NP but " nasty, brutish and short" guy

[Markekohut]

An Atlantic writer, Ta--Nehisi Coates, wanted to read Hobbes' Leviathan and offered an online group effort. Since I like these things, I decided to get a copy of the book and see if I had the time and inclination. ( lotsa posters not too cool, offering and arguing All Hobbes already rather than a step-by-step discussion. But that's life and freedom (but maybe Coates shoulda done a wiki to 
pin down observations and opinions?)

so, I ordered a copy of the book and the one I chose had an introduction by one C.B Macpherson, a political scientist I discovered in the sixties with a book called The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, which musta resonated or created resonance even if I din't finish it. Made me agin' 'em and agin' " possessive individualism" in ways despite 
Whatever hypocrisies I live and have. 

Turns out the Scotsman's intro was written during that world-historical year, 1968, and shows it
These decades later. 

He sez, first and almost timelessly, that Hobbes is still relevant on 3 counts: power, peace and science. The power relations between men, to lead to peace--"commodious living"--I like that phrase---and to do it on a " scientific" basis.  " To offset and contain the applied science of ballistics, we seek an applied science of politics." " We see that science may destroy us, and to ward off destruction, we fly to more science." 

He ends by suggesting that it is ironic that Hobbes penetrating insight into bourgeois man and society is so powerful as THAT is diminishing [bourgeois society]. An " of 1968" remark, fer sure. 

Sent from my iPadp