Colten,
In your last
letter you wrote about how you are having a hard time getting along with your
roommate. While I can understand your point of view, I think that it would be
good for you and Tanner to figure out how to better communicate and solve your
problems together. Have you thought about why you seem to be getting into
arguments? Let me share an insight from an Enlightenment philosopher about
social order that will help you to think about your motives and hopefully help
you reestablish your friendship on better grounds of communication.
Thomas Hobbs was
an English philosopher of the Enlightenment, who was mostly concerned about
social and political order. He studied human interactions of people during
times of peace, civil conflict, and danger. He developed theories about the “state
of nature” of humans, which he found to be based on self-interest. Within or
self-interested minds we have different motives. Luckily for you and your
situation with fighting with your roommate, Hobbs detailed three reasons why
humans in general tend to argue.
“In nature of
man we find three principal causes for quarrel: first, competition; secondly,
distrust; thirdly, glory.” (Thomas Hobbs, Leviathan)
I had an online
discussion with some classmates about the validity of Hobbs’s “causes of arguments.”
I asked my peers if they could think of any other motives that would start an
argument or all quarrels/arguments really could fit under the three umbrella
causes: competition, distrust, and glory. Some of my peers brought up the need
to feel loved or the lack of communication as being possible additional
umbrellas, but I feel like those are just subcategories of Hobbs’s three
principal causes. If one doesn’t feel loved they must feel that it is a
competition and they are comparing themselves to others or they feel they need
to gain love and trust.
Hobbs considered
this “state of nature,” or those natural responses that cause arguments, to be
something that we should avoid. He states that there are nineteen laws of
nature, but that two are crucial. One is about the right of nature and its connection
to peace and the other is about the interaction of the state of nature and
civil society.
“Every
man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he
cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.” (Leviathan,
xiv.4)
Though Leviathan is a philosophical book about
a broader society, Hobbs still brings up crucial points about our natural
responses to conflict and peace that will help you understand how to have a
better relationship with those around you.
Sincerely your
sister,
Karee
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