Fundamental Equality In Thomas Hobbes

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To begin, I, Thomas Hobbes, feel slightly uncomfortable while I sit here and sip my tea. All around me I observe individuals seeking out self-preservation, focused simply on helping themselves. I see a group of friends studying together, two of them are conversing a great deal, while one of the friends is staring into her laptop trying to work diligently. She seems annoyed with her friends but is not directly saying anything. She is seeking peace in her study environment, which is apparent through her facial expression. In other words, she is choosing to defend herself, knowingly limiting the freedom of her other two friends, by taking away their comfort of conversing openly. The instinct for self-preservation is guiding the behavior…show more content…
They are engaging in good-natured banter demonstrating fundamental equality. They are deciding whether they want to stay and study in the Starbucks or leave and study somewhere else. One is a male student and the other is a female student, and they both are reflecting about the same intellect and physical strength, when seen simply as humans. This prevents the emergence of a natural leader in every social group, and keeps away one from dominating another in one’s social group. Fundamental equality exacerbates the conflict that individuals may come into with each other due to pursuing their own self-preservation. The female student states that she would rather stay and study here because there is an empty table in the vicinity, however, the male student is urging her to leave with him to study elsewhere. After they received their drinks, they both agreed to sit down and study in the Starbucks because the female student did not want to go out into the cold. In this way, they were basically living in a state of war, without any authority or rules to subdue them. However, the true selves of both individuals were revealed and they were able to compromise and avoid further conflict. It is apparent that nothing less than an absolute authority would have been strong enough to restrain the passions of both individuals, which differed slightly during the conflict. Both individuals were self-interested, nonetheless social order remained most likely due to the surrounding
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