Hobbes, oh Hobbes

I understand how studying Hobbes is beneficial to discussions of the state of the world today, however, that doesn't make him any easier to read.  Honestly it felt like the mental equivalent of trudging through the snow.  Actually getting a grip on what he believes, what he's suggesting, and how his views is pretty tricky.  I want to say that he was all for the Monarchy, especially since he seemed to have very little that was good to say about Democracy, but it's hard to tell.

Through class discussion and our 2nd week projects regarding coercion vs rational discourse, it seem to me that the best way to get anything done is by coercion.  In the world stage, it's about power - who has it, who wants it and who needs it.  A small country without much power will not be able to coerce a large country with a lot of power to do anything that the large country doesn't want to do.  Also, if there is no organization with supreme power to hold the large country accountable to, then the powerful countries pretty much get to have it all their own way.  Now some may be looking to move from coercive tactics to a more rational discourse, because the other countries of the world may perceive them more favorably, but will resort to coercion when rational discourse breaks down.  International organizations need to have more power in order to be more effective in enforcing their policies and ruling on the international stage.  However, the states have to be convinced that relinquishing some of their power to an international organization would be to their benefit.  That's where Hobbes' covenants come into play.  So he is still relevant in today's study of international affairs and relations, once you are able to really digest his concepts (and get past the spelling errors in the text).

One thought that we briefly touched upon during discussion in our small group, but that I would have liked to get more into with the whole class was how Hobbes talked about the Sovereignty and God - how since the sovereign was not appointed by God but by his fellow man, what a man should do when the word of the Sovereign and the word of God are opposed to one another.  He seems to say that in this life, one should obey the sovereign over God.  I wonder if this is the first real instance of the idea of separation of church and state - since for much of history, church and state have been irrevocably intertwined.  In historical context, it makes sense since this is around when England split off from the Roman Catholic Church and I think Henry the 8th was who made the Monarch the Head of the Church of England.  I would like to have had a bit more background on the state of the world in 1651 when Hobbes was writing his Leviathan in order to better understand his context, and do plan to look into that retroactively.