For centuries philosophers and anthropologists have been arguing about what the hypothetico-historical “State of Nature” might have looked like way back before the advent of civilisation: was it populated by the “noble savages” hypothesised by Rousseau? or by lives that, in Thomas Hobbes’ words, were “nasty, brutish and short”?
To what should be the delight of philosophers and anthropologists, accounts emerging from the #OccupyWallStreet protests suggests the State of Nature is re-emerging down at Zuccotti Park. And it looks more Hobbesian than anything dreamed up by Rousseau.
Is that why the Occupiers are so gung ho about increasing the power of Leviathan?
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