On The Self and the State

    Force is a language employed by Hobbes and Rousseau as well as Glass to have a discourse over force and said discourse sets up the foundation of said language and to highlight the dichotomy of the self and the state. Each author uses this language and dichotomy to establish their beliefs of human nature Hobbes and Rousseau respectively discuss their beliefs on human nature while Glass uses those that wrote before him to analyze human nature in a specific setting. How does force function in a society and what is its modus operandi? Because force needs to be strictly defined it will then lead to major problems that each of the three authors has in common which is an epistemological problem for each of the respective authors’ work because of the subject of disagreement on the nature of force. Those interested in human natures and its imprints on politics, philosophy and the universe around us will see that the synthetic essence of human nature answers many of the problems and questions that the authors incisively raise and their implications behind them.

            Before diving deep into the various arguments from each of the authors we must engage in an explanation of each of their beliefs on human nature and its implications for future arguments. Each author has a distinct approach to human nature and all of them come to their own unique conclusions based on either original or older works established by other thinkers and then built upon by the author. Hobbes takes the distinct materialist approach describing that the only thing that truly exists in the real world is matter and that we as humans pick up this matter by sense perception. Hobbes, along with other thinkers such as Locke and Hume all ascribed to the empiricist view that all knowledge arrives from sensory experience and the emphasis of empirical evidence its explanation of knowledge. Here, we then see how Hobbes arrives at his views on human nature through the extremely limiting lens of the materialist perception. Hobbes saw life as nothing more than a motion of the limbs; he asserts that because of this motion of limbs human nature is but a benign worship of processes like a machine.

            An idea that human nature is nothing more but a euphemism for inertia is an interpretation mainly espoused by Nietzsche, however, Hobbes would see this idea as something as a relevant axiom to his beliefs in regard to human nature. Inertia is a property of the existing state of rest or even uniform motion. While Nietzsche uses this interpretation based his beliefs on morality Hobbes would take this idea literally because when an object presses on any of our organs, we have a fancy of an idea of that object. Fancies are better described as a passive accumulation of the senses; our perceptions are very much up to observer and how they interpret the primary and secondary notions of an object. Since humans have a lot of inertia in terms of perception it prescribes to the idea that again Nietzsche put forth and that being that the modern period taught us extreme limitedness.

In conclusion Hobbes registers that human nature is defined by the animated desires, fears, and hopes; due to the fact that desire and aversion are very much guiding hands for human action and here we see Hobbes implying that humans are very much individualized much more than previous philosophers would like to realize “I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men,—desire, fear, hope, etc.; not the similitude of the objects of the passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, etc.: for these the constitution individual, and particular education, do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man’s heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts.” (Hobbes, 8).  His arguments for holding reason in such high accord is because Hobbes realizes that reason plays a very important factor in human nature this is because as Hobbes says, “Reason is the pace” (Hobbes, 30). Branstetter uses this position to rebuke Arendt’s ideas that Hobbes was the architect for totalitarianism in the sense that he constituted modern peoples into apolitical subjects who then cannot independent moral judgments. “Hobbes reaffirms the notion that human beings have a fixed, unchanging nature. “However, by introducing experience (and therefore the phantasms that constitute memory) into the equation, he makes human nature, and the society within which that human nature can thrive, much more complex.” (Branstetter, 781).

When it comes to Rousseau his beliefs can be better interpreted as an addendum to Hobbes rather than a complete response. Metaphysically, Rousseau would probably agree with Hobbes in terms of perception but where Rousseau differs as a writer and his argument is his beliefs on how men become unequal in the statue of nature and how these inequalities are very much human. The inequality between men comes from the division of labor for Rousseau to quickly describe the division of labor it is simply the assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency. This is accomplished by the replacement of amour de soi with amour propre. Amour de soi is a state of self-love that only exists in the state of nature because it is the love of one’s self in their own body this concept is further explored and elaborated upon in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality. “His desires do not exceed his physical needs (XI [p. 141]). The only good he knows in the universe are food, a female, and rest; the only evils he fears are pain and hunger. I say pain and not death, for or an animal will never know what it is to die, and the knowledge of death and the knowledge of death and it’s terrors is one of the first acquisitions man has made in moving away from the animal condition.”(Rousseau, 73). Here we see Rousseau split in his addendum to Hobbes where the latter writer claims that it is inherent in men to fight and seek our warfare while the former speaks of the issues as something gained as man leaves the “animal condition”.  Amour propre is self-love of oneself gained through direct comparison with others. This condition of self-love or self-respect arises through the advancement of society making love far more impulsive for all of man. “It is therefore incontestable that love, as well as all other passions, must have acquired in society that glowing impetuosity, which makes it so often fatal to mankind.” (Rousseau, 87).  It is these same societal challenges that for Rousseau is the reason for inequalities to arise and the culprit for him is the division of labor through the arrival of private property. Before amour propre man was peaceful but with its creation created the Hobbesian state of nature and for Graeme Garrard, this event was one of pure violence” Rousseau adopted this dire Hobbesian view of the natural relations between individuals as a description of modern civilization. According to his Discourse, the species moved from the peaceful state of nature to a state of social war via the transitory ‘golden age’ of nascent society.” (Garrard, 73).

With the civilizing event having taken place Rousseau then the show’s us his judgment of human nature a posteriori. While Hobbes uses part 1 of Leviathan to use geometry and mathematics to build upon his ideas of human nature. (mathematics being inherently synthetic, synthetic judgments are judgments made from empirical cognition and observed facts.) Rousseau uses empirical but also hypotheticals to assert what he perceives as the truth into human nature and that truth being that before man was civilized, he was born into the state of nature happy and simple. This idea aligns with Hobbes as well because he also thought of man as a very simple creature just like all creatures. Living in the state of nature Rousseau comments on the happiness that man felt being free and unchained until the cry of nature that happened seemingly by accident. The cry of nature was a simple expression used for oneself as he or she lived within the state of nature but just as man came into contact with others and began using the cry to express more complex ways of talking so did life become more complex and more violent. “But as this was excited only by a sort of instinct on urgent occasions, to implore assistance in case of danger or relief in case of suffering, it could be of little use in the ordinary course of life, in which more moderate feelings prevail.” (Rousseau, 77). Rousseau would then disagree with Hobbes whom he thought believed all man was inherently evil by nature while Rousseau believed that humans were good by nature as well as very happy by nature.

James M. Glass writes his ideas about human nature with Hobbes and Rousseau in mind. While not much of a direct response he keeps these two writers in mind when making his claims. Glass addresses Aristotle’s views on the self as an essential set up for his book. Aristotle believed that humans are naturally political animals that exist in intricate community’s that they provide a natural social structure for the individual’s living in them. Aristotle also thought that complex speech played a big role in community frameworks and how we as political animals use speech as a guiding hand in the community. So, Glass has set out to see if Aristotle’s claims are demonstrable while also keeping in mind what human nature might be with regard to Aristotle, Hobbes, and Rousseau. For Glass, his ideas on human nature aren’t so much revolutionary or new but analytical and understanding of Rousseau’s “natural independence”. Glass writes that it is language that is source of community for us “normal” people we can this as a very relevant axiom for the self in the sense that each person interacting with another will feel the urge to belong to a community only out of respect to the fact that others who relate to our individual being will be the ones who are closest to us.

Because Glass responds to any questions or problems that previous authors either bring up or assert through the eye of the mentally ill, he gives the use of metaphors as an expression of knowledge, language, and community. He does this through the concept of “delusional speech” with his use of “concrete symbolization” in which he writes “First, there is the concrete, in which the symbol is experienced as real and metaphors have an action component, in which the schizophrenic or psychotic self believes that the icepick actually picks at the brain.” (Glass, 15). Those who are inflicted by mental illness as Foucault would say “Consciousness of the illness arises from within the illness; it is anchored in it, and at the moment of consciousness perceives the illness, it expresses it.” (Foucault, 47). Delusional speech is then very much the opposite of the Rousseauistic view on the community with the general will; those express language through delusion are very much forced into isolation and said isolation produces a yearning for the community but Glass even rejects Rousseau’s idea in favor of a literal and less romantic view of “will”.  

Glass writes in his chapters covering his time at Spring Lake Ranch that although the community at Spring Lake experiences a community in which Rousseau might have imagined it doesn’t offer much in being what Berman calls “Rousseauean therapies”. These therapies are best described by Berman as “Rousseauean therapy is always full of shocks and dramatic convulsions and regressive horrors, yet the most terrifying moments and the most dreadful behavior are part of a dialectic that lifts the developing self to new heroic and creative heights.” (Berman, 189). These “heroic and creative heights” are never realized at Spring Lake and Glass even argues in his chapter on exclusion that these heroic actions aren’t very realistic for all persons (actions such as Ahab’s quest for revenge and solitude, Hamlet's revenge, Macbeth’s descent into madness, or even the lone individual in the real world standing against tyranny and oppressive political action). He uses Heinz Kohut’s view on the nuclear self to assert that people in Spring Lake don’t yearn for community out of some Rousseauistic view of amour de soi but because psychosis prevents the schizophrenic from realizing their nuclear self and distinguishing between the ideals of individuality that form self-enhancing actions within the context of identifying with others and conceptions of action that require a certain kind of individual.

Glass’s exposition into the self and how individuals relate to one in another and how the lonely individual that only knows psychosis echoes Nietzsche’s words in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as Nietzsche writes to express the views of changing morality and the self “Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself. And your way leads past yourself and your seven devils. You will be a heretic to yourself and a witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and a villain. You must wish to consume yourself in your own flame: how could you wish to become new unless you had first become ashes!” (Nietzsche, 64). The lonely one, that being the mentally ill in this situation is similar to when Foucault speaks on how the prisoner is essentially a non-individual in society so too is mentally ill persons. Glass’s writings teach that it would beneficial then to listen to those who are mentally ill and engage in a form of dialogue with them. It is a practice as old as the concept and virtue of polis, but he shows that the expression between those who can express symbolization through the formation of civil society and those who express language through delusion is beneficial for both sides in the long run.

Now that we have thoroughly explored the ideas of each writer in regard to human nature we will now delve into the nature of force, its implications, and how its own language affects us and how each interpretation of human nature plays an integral role into realizing what force is. To understand these concepts more thoroughly we must define force itself; the definition being a strict one in which can exist easily with each authors interpretation of human nature. First, for the sake of the argument let us set up a situation in which individuals exist in the state of nature akin to Hobbes’ ideas. Here, of course, we know that in the state of nature there is no community and desire and fear respectfully exist at their logical extremes as well as liberty in the state of nature and by Hobbes’ definition is the absence of external impediments. Force in this society is prevalent all around but what is it and how does it go around?

A concept in microeconomics called “consumption bundles” these bundles are essentially sets of goods that a consumer may choose to consume. There is no official “market” in the state of nature rather than individual’s having the possibility to interact and exchange and while for each individual it isn’t necessarily basic goods like coffee or tea that might be bundled it is whatever decision and then subsequent action an individual chooses to take. Each bundle is then very much up to the individual and it is impossible to know them all but here is where force takes place in the state of nature, the interactions between actors. Marx would see these interactions even in a lawless state and call these “species imperatives” (work as a collective expression for the community’s need). He would say that force exists everywhere at all times but even this view is incorrect. Force is when individuals are given a set of only negative bundles in an interaction. Simply put, the idea is based around forceful interactions within material conditions. Both Hobbes and Rousseau would contend that man has a propensity to live but it is better to look at it in a far more nuanced view that man has a propensity to starve. The body, for man, is not one of a plant and we do not produce our own food within our bodies, and it is up to man to interact with the world to get his food.

In the same way, man must interact with the world around him or her man must also interact with the world to find community. To view the human community as food to be digested for the interaction starved individual is even reflected within Leviathan. Here, Hobbes states it is up to man and the self to find his community “Again, men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself.”  (Hobbes, 77). So, knowing that force exists in the state of nature and its definition we will see the effects of the definition with each writer. Hobbes is the easiest to understand, the negative bundle offered is strictly the state of nature which each individual having to look over their backs and each individual having the innate knowledge of warfare between individual’s we see that that the state of nature produces negative bundles all the time and constantly. Rousseau would see the negative bundle as amour de soi being replaced by amour de propre and the dependence of each individual on one another through the advancement of society and the division of labor.

Glass here is again different but also similar to the previous writers but different enough that the bundles that are negative must be strictly analyzed. If we look back to the first part of Private Terror/ Public Life we’ll notice Glass referencing writers such as Foucault, Ricoeur, Lacan, etc. These writers are a part of the post-modern psychiatry movement pushing forward the belief that the unconscious is a language and that the unconscious can be a euphemism for the “voice of the other”. The voice has very distinct characteristics such as madness and insanity and this voice and its unconscious being is just another way of living for those particularly suffering from psychosis. Here, we see the bundle begin to take shape and Glass disagree with those writers which can be best described by Jane Flax in her review of the book “He argues it is wrong to treat such experience as a more authentic level of a human being. Nor, contrary to the claims of theorists such as Deleuze and Guattari, does he believe psychosis should be analyzed simply as a particularly revealing effect of late capitalistic social organization. He also does not agree with Foucault that madness is best understood as a concept produced within a certain regime of power/knowledge.” (Flax, 995). Even with a rather long excerpt from Dr. Flax, we notice what the negative bundle for Glass would be and that it is those who try and claim reality and the self can be put into categories of the betterment of virtuous. Those suffering from psychosis do not wish to be considered Ahab’s or Hamlets nor do they want their mental illness to make them something better than human they simply want to be human.

If those affected by mental illness have their conditions romanticized their material condition and their starvation for the community will never push away the consequences of starvation (i.e. - delusional speech, isolation, loneliness). As I stated earlier the conditions of force are material but for those with an illness it is also mental, and Glass realizes this issue due to him defining different types of symbols and the use of delusional speech. So, for Glass, an imperative exists for society to recognize madness and insanity as real issues rather than just another way of living. His solution isn’t very obvious, but it is hypothetical enough to realize there are solutions. That being, recognize the issue of psychosis and interact with the individual’s afflicted not in a political, or even philosophical way but as you would with most peoples. Glass uses Arendt to show that action is still important even with the delusional and deranged. Glass’s interpretation of psychosis and community is similar to Viktor E. Frankl’s ideas on Logotherapy which believes that finding the meaning to life is what drives and motivates humans unilaterally. Frankl believes that humans can find meaning in a few ways which go as follows “We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering” (Frankl, 115). This is consistent with Glass due to him using Arendt to set the stage.

With force defined and its implications in line with each of the respective writers it is important to explore force more closely, mainly, outside the state of nature and as contracts and covenants begin to form and even Rousseau’s “General Will”. Hobbes and Rousseau both describe the first forming of natural laws as well as contracts. Hobbes describes lex naturalis as a general rule or precept found out through reason “By which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.” (Hobbes, 80). From the original belief that I have stated earlier we realize that human nature is very much a synthetic form of actions, this is true for Hobbes as he states how man passively takes in the material world around him forming fancies that then lead to simple concepts lead and then unregulated thoughts and so on. So, lex naturalis is similar to how Hobbes describes man and that is one with different desires and aversions that lead him to reason and rational decision making. These natural laws, even though they do not have to be respected by any other man in the state of nature exist solely from the rational man and whatever man might think is the best way to preserve his life. Eventually Hobbes describes how those fed up with life in the state of nature come together to transfer their rights voluntary to a sovereign so they may live in a society that is far more orderly than the state of nature; he describes the action more lucidly as “For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself.” (Hobbes, 81-82).  Hobbes believes that within the commonwealth it will remain orderly to ensure peace as Bagci states “According to Hobbes' "social contract", the cause of the contract between the parties is to ensure the safety of life and property” (Bagci, 444).

The same can be said for Rousseau and his idea of the “general will”. With Rousseau, he rejects the idea that political authority is found in nature nor is legitimate political authority founded on force but sees true legitimate political authority rests in the “social contract”. This contract is formed by members in society due to Rousseau’s beliefs on the moral significance of freedom and to be human. Rousseau asserts that the social contract will allow people to remain as free as they were when the state of nature existed but also live in an orderly society. He describes that the social contract will be binding because the social contract’s conditions are the exact same for everyone. Also, the social contract takes importance over the individual it can not be broken by one person. Finally, he calls back to his original sentiments on human nature when he says that no one is set above anyone else and everyone’s natural freedoms will stay the same when entering the social contract. Rosseau’s body politic is now formed and the sovereign is defined similarly to Hobbes he bases the origins of his sovereign from his arguments surrounding human nature. If we view the social contract as the will for everyone to want a rational coexistence with one another then it natural to see and easier to digest why Rousseau thinks all individuals will be just as free under the social contract as he states in book 1 of On the Social Contract. “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as a body, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.” (Rousseau, 173). Rousseau then views each person similar to how Aristophanes saw humanity as everyone missing the person they are linked to.

         Force now not only existed in the state of nature but also the society’s in which sovereigns are formed and the state is clearly defined. How does force operate within this new framework then? First, the series of negative bundles is still prominent and the definition of forceful action. The sovereign and even further the state must do everything in its power to maintain order so that individual’s living within the commonwealth are not thrown back into the state of nature. So, the sovereign creates laws and generally begins defining thing so that it may find the best way to keep life and society orderly. I again want to call back to economics with the concept of “opportunity cost” simply put this concept basically means whatever must be given up to obtain some item. For the individual, of course, opportunity cost exists but it exists for the sovereign as well and what the sovereign wants it has to get through force. For Hobbes, the sovereign does this by terror and awe. If any individual disobeys its laws then said individual is punished either by prison, execution, or taxation. If the individual in question tries to disobey any of these then he is forced out of the commonwealth and the bundle is either you lose your life, or you lose your property or freedom. Commodities and are what Hobbes calls the “nutrition of a Commonwealth” (Hobbes, 151). Whereas the individual can interact with anyone he pleases and choosing unfavorable options we see that with the sovereign whatever it needs to maintain the lifeblood of its commonwealth it takes, offering a negative bundle to the individual (i.e. roads, subsidies, military investment) and because the individual transferred their rights to the sovereign then Hobbes see what the sovereign would do as what all other individuals would do.

              The same is said for Rousseau, although more openly and direct and this is done through the surrendering of property. Rousseau is similar to Marx here when he asserts that man should occupy no more land than he needs. Also, if any individual does occupy more it is by right of the social contract and the betterment of the general will that this property is taken used to serve the polis. Rousseau’s argues this due to the fact that we have left the state of nature at this point becoming what he thinks is rational and because the social contract exists it is the community which is superior and more important than the individual at this point. He says this because Rousseau thinks the community allows for each individual to be free and happy.

   As he states in book 1 again “It is that rather than destroying natural equality, the fundamental pact on the contrary substitutes a moral and legitimate equality for whatever physical inequality  nature may have placed between men, and that while they may be unequal in force or genius, they all become equal through convention and by right.” (Rousseau, 178). Rousseau does this for the sake of morality as he states even if men are not equal physically it will be through the social contract and the force of the sovereign that will make them equal in right. This is also a forceful interaction and similar to any other sovereign action in this example it is out of moral authority that the social contract has. For an individual living in this situation, he would give up his property or have it taken by force.

       Force has a language to it just as the language of all actions it is merely an expression, but it is an expression, not every individual will take. As Glass states in his section on public and private selves, he says that abilities to negotiate, to express viewpoints, to make alliances, to sustain relationships, to manipulate and handle imbalances in power, etc. “All these actions take place in language.” (Glass, 28). Because many actions if not all actions are simply expressions of language it is not unwise to assert that force is language but what does this really mean for the state and the individual? In the state of nature where extreme liberty exists then everyone is free to express force as they see fit as if they were each smaller ad-hoc sovereigns. If we view the sovereign as Hobbes intended, as an artificial man and as an actor for the people we will see that his language factors down to one phenomenon and that is force. The sovereign may express these phenomena in other ways, but it is all force. The sovereign, like how Hobbes describes Adam using language “But all this language gotten and augmented by Adam and his posterity” (Hobbes, 20) takes language and augments it for the duration of the Commonwealth. For Hobbes, the goal of the commonwealth is to achieve peace and duration and what better way to do that through language. This goes back to earlier sentiments Hobbes expresses on the importance of reason as a pace for humanity to go at. In the state of nature man will always think they are of right reason but within the Commonwealth there is a judge can define those things and even define reason “For want of a right reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind so ever: and when men that think themselves wiser than all others clamor and demand right reason for judge.”(Hobbes, 27).

      The ability of the sovereign to have judges define the meaning and assert augmented language is one of great importance for the linguistic modality of force. Here, even Rousseau would have no qualms except the only judgements of words would be augmented within the first convention where each idea of the social contract needs to be defined Rousseau states the obligation the convention has and who has the power to decide things unilaterally “ Wherein lies the obligation for the minority to submit itself to the choice of the majority, and where do one hundred people who want a master get the right to vote on behalf of men who do not want one? The law of majority rule is itself established by convention and presupposes unanimity at least once.” (Rousseau, 172). It is the law of majority rule then who has the power to augment the language and for Rousseau, he is different in terms of overarching goals for the polis instead of peace and duration he sees that perfectibility, intensity, and pleasure are what the city will achieve once the social contract is implemented. This is demonstrably true because the language will be affected by each of these ideas that Rousseau puts forth. Obligations that both the sovereign put for are inherently grounded in force for both Rousseau and Hobbes and as Steinberger puts it very much up to those beginnings of contracts and conventions “for Hobbes, as for Rousseau, such obligations are always hostage to, and are intelligible only in light of, the defining purposes for which the state was created in the first place.”

            Force we now know is a language and one that is ultimately what strives to be the sole factor within the Commonwealth or a polis. But after defining and delving deep into this nuanced concept it begs the question of its implications on the dichotomy between the self and the state. The self and the state both need to be defined so we may have a better insight into the dichotomy. Firstly, to define the self, I will use the solipsistic angle but in more rigidly the egoist position. Now, solipsism states that the self is all or that is known to exist this can serve as our definition only through the cartesian model of the mind. Reality, in the waking world or in a dream world are just fancies of my mind and those fancies derive from my sense which Hobbes firmly examines in the first part of Leviathan. I doubt my senses I doubt the fancies of my mind and I know I exist because I can think and I have thoughts, Descartes would call us “thinking things”. Because he defined thought as “what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it”. The problem with solipsism is that it does not recognize inputs, ignores them even in favor of the self on its own. Egoism just states that the facts of one’s being and how they think arrive from their own consciousness and here it can actually recognize inputs of the mind and expression.

            As Stirner would write saying “Mind is the name of the first self-discovery, the first self-discovery, the first un-deification of the divine; i.e., of the uncanny, the spooks, the powers above.”  (Stirner, 16). Here, we even see parallels with Hobbes, man is simple, and he discovers himself through sense, imagination, speech, of reason, and through voluntary and involuntary motions. There are even relations with Rousseau because all man knows is his consciousness before anything else and before the cry of nature is replaced. We can say then that the conscious is a mechanical thing like a machine taking in inputs and attempting outputs.

            As the self is defined then what of the state and what is this dichotomy? The state is essentially the sole actor with a monopoly on force. The age-old Weberian claim applies to both Rousseau and Hobbes’ interpretation as well as Glass’s views on both. The dichotomy now is the how they relate to one another and the dichotomy is quite literal, the self and the individual must give up its liberty in the state of nature to the covenant and the social contract. If one wants to be a part of the Commonwealth the self has to be curbed slightly to gain the benefits of an orderly society. After the agreements and contracts are made the individual must follow the laws of the land in accordance with the sovereign’s definitions and declarations. Here, is where the dichotomy is formed, one that begins recognizing mental states of other individuals as well as the actions and force of the state. The state is a community focused force monopoly while the self is inherently self-interested and focused on discovery. This dichotomy obviously isn’t necessary, but both react to each other. The self begins forming inputs of how to live its life in this new society while the state reacts to individual’s in its society through terror or awe. Conflict builds as both terror and awe are instilled into political action and governmental policy. But because this isn’t necessary it is important to note that the individual can leave the state or become one with it. The dichotomy reaches a boiling point and then creates various subsets of human action, governmental policy, and political discourse. In short, this dichotomy is what makes and breaks ideologies and even states this is Arendt’s vita activa but on a level achieved through state violence.

This is an important axiom one that has parallels when Glass speaks about the patients he interacted with, specifically David. David shares his delusional episodes of one that relates to the dichotomy “God wished it that way, and since I was His servant, I tried to please him. What better gift for God than to do His bidding.” (Glass, 45). David here is delusional but what isn’t to say that we do not experience the same feelings of wanting to serve or state or our community because as Glass would write communities are what make us feel secure, that is if our beings relate and they only come into relation out of the sheer voluntary action of the covenant or the forceful freedom of the social contract. Other example includes Ruth’s feelings of isolation and longing to be cared for or Julie’s fear that ruled her life.

             Through the understanding of human nature and its implications, the nature of force backed by human nature’s synthetic essence and the dichotomy that exists quite clearly, we see the writer's footprints on modern political thought. It all comes back to the self and its interactions with the state. All ideologies stem from this dichotomy and its influence on the community. Those who are politically active form communities based around political action and thought. The state, for example in our modern democratic system, forms based on those communities and thoughts of the 51%. Its Rousseau’s law of the majority obligation applied but for democracy, our convention was already set up. The goals then of modern political thought are then to either create new paths of discovery or reply to those who have already commented on it and the ones replying merely offer a more cogent perspective. Hobbes entered the political landscape with other theorists in mind, but he gave a whole new outlook on the birth of the state and his treatise on the commonwealth as a function. It is then detailed by Hobbes thoughts on the institution and how they are established such as acquisition, succession, or a new contract completely. Hobbes also saw other writers like Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas as ones who severely misunderstood human nature and in turn the sovereign’s birth and structure.

            Rousseau entered into the field with his addendum by taking Hobbes into consideration and offering a bit of a reply but really Rousseau and Hobbes are similar in a few ways than none. He takes on the Hobbesian view not because he thinks that the state of nature as Hobbes framed was demonstrable but because that state of nature is different from his interpretation of the concept. Rousseau, as well as Hobbes, used this more as a literary device for his argument, but Rousseau used it in a much more normative way. He assumed that Hobbes didn’t see the missing link in his views on the state of nature that man was even far more complex and simpler at the same time because of amour de soi and amour propre.

            Glass comes into the conversation with both Rousseau and Hobbes in mind specifically, but he also has the luck of having writers such as Arendt, Foucault, Marx, etc. He sees the issues from all angles, political, universal, economic, historical, etc. He uses this insight to better describe the citizen, community, the transformation of the self, and participation politically. By the end of his work Glass answers his initial question “It is in this sense that the situation of so many patients described in this book takes on tragic properties and impels the self to exist and survive on or beyond the borders of society.” (Glass, 219). Humans then aren’t necessarily the political animals as Aristotle envisioned it but political animals through the advancement of society. As individuals are bound to come together under the contract or covenant, they become more politicized and begin recognizing others akin to themselves. Unfortunately, those suffering from psychosis yearn for this recognition but their “voice of the other” makes it harder for them to socialize as well as those who are deemed normal.

            Finally, we are left with if the issues addressed by the writers fall into a certain category. Although Glass’s issues are a summation of the others, the issues that Hobbes and Rousseau's address are universal. Each human is his own being but when it comes to governance and with each writers’ goals of civil society in mind as long as man yearns for self-discovery and self-interest. We will see universal problems of human nature and its place in modern political thought as an integral argument for every ideology. Each idea sets out to show human nature as different or objective and that’s simply because it’s a universal problem. Problems of the state and freedom are universal as well, mountains of evidence support this but in theory, of course, the language of force will always conflict with the actions of the individual as I stated earlier force is just a set of negative options given upon to us. Where later writers like Nietzsche would say overcome your human nature Rousseau and Hobbes mold the structures around ours as overcoming your human nature for them not something easily done or something impossible. Glass uses Nietzsche with how the mental ward relates to Apollonian and Dionysian symbols those dichotomy’s also being something that latches onto human nature that Glass uses as more of a partial problem rather than the other problems Glass addresses.

            In conclusion, force is a language employed by Hobbes and Rousseau as well as Glass to have a discourse over force and said discourse sets up the foundation of said language and to highlight the dichotomy of the self and the state. The nature of force which is always a set of negative options for an individual caught up in the forceful action and the nature of force is a material condition. The language of force as something expressed by the state solely when covenants are formed and then augmented when discussed. That the foundation of that augmented language to show the realization of the self and state dichotomy as one that isn’t necessary but has vast influence on our communities and other political ideas. We see that the self is simple as Hobbes describes but complex when in contact with other individuals how we end up acting with them.

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