Hobbes read contemporary American tribes as living evidence of Europe’s own ancient past.
Evidence
World is then perceived as a space outside of time and history, and an untainted window toward the Europeans’ own past. This misconception is especially visible in Elements of Law, in which “savage” or “savages” are mentioned thrice. In Elements of Law, Part I, Chapter 13, Hobbes compares “such savage people as are now the inhabitants of divers places in America” to “the inhabitants heretofore of those countries where at this day arts and sciences do most PQourish.”KK And again in Chapter 14, the “experience of savage nations that live at this day” is compared to “the histories of our ancestors, the old inhabitants of Germany and other now civil countries (…).”KL Ancient barbarian tribes of Europe and contemporary savage tribes of America are put on the same level as windows on a more natural, less developed, ancient, primordial world – one which could then possibly hold the key to human nature, since these lifestyles have supposedly been untainted by arts and sciences, and all the comforts of civil and civilized life. This parallel was rather typical at the time, and one that the American travel literature popularized. Such far-away/long-ago fallacies were indeed very popular, ready-made, and easy ways for European explorers and conquerors to repatriate the novelty and strangeness of the new continent into familiar cognitive frameworks. — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 60
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the ‘American imaginaries’ framing of the reading purpose; also links to how threat-based vs. developmental-stage thinking about others operates in political theory. — connects to: Hobbes locates his hypothesized state of nature in the living present of Americas’ peoples — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 24; Hobbes had direct personal and financial ties to English colonization of Virginia — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 57; Hobbes’s exclusionary frame is cultural-historical civility rather than biological race — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 25 (+1 more)
Related
- Hobbes locates his hypothesized state of nature in the living present of Americas’ peoples (similarity 0.91)
- Hobbes’s prejudice against Native Americans was civilizational rather than racial. (similarity 0.87)
- Hobbes frames savages as deprived of arts rather than as hostile enemies. (similarity 0.86)
- Hobbes consistently tied the word savage to America as its expected location (similarity 0.85)
- Hobbes’s exclusionary frame is cultural-historical civility rather than biological race (similarity 0.83)
- Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and Its Others- American Imaginaries, State of Nature, and Civility in Hobbes (similarity 0.82)
- Calling Hobbes a racist need not be anachronistic. (similarity 0.81)
- Hobbes promoted civility before the word civilization existed (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Hobbes’s prejudice against Native Americans was civilizational rather than racial.
#corroborates(0.80) — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 71 - Hobbes’s exclusionary frame is cultural-historical civility rather than biological race
#expands(0.75) — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 25