. Hobbes 00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:33.100 is presenting us with a hypothetical terrifying 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:35.699 problem so that he can justify his proposed political 00:06:35.699 --> 00:06:38.230 solution. OK, what's the solution? Well, according 00:06:38.230 --> 00:06:41.490 to Hobbes, the outcome of this constant paralyzing 00:06:41.490 --> 00:06:44.029 fear is that rational people will eventually 00:06:44.029 --> 00:06:46.449 look around and realize, like, hey, we cannot 00:06:46.449 --> 00:06:49.509 live this way. So they choose to enter into what 00:06:49.509 --> 00:06:51.750 is called a social contract. Right, the social 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.100 contract. They voluntarily agree to give up a 00:06:54.100 --> 00:06:56.240 significant portion of their absolute liberties, 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:58.740 their right to everything, in order to enjoy 00:06:58.740 --> 00:07:01.199 peace and security. But to make that contract 00:07:01.199 --> 00:07:03.740 actually work, to ensure people play by the new 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:05.839 rules instead of secretly cheating, you need 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.000 an enforcer. Someone to crack the whip. Yeah. 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:10.980 Hobbs argued this requires a common power to 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:13.300 keep them all in awe. OK, I need to push back 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:15.920 on this a little bit. Go for it. Is Hobbs just 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:19.699 using fear? to justify authoritarianism. Yeah. 00:07:19.860 --> 00:07:21.639 Are we supposed to just surrender our freedom 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:24.259 and bow down to a dictator because we're terrified 00:07:24.259 --> 00:07:26.920 of our neighbors? Yeah. That feels like a very 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:29.519 dark manipulation, like a protection racket run 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:32.740 by the state. Well, your reaction actually mirrors 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:35.860 the pushback Hobbs has received from his critics 00:07:35.860 --> 00:07:38.379 for a century. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It does 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:40.689 sound like a protection racket, but... To view 00:07:40.689 --> 00:07:42.670 it objectively through the lens of political 00:07:42.670 --> 00:07:45.490 science, this thought experiment serves as a 00:07:45.490 --> 00:07:48.029 legitimation test for the state. A legitimation 00:07:48.029 --> 00:07:50.730 test. Yeah. Hobbes is explaining the fundamental 00:07:50.730 --> 00:07:53.569 mechanical role of the sovereign in guaranteeing 00:07:53.569 --> 00:07:56.329 social order. The sovereign is the entity that 00:07:56.329 --> 00:07:59.149 holds the monopoly on force, ensuring that the 00:07:59.149 --> 00:08:02.170 war of all against all doesn't just break out 00:08:02.170 --> 00:08:04.540 in the streets. So what does this all mean? It 00:08:04.540 --> 00:08:07.279 means it gives us a theoretical baseline to evaluate 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:09.420 different types of governments. You can look 00:08:09.420 --> 00:08:12.480 at any state, historical or modern, and ask, 00:08:13.019 --> 00:08:15.259 how well does this system actually prevent the 00:08:15.259 --> 00:08:17.939 state of nature? Oh, I see. Right. If a government 00:08:17.939 --> 00:08:20.680 fails to protect its citizens from constant violence, 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:23.579 if it can't enforce contracts or secure property, 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:26.860 it is failing its most basic legitimation test. 00:08:27.459 --> 00:08:29.540 The citizens are essentially back in the state 00:08:29.540 --> 00:08:32.759 of nature. So the state, the government, the 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:36.539 laws, the police, all of it is framed as a necessary 00:08:36.539 --> 00:08:39.659 boundary to protect us from our own absolute 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:42.539 violent freedom. Exactly. We build the cage ourselves 00:08:42.539 --> 00:08:45.000 and we lock the door from the inside because 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:46.820 we are more scared of each other than we are 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:48.639 the bars and the windows. That's a great way 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:51.220 to put it. The social contract is fundamentally 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:54.299 a survival mechanism. It is the pragmatic choice 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:57.000 to trade the terrifying freedom of the wild for 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.360 the predictable restrictions of civilization. 00:08:59.669 --> 00:09:02.250 That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So having explored 00:09:02.250 --> 00:09:05.029 Hobbes's original intent to justify state power, 00:09:05.490 --> 00:09:07.429 we really need to look at how this concept traveled 00:09:07.429 --> 00:09:10.289 forward in time, because this phrase, bellum 00:09:10.289 --> 00:09:13.389 omnium contra omnes, it was too potent to just 00:09:13.389 --> 00:09:15.529 stay in the 17th century. Oh, it definitely didn't 00:09:15.529 --> 00:09:18.190 stay there. Right. Later thinkers across the 00:09:18.190 --> 00:09:20.690 entire political spectrum started borrowing it 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:23.570 and twisting it to diagnose the specific sicknesses 00:09:23.570 --> 00:09:26.029 of their own societies. Yeah. The phrase takes 00:09:26.029 --> 00:09:29.450 on a life of its own. It moves from being a defense 00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:31.769 of government authority to becoming a surgical 00:09:31.769 --> 00:09:34.779 tool for social critique. Give me example. Well, 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:37.200 for instance, before we even get to the major 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:39.940 economic critiques of the 19th century, Thomas 00:09:39.940 --> 00:09:43.240 Jefferson used a variation of the phrase in 1785. 00:09:43.460 --> 00:09:46.259 Oh, wow, Jefferson. Yep. In his notes on the 00:09:46.259 --> 00:09:48.779 state of Virginia, Jefferson tweaked the Latin 00:09:48.779 --> 00:09:53.320 slightly to bellum omnium in omnia, which translates 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:55.460 to the war of all things against all things. 00:09:55.639 --> 00:09:58.139 All things against all things. Why did Jefferson 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:00.720 tweak the phrasing? And like, what was he looking 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.600 at when he wrote that? He was observing the political 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.700 fragility of his time. He wrote this while lamenting 00:10:06.700 --> 00:10:09.460 the risk that Virginia's constitution might collapse 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:12.299 and yield to a dictator. He was actually drawing 00:10:12.299 --> 00:10:14.919 a direct historical parallel to the Roman Republic 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:17.559 in its final days. Oh, I see. When institutions 00:10:17.559 --> 00:10:20.960 fail, when the Constitution breaks down, Jefferson 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.720 warned that society would be hurled back into 00:10:23.720 --> 00:10:26.580 that chaotic, warring state. It was a warning 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.259 about how easily a fragile democracy can slide 00:10:29.259 --> 00:10:31.500 back into the state of nature if the rules aren't 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:34.370 respected. That's incredibly relevant. Now, before 00:10:34.370 --> 00:10:36.289 we dive into the next part of the source material 00:10:36.289 --> 00:10:38.590 regarding Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, I want 00:10:38.590 --> 00:10:40.590 to make sure we are really clear with you listening. 00:10:41.370 --> 00:10:44.110 Our goal here isn't to take political sides or 00:10:44.110 --> 00:10:46.669 endorse these specific economic views. Right. 00:10:46.850 --> 00:10:49.370 Absolutely not. We are strictly here to impartially 00:10:49.370 --> 00:10:51.549 report the historical analysis provided in the 00:10:51.549 --> 00:10:54.009 source text and just examine how this specific 00:10:54.009 --> 00:10:56.970 Latin phrase was weaponized by different thinkers 00:10:56.970 --> 00:10:59.309 throughout history. That is an important framing. 00:10:59.590 --> 00:11:01.389 We're looking at the mechanics of an idea here. 00:11:01.649 --> 00:11:04.610 So moving to Karl Marx, we see him use the concept 00:11:04.610 --> 00:11:07.330 to critique the structure of capitalism itself. 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:11.129 Okay, how so? In his 1843 work, On the Jewish 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:14.230 Question, Marx argued that religion had become 00:11:14.230 --> 00:11:17.870 the spirit of civil society. But he defined this 00:11:17.870 --> 00:11:21.029 modern civil society as the sphere of egoism 00:11:21.029 --> 00:11:24.610 and crucially the sphere of Bellum Omnium contra 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:26.990 Omnis. So he's essentially saying that modern 00:11:26.990 --> 00:11:28.889 civil society, which is driven by individual 00:11:28.889 --> 00:11:31.570 self -interest and private property, hasn't actually 00:11:31.570 --> 00:11:34.570 escaped the war of all against all. It just formalized 00:11:34.570 --> 00:11:37.389 it. But how does Charles Darwin fit into this? 00:11:37.769 --> 00:11:40.110 Because the source mentions a connection between 00:11:40.110 --> 00:11:42.970 Marx, Darwin, and Hobbes, which seems like a 00:11:42.970 --> 00:11:46.240 crazy crossover. The intellectual web gets incredibly 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:49.870 tangled here. So in 1862, Marx wrote a letter 00:11:49.870 --> 00:11:53.070 to his collaborator, Friedrich Engels. Marx was 00:11:53.070 --> 00:11:55.509 reading Charles Darwin's groundbreaking theories 00:11:55.509 --> 00:11:58.730 on nature, specifically concepts like the struggle 00:11:58.730 --> 00:12:01.149 for existence and the competition for scarce 00:12:01.149 --> 00:12:03.269 resources. The survival of the fittest stuff. 00:12:03.429 --> 00:12:06.110 Exactly. And remember, Darwin was heavily influenced 00:12:06.110 --> 00:12:09.370 by the Malthusian struggle, which is the idea 00:12:09.370 --> 00:12:12.210 proposed by Thomas Malthus that populations will 00:12:12.210 --> 00:12:14.730 always outgrow their food supply, leading to 00:12:14.730 --> 00:12:17.110 inevitable conflict and starvation. Right. Mouth 00:12:17.110 --> 00:12:18.710 has basically said there isn't enough pie for 00:12:18.710 --> 00:12:20.330 everyone so people have to fight for the slices. 00:12:20.570 --> 00:12:23.190 Yes. Darwin looked at the natural world and saw 00:12:23.190 --> 00:12:25.350 this Malthusian struggle playing out among plants 00:12:25.350 --> 00:12:28.169 and animals. But when Marx read Darwin, he found 00:12:28.169 --> 00:12:30.450 it remarkable that Darwin was looking at the 00:12:30.450 --> 00:12:32.629 animal kingdom and essentially rediscovering 00:12:32.629 --> 00:12:35.049 the structure of English capitalist society. 00:12:35.110 --> 00:12:38.590 Oh, really? Yeah. Marx saw Darwin's descriptions 00:12:38.590 --> 00:12:41.470 of nature. the division of labor, competition, 00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:44.649 the opening of new markets, the Malthusian struggle, 00:12:45.129 --> 00:12:47.649 and directly compared them to Hobbes' Bellum 00:12:47.649 --> 00:12:50.809 Omnium Contra Omnis. That is wild. I used an 00:12:50.809 --> 00:12:53.129 analogy earlier about a post -apocalyptic movie, 00:12:53.470 --> 00:12:55.870 but this feels more like a funhouse mirror. Oh, 00:12:55.870 --> 00:12:58.980 so? Well... Humans take their own modern economic 00:12:58.980 --> 00:13:01.200 behaviors, all this cutthroat competition, the 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:03.279 division of labor, the scramble for resources, 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:06.419 and we project it outward onto plants and animals. 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:08.940 We look at the jungle and say, wow, nature is 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:11.320 so competitive. And then we point back to nature 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:13.360 and say, look, that's just how the world works. 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:15.840 We have to organize our economy this way because 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:18.059 it's the natural law of the universe. What's 00:13:18.059 --> 00:13:19.759 fascinating here is that Friedrich Engels called 00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:23.610 out this exact logical loop. In an 1875 letter 00:13:23.610 --> 00:13:27.149 to Pyotr Lavrov, Engels criticized Adaronis for 00:13:27.149 --> 00:13:29.370 doing precisely what you just described. He actually 00:13:29.370 --> 00:13:32.129 called it a conjurer's trick. A conjurer's trick, 00:13:32.409 --> 00:13:34.850 like an illusion of logic. How did Engels explain 00:13:34.850 --> 00:13:37.340 the mechanics of this trick? Ingles argued that 00:13:37.340 --> 00:13:39.399 these thinkers were taking Hobbes' doctrine of 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:42.100 the war of all against all and combining it with 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:44.379 bourgeois economic doctrines of competition. 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.340 Which means what exactly? By bourgeois economic 00:13:47.340 --> 00:13:49.360 doctrines, he means the middle class capitalist 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:51.960 system of private ownership and free market competition 00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:55.490 that dominated Victorian England. Engels said 00:13:55.490 --> 00:13:58.070 they transferred these human economic concepts 00:13:58.070 --> 00:14:01.769 onto living nature. Then, once they performed 00:14:01.769 --> 00:14:04.370 this conjurer's trick of finding capitalism in 00:14:04.370 --> 00:14:06.769 the jungle, they transferred the same theories 00:14:06.769 --> 00:14:09.169 back from organic nature into human history. 00:14:09.269 --> 00:14:12.009 Oh, I see the loop. Yeah. And they used the cyclical 00:14:12.009 --> 00:14:15.149 logic to claim that this brutal competition had 00:14:15.149 --> 00:14:17.950 been proven as an eternal law of human society. 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:20.580 They laundered their economic ideology through 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:23.559 biology to make it seem like an unchangeable 00:14:23.559 --> 00:14:26.700 law of the universe. Like, don't blame us for 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:28.700 the ruthless economy where people are starving 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:31.679 in factories, blame the animals. It's just Darwinism. 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:34.659 Exactly. It completely removes the moral responsibility 00:14:34.659 --> 00:14:37.559 from the humans who actually designed the social 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:40.600 contract. It really highlights how malleable 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:42.860 Hobbes's original phrase truly is. I mean, it 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:45.740 can justify the existence of the state. It can 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:47.580 warn against the collapse of a republic like 00:14:47.580 --> 00:14:50.139 Jefferson did. And it can be used to expose the 00:14:50.139 --> 00:14:53.000 underlying assumptions of both 19th century capitalism 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:56.200 and evolutionary biology. It's everywhere. So 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:58.820 we move from grand political and economic critiques 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:01.460 to something even more intimate. How does this 00:15:01.460 --> 00:15:04.259 massive philosophical phrase apply to the individual 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:06.850 human psyche? because the war didn't stay on 00:15:06.850 --> 00:15:08.669 the battlefield and it didn't just stay in the 00:15:08.669 --> 00:15:11.690 economy. It got inside our heads. That brings 00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:14.110 us to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Okay, 00:15:14.250 --> 00:15:17.610 Nietzsche. In his 1873 essay, On Truth and Lies 00:15:17.610 --> 00:15:20.509 in a Non -Moral Sense, Nietzsche takes the concept 00:15:20.509 --> 00:15:23.720 of the state of nature inward. He argues that 00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:25.960 in a natural state of affairs, the individual 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:28.480 wants to preserve himself against other individuals. 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:31.379 But how do we do that if the state has a monopoly 00:15:31.379 --> 00:15:33.740 on physical violence? Right, because we can't 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:35.980 just hit each other anymore. Exactly. Nietzsche 00:15:35.980 --> 00:15:38.419 says we cannot use swords or fists anymore, so 00:15:38.419 --> 00:15:40.740 we employ our intellect mostly for simulation, 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:43.600 which is his term for deception. Simulation. 00:15:43.659 --> 00:15:46.120 So we use our brains to fake each other out to 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:49.080 survive. How does that actually work in practice? 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:52.090 Think about social maneuvering. If you can't 00:15:52.090 --> 00:15:54.529 physically fight your rival for resources, you 00:15:54.529 --> 00:15:56.950 have to outsmart them. You use flaggery. You 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:59.750 hide your true motives. You form strategic alliances. 00:16:00.049 --> 00:16:02.970 You manage your public relations. You smile at 00:16:02.970 --> 00:16:05.409 people you despise to maintain your social standing. 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:08.690 This constant, exhausting performance is what 00:16:08.690 --> 00:16:11.529 Nietzsche means by simulation. Intellect becomes 00:16:11.529 --> 00:16:13.690 a weapon of self -preservation. But Nietzsche 00:16:13.690 --> 00:16:16.470 adds a twist to this, right? The source mentions 00:16:16.470 --> 00:16:19.250 something about humans wanting to exist heard 00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:21.970 fashion. Yes. Nietzsche states that man, out 00:16:21.970 --> 00:16:24.529 of need and boredom, wants to exist socially. 00:16:24.950 --> 00:16:27.509 We want to be part of the herd. Isolation is 00:16:27.509 --> 00:16:30.190 dangerous and lonely. And because of this profound 00:16:30.190 --> 00:16:33.210 desire for social existence, man requires a peace 00:16:33.210 --> 00:16:36.429 pact. We endeavor to banish at least the very 00:16:36.429 --> 00:16:39.070 crudest form of the bellum omnium contra omnes 00:16:39.070 --> 00:16:41.870 from our world. The very crudest form. Meaning, 00:16:42.169 --> 00:16:44.490 we agree not to physically murder each other 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:46.690 over a parking spot. Exactly. We put away the 00:16:46.690 --> 00:16:49.269 clubs and the spears. But we don't actually end 00:16:49.269 --> 00:16:52.299 the war. We just make it polite. We replace physical 00:16:52.299 --> 00:16:55.139 violence with intellectual simulation, passive 00:16:55.139 --> 00:16:57.440 aggression, and social deception. That is the 00:16:57.440 --> 00:16:59.860 core of his argument, and the psychological tension 00:16:59.860 --> 00:17:02.159 is picked up by others as well. The philosopher 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:04.920 Max Stirner played with this term in his 1844 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:08.039 book, The Ego and Its Own, where he explored 00:17:08.039 --> 00:17:11.400 extreme individualism, basically rejecting all 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.420 social structures as oppressive. Right. Later, 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:17.279 the esotericist Rudolf Steiner even described 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.779 a future apocalyptic epoch defined by this war 00:17:20.779 --> 00:17:24.079 of all against all, driven by powerful unchecked 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:27.000 selfishness. The fear of this underlying war 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:29.000 never really goes away. It just changes shape 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.869 depending on the era. Here's where it gets really 00:17:31.869 --> 00:17:34.329 interesting for your own daily life. If you look 00:17:34.329 --> 00:17:36.769 at the see -also section of the Wikipedia article 00:17:36.769 --> 00:17:39.089 we are exploring today, there are some incredibly 00:17:39.089 --> 00:17:41.690 telling modern terms listed alongside Hobbes' 00:17:41.910 --> 00:17:44.589 17th century Latin phrase. Yeah, the see -also 00:17:44.589 --> 00:17:47.329 section is very revealing. One of them is anomie. 00:17:47.430 --> 00:17:49.910 Anomie is a fascinating sociological concept 00:17:49.910 --> 00:17:52.829 originally popularized by Emile Durkheim. The 00:17:52.829 --> 00:17:55.829 source links it as normlessness. But it's more 00:17:55.829 --> 00:17:58.509 than just a lack of rules. It's the psychological 00:17:58.509 --> 00:18:01.289 vertigo that happens when social bonds break 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:04.390 down. When people feel connected from their community 00:18:04.390 --> 00:18:06.410 and don't know what the moral rules of the game 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:09.730 are anymore, they experience profound isolation 00:18:09.730 --> 00:18:12.470 and despair. It's the psychological equivalent 00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:14.849 of being dropped back into the state of nature. 00:18:15.069 --> 00:18:17.289 Wow, and the other modern term listed in the 00:18:17.289 --> 00:18:20.650 source is rat race. If we connect this to the 00:18:20.650 --> 00:18:23.430 bigger picture, it explains a major shift in 00:18:23.430 --> 00:18:26.869 modern English usage. We rarely use phrases like 00:18:26.869 --> 00:18:30.029 a war of each against all to describe literal 00:18:30.029 --> 00:18:32.640 physical warfare today. As the source points 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:35.420 out, terms like competition or struggle are far 00:18:35.420 --> 00:18:37.779 more common to describe this dynamic. Which makes 00:18:37.779 --> 00:18:40.079 me wonder, like, did we ever really escape the 00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:42.279 state of nature or did we just put in a business 00:18:42.279 --> 00:18:44.519 suit? We are fighting over an apple tree in the 00:18:44.519 --> 00:18:46.940 woods with sharpened sticks anymore. We are fighting 00:18:46.940 --> 00:18:50.980 over promotions, market share, social media clout, 00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:55.210 real estate. The anxiety, that will to contend 00:18:55.210 --> 00:18:57.369 by battle that Hobbs talked about, the anticipation 00:18:57.369 --> 00:18:59.789 of the attack, isn't that just the low -level 00:18:59.789 --> 00:19:02.490 hum of anxiety everyone feels on a Sunday night 00:19:02.490 --> 00:19:05.150 before the workweek begins? That is spot on. 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:07.960 The social contract mitigated the physical danger 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:10.819 of sudden death, which, as Hobbes noted, was 00:19:10.819 --> 00:19:13.380 the worst part of the state of nature. It gave 00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:16.119 us the physical security to build industry, arts, 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:18.740 and letters. Yeah. But the underlying drive to 00:19:18.740 --> 00:19:21.160 secure one's own position against everyone else, 00:19:21.180 --> 00:19:24.299 that constant competitive friction remains deeply 00:19:24.299 --> 00:19:26.740 embedded in the structure of our daily lives. 00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:28.640 So to bring this all together for you listening, 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:31.980 we started in the 17th century with Thomas Hobbes 00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:34.440 looking out at a hypothetical world of absolute 00:19:34.519 --> 00:19:37.819 terrifying freedom. A world so solitary, poor, 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:40.839 nasty, brutish, and short that we voluntarily 00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:42.940 built a state to act as a cage to keep ourselves 00:19:42.940 --> 00:19:45.480 safe from each other. A necessary cage. Right. 00:19:45.819 --> 00:19:48.779 And from there... We saw how that dark vision 00:19:48.779 --> 00:19:51.279 evolved. We saw Jefferson worrying about the 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:54.000 breakdown of constitutional institutions. We 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:56.700 explored marks and angles pointing out the conjurer's 00:19:56.700 --> 00:19:59.359 trick of laundering human economic ruthlessness 00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:02.759 through natural science. And finally, we arrived 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:05.319 at Nietzsche's observation that we only really 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:07.519 banned the bloodiest parts of the war, leaving 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:10.660 us to navigate the modern psychological simulation 00:20:10.660 --> 00:20:13.619 we call the rat race. Which raises an important 00:20:13.619 --> 00:20:16.400 question, and it ties into another ancient concept. 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:18.799 linked at the very end of the source article, 00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:23.059 homo homini lupus. Man is wolf to man. Exactly, 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:25.880 man is wolf to man. It's a proverb that Hobbes 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:28.299 also helped popularize, and it suggests that 00:20:28.299 --> 00:20:30.480 the greatest threat to a human being isn't nature 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:33.400 or wild animals, but another human being. Man 00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:36.319 is wolf to man. It really strips away the veneer 00:20:36.319 --> 00:20:38.619 of civilization, doesn't it? It does, and I want 00:20:38.619 --> 00:20:40.440 to leave you with a final thought to ponder based 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:42.589 on that ancient proverb. Let's hear it. If our 00:20:42.589 --> 00:20:44.630 original social contract was designed merely 00:20:44.630 --> 00:20:46.869 to stop us from physically destroying one another, 00:20:47.410 --> 00:20:49.569 is it truly equipped to handle the modern war 00:20:49.569 --> 00:20:52.710 of all against all? Today, the battlefields aren't 00:20:52.710 --> 00:20:56.109 physical spaces. They are economic markets, social 00:20:56.109 --> 00:20:58.849 status hierarchies, and hyper -competitive digital 00:20:58.849 --> 00:21:01.450 platforms where simulation and deception are 00:21:01.450 --> 00:21:04.910 the primary weapons. We may not fear a violent 00:21:04.910 --> 00:21:07.150 death from our neighbors anymore, but does our 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:09.450 current peace pact actually protect us from the 00:21:09.450 --> 00:21:12.640 modern wolves? Or has the war simply become invisible, 00:21:13.180 --> 00:21:15.359 operating silently beneath the surface of everything 00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:18.099 we do? An invisible war where everyone is still 00:21:18.099 --> 00:21:20.180 fighting for survival, just with different weapons 00:21:20.180 --> 00:21:22.680 and a different set of rules. That is a heavy 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:24.759 but incredibly necessary thought to chew on. 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:26.779 Next time you feel the pressure of the rat race, 00:21:26.980 --> 00:21:28.599 remember you might just be feeling the echoes 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:30.680 of the state of nature. Thank you for taking 00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.079 this deep dive with us. Keep questioning the 00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:35.039 structures around you, keep looking for the invisible 00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:36.980 rules, and we will catch you on the next one.