"Can humans exist without some people ruling and others being ruled? The founders of political science did not think so. "I put for a general inclination of mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death," declared Thomas Hobbes. Because of this innate lust for power, Hobbes thought that life before (or after) the state was a "war of every man against every man"—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Was Hobbes right? Do humans have an unquenchable desire for power that, in the absence of a strong ruler, inevitably leads to a war of all against all? To judge from surviving examples of bands and villages, for the greater part of prehistory our kind got along quite well without so much as a paramount chief, let alone the all-powerful English leviathan King and Mortal God, whom Hobbes believed was needed for maintaining law and order among his fractious countrymen."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Anthropologist Marvin Harris, Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going (1989)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hierarchy
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Hierarchy
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Hierarchy →
Related Quotes
"Since equality is in fact impossible, and since, despite all attempts at reducing everything to one level, the differ…"
"As is well known, the five kingdoms of nature on the evolutionary arc might be defined as follows: the mineral kingdo…"
"This Hierarchy is composed of Those Who have triumphed over matter, and Who have achieved the goal by the very self-s…"
"You moralistic dog—admitting a hierarchy in which you are subordinate, purely that you may have subordinates; licking…"
"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspe…"
"A movement, even a radical movement, is also an institution with its own set of leaders, power dynamics and hierarchy."
"Respect the principle of Hierarchy. In Brotherhoods great and small, all actions are given through the Elders. There …"
"Some may be unable to reconcile the idea of equality with that of Hierarchy. Equality lies in the potentiality of spi…"
"How can one come close to the Source? How will the higher understanding be affirmed? Only by the law of Hierarchy. Th…"
"How do people understand the law of Hierarchy? How do they fulfill its laws in life? How do they intensify the best s…"