Social contract theory embeds a tacit savage-versus-civilized opposition rather than only a nature-versus-civility one

Evidence

The textual analyses proposed in this paper are literary and genealogical in spirit: they retrace the slow and discreet evolution of the classic contrast between nature and civility into a modern and more deCDnitive savagery v. civilization dichotomy. By tracking both sides of the equation, civility and savagery in Hobbes’s texts, a new perspective emerges on the modern and contemporary legacy of social contract theory. Indeed, the rhetorical strategies at play carry signiCDcant implications for our current understanding of modern political theory: at least from Hobbes onwards, social contract arguments seem to mobilize an implicit yet powerful ‘savage’ v. ‘civil(-ized)’ opposition. — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 8

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the reader’s interest in how a political community imagines its own cohesion: the civil/savage dichotomy is an internal imagining of itself against an excluded other, relevant to the threat-based vs. shared-project solidarity contrast.
• XREF: Connects to Charles W. Mills’s Racial Contract (cited) — the racial contract as background exclusion that makes the social contract possible. — connects to: Civility and barbarity constitute each other rather than oppose each other; Racial contracts are subordinate to civilizing contracts — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 27

Related

• Racial contracts are subordinate to civilizing contracts (similarity 0.88)
• Hobbes’s civility is a fragile, ever-in-progress pacified space built by contract, not brute protection. (similarity 0.81)
• Hobbes frames savages as deprived of arts rather than as hostile enemies. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Civility and barbarity constitute each other rather than oppose each other #expands (0.80)