Socio-political philosophical musings
This is a NotebookLM podcast audio summary of a Substack essay on a key idea of Thomas Hobbes expressed in Leviathan.
We all remember Hobbes. Not Calvin’s pet tiger, regrettably, but the Leviathan one: the cheerful fellow who looked at human beings and concluded that, left to themselves, they would make life ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. A line so good it almost excuses the anthropology. Almost.
Read the full essay on Substack.
Freedom is a word so overused it’s practically anaemic. Everyone wants it; no one agrees on what it means. It’s been weaponised by tyrants and revolutionaries alike, invoked to justify both the breaking of chains and their reforging in a different metal.
As I write this, I have just finished Erich Fromm’s A Sane Society. Without derailing this post, he cited a scenario – a description of work communities given in All Things Common, by Claire Huchet Bishop – where in post-WW2 France, a group formed a sort of workers’ coöperative – but it was more than that; it was an anarchosyndicalist experiment. As I read it, I had to cringe at the power ‘voluntary’ transfers that immediately got me thinking of Foucault’s biopower – as I often do. Saving this for a separate post.
This Critical Theory parody card, Freedom, draws its lineage from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose paradox still haunts the modern condition: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” The card re-enchants that contradiction – an Enchantment – Social Contract that reminds us liberty isn’t a state but a negotiation.
The card reads:
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player may remove a Binding counter from a permanent they control.
Creatures you control can’t be tapped or sacrificed by spells or abilities your opponent controls.
This is Rousseau’s dilemma made mechanical. Freedom is not absolute; it’s procedural. The upkeep represents the maintenance of the social contract—an ongoing renewal, not a one-time event. Every player begins their turn by negotiating what freedom costs. You may remove one Binding counter, but only if you recognise that binding exists.
The flavour text underlines Rousseau’s plea:
“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man.”
Freedom, for Rousseau, wasn’t about doing whatever one pleased. It was about participating in the moral and civic order that gives action meaning. To exist outside that order is not liberty; it’s anarchy, the tyranny of impulse.
The card, therefore, resists the naïve libertarian reading of freedom as the absence of restraint. It instead depicts freedom as the capacity to act within and through shared constraints.
Freedom, then, is not the absence of chains,
— Philosophics.blog
but the power to choose which ones we wear.
The art shows a ring of robed figures, hand in hand, their chains forming a circle beneath a clearing sky. It’s a haunting image: freedom through fellowship, bondage through unity. The circle symbolises Rousseau’s idea that true liberty emerges only when individuals subordinate selfish will to the general will – the common interest formed through collective agreement.
Yet there’s also a postmodern irony here: circles can be prisons too. The social contract can emancipate or suffocate, depending on who wrote its terms. The same chains that protect can also bind.
The monochrome aesthetic amplifies the ambiguity – freedom rendered in greyscale, neither utopia nor despair, but the space in between.
Rousseau’s notion of the social contract was revolutionary, but its dissonance still resonates: how can one be free and bound at the same time? He answered that only through the voluntary participation in a collective moral order can humans transcend mere instinct.
We might say that today’s democracies still operate under Freedom (Enchantment – Social Contract). We maintain our rights at the cost of constant negotiation: legal, social, linguistic. Every “Binding counter” removed is the product of civic upkeep. Stop maintaining it, and the enchantment fades.
The card hints at the price of this enchantment: creatures (citizens) can’t be tapped or sacrificed by opponents’ control. In other words, autonomy is secured only when the system prevents external domination. But systems fail, and when they do, the illusion of freedom collapses into coercion.
Rousseau earns a complicated respect in my philosophical canon. He’s not in my top five, but he’s unavoidable. His concept of freedom through the social contract anticipates both modern liberalism and its critique. He believed that genuine liberty required moral community – a notion now eroded by hyper-individualism.
Freedom, as I’ve rendered it here, isn’t celebration. It’s lamentation. The card is about the fragility of the social spell that keeps chaos at bay. We remove one binding at a time, hoping not to unbind ourselves entirely.
In the late 1990s, the Wachowskis gave us The Matrix – Keanu Reeves as Neo, the Chosen One™, a man so bland he could be anyone, which was the point. Once he realised he was living inside a simulation, he learned to bend its laws, to dodge bullets in slow motion and see the code behind the curtain. Enlightenment, Hollywood-style.
But here’s the twist, the film itself couldn’t stomach: realising the simulation doesn’t free you from it.
Knowing that race and gender are social constructs doesn’t erase their architecture. Knowing that our economies, legal systems, and so-called democracies are fictions doesn’t get us out of paying taxes or playing our assigned roles. “The social contract” is a collective hallucination we agreed to before birth. That and a dollar still won’t buy you a cup of coffee.
Baudrillard, whose Simulacra and Simulation the film name-dropped like a trophy, argued that simulation doesn’t hide reality – it replaces it. When representation becomes indistinguishable from the thing it represents, truth evaporates, leaving only consensus. We don’t live in a system of power; we live in its performance.
The Matrix got the metaphor half right. It imagined the bars of our cage as a digital dream – glossy, computable, escapable. But our chains are older and subtler. Rousseau called them “social”, Foucault diagnosed them as “biopolitical”, and the rest of us just call them “normal”. Power doesn’t need to plug wires into your skull; it only needs to convince you that the socket is already there.
You can know it’s all a fiction. You can quote Derrida over your morning espresso and tweet about the collapse of epistemic certainty. It won’t change the fact that you still have rent to pay, laws to obey, and identities to perform. Awareness isn’t liberation; it’s just higher-resolution despair with better UX.
Neo woke up to a ruined Earth and thought he’d escaped. He hadn’t. He’d only levelled up to the next simulation – the one called “reality”. The rest of us are still here, dutifully maintaining the system, typing in our passwords, and calling it freedom.
NB: Don’t get me wrong. I loved The Matrix when it came out. I still have fond memories. It redefined action films at the time. I loved the Zen messaging, but better mental acuity doesn’t grant you a pass out of the system.
There is a kind of political necromancy afoot in modern discourse—a dreary chant murmured by pundits, CEOs, and power-drunk bureaucrats alike: “It’s just human nature.” As if this incantation explains, excuses, and absolves all manner of violent absurdities. As if, by invoking the mystic forces of evolution or primal instinct, one can justify the grotesque state of things. Income inequality? Human nature. War? Human nature. Corporate psychopathy? Oh, sweetie, it’s just how we’re wired.
What a convenient mythology.
If “human nature” is inherently brutish and selfish, then resistance is not only futile, it is unnatural. The doctrine of dominance gets sanctified, the lust to rule painted as destiny rather than deviance. Meanwhile, the quiet, unglamorous yearning of most people—to live undisturbed, to coöperate rather than conquer—is dismissed as naïve, childish, and unrealistic. How curious that the preferences of the vast majority are always sacrificed at the altar of some aggressive minority’s ambitions.
Let us dispense with this dogma. The desire to dominate is not a feature of human nature writ large; it is a glitch exploited by systems that reward pathological ambition. Most of us would rather not be ruled, and certainly not managed by glorified algorithms in meat suits. The real human inclination, buried beneath centuries of conquest and control, is to live in peace, tend to our gardens, and perhaps be left the hell alone.
And yet, we are not. Because there exists a virulent cohort—call them oligarchs, executives, generals, kings—whose raison d’être is the acquisition and consolidation of power. Not content to build a life, they must build empires. Not content to share, they must extract. They regard the rest of us as livestock: occasionally troublesome, but ultimately manageable.
To pacify us, they offer the Social Contract™—a sort of ideological bribe that says, “Give us your freedom, and we promise not to let the wolves in.” But what if the wolves are already inside the gates, wearing suits and passing legislation? What if the protection racket is the threat itself?
So no, it is not “human nature” that is the problem. Cancer is natural, too, but we don’t celebrate its tenacity. We treat it, research it, and fight like hell to survive it. Likewise, we must treat pathological power-lust not as an inevitability to be managed but as a disease to be diagnosed and dismantled.
The real scandal isn’t that humans sometimes fail to coöperate. It’s that we’re constantly told we’re incapable of it by those whose power depends on keeping it that way.
Let the ruling classes peddle their myths. The rest of us might just choose to write new ones.
I recently watched The Penguin on HBO Max, a series set in DC’s Batman universe. Ordinarily, I avoid television – especially the superhero genre – but this one intrigued me. Less spandex, more mob drama. An origin story with a dash of noir. I’ll spare you spoilers, but suffice it to say that it was an enjoyable detour, even for someone like me who prefers philosophy over fistfights.
This post isn’t a review, though. It’s a springboard into a larger idea: morality’s subjectivity – or, more precisely, its relativity.
Morality, as I see it, is a social construct. You might carry a private moral compass, but without society, it’s about as useful as a clock on a desert island. A personal code of ethics might guide you in solitary moments, but breaking your own rules – eating that forbidden biscuit after vowing to abstain, for instance – doesn’t carry the weight of a true moral transgression. It’s more akin to reneging on a New Year’s resolution. Who’s harmed? Who’s holding you accountable? The answer is: no one but yourself, and even then, only if you care.
Introduce a second person, and suddenly, morality gains traction. Agreements form – explicit or tacit – about how to behave. Multiply that to the level of a community or society, and morality becomes a kind of currency, exchanged and enforced by the group. Sometimes, these codes are elevated to laws. And, ironically, the act of adhering to a law – even one devoid of moral content – can itself become the moral thing to do. Not because the act is inherently right, but because it reinforces the structure society depends upon.
But morality is neither universal nor monolithic. It is as fractured and kaleidoscopic as the societies and subcultures that create it. Which brings us back to The Penguin.
The Penguin thrives in a criminal underworld where the moral compass points in a different direction. In the dominant society’s eyes, crime is immoral. Robbery, murder, racketeering – all “bad,” all forbidden. But within the subculture of organised crime, a parallel morality exists. Honour among thieves, loyalty to the family, the unspoken rules of the game – these are their ethics, and they matter deeply to those who live by them.
When one criminal praises another – “You done good” – after a successful heist or a precise hit, it’s a moral judgement within their own framework. Outside that framework, society condemns the same actions as abhorrent. Yet even dominant societies carve out their own moral exceptions. Killing, for instance, is broadly considered immoral. Murder is outlawed. But capital punishment? That’s legal, and often deemed not only acceptable but righteous. Kant argued it was a moral imperative. Nietzsche, ever the cynic, saw this duality for what it was: a power dynamic cloaked in self-righteousness.
In The Penguin, we see this dichotomy laid bare. The underworld isn’t without morals; it simply operates on a different axis. And while the larger society might disdain it, the hypocrisy of their own shifting moral codes remains unexamined.
I’ll save other philosophical musings about The Penguin for another time – spoilers would be unavoidable, after all. But here’s a quick review: the series leans into drama, eschewing flashy gimmicks for a grittier, more grounded tone. The writing is generally strong, though there are moments of inconsistency – plot holes and contrivances that mar an otherwise immersive experience. Whether these flaws stem from the writers, director, or editor is anyone’s guess, but the effect is the same: they momentarily yank the viewer out of the world they’ve built.
Still, it’s a worthwhile watch, especially if you’re a fan of mob-style crime dramas. The final episode was, in my estimation, the best of the lot – a satisfying culmination that leaves the door ajar for philosophical ruminations like these.
Have you seen it? What are your thoughts – philosophical or otherwise? Drop a comment below. Let’s discuss.
I just happened across this article from almost a year ago. It fits into my worldview that the fundamental issue with prostitution and other forms of so-called ‘sex work’ is the concept of work itself. As humans in a Capitalist (or even Socialist) system, we are conscripted into employment.
Rousseau or Locke may have called this a social contract, but I never signed it, and still I am forced to accept the terms and conditions.
I’ve been quite busy working to survive, so I don’t have time to comment, save to say that I agree with the major concepts, as I have written previously here, here, here, and here.
I haven’t done any film reviews, and I’m not about to start now. I’ve just watched What Still Remains on Netflix.
People become their own kind of monster.
This is decent post-apocalyptic fare, some catalyst, societies, competing factions, good versus evil, at least in the eyes of the devout. But that’s not what I am going to be writing about.
What still remains contains good writing and strong character development. It does over-employ tropes, but this seems to be the norm these days: modular writing; rearranging the Lego pieces to make something that appears fresh. So what do I have to say?
Spoiler Alert: Proceed with caution…
This is a perfect depiction of the problems with property rights and social contract theory. There are apparently 3 factions—4 if you count independents.
Initially, there were the Changed, never seen on screen and perhaps not even contemporaneous to the current period, though they may reside in the unseen cities. Anna, the protagonist, and her family are among the independent. Peter, a preacher from the ordained, holier than thou faction. In the realm of ‘if you’re not with me (and our God), you’re against me, thence evil’, they are the arbiters of all that is good. And then there are the Berserkers, as named by the Ordained. To the Ordained, Berserkers aspire to be Changed, but the Berserkers view themselves more along the line of Spartans: Pain is good.
All scenes are shot in the wilderness, but the various factions have staked property claims with wide perimeters. The penalty for trespass appears to usually involve death of the offending party—or at least a hefty fee. This is Hobbes’ ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ life outside of society quip, though he didn’t exactly account for a class of societies despite this being common in his day.
So, these factions don’t actually have property rights; what they have is a notion of property, and they defend it with violence, as is a necessary condition for all property. In so-called modern societies, the violence is obfuscated much in the same manner that supermarkets obscure the carnage behind the meat. It’s still there; it’s just at arm’s length. Violate one of these ‘rights’, and you’ll see the violence inherent in the system.
And then there’s social contract theory—or the gaping flaw in the logic. Anna is an independent, but one can only be as independent as the ability to defend their independence. It’s sort of like contract law. If you can afford to defend a contract, you are entitled to having it enforced.
Redact intellectual property rant.
Anna doesn’t particularly want to belong to either faction, who have divided their world into two pieces in the same manner that, say, Britain and Scotland might have. If you happen to be born there through some loin lottery, you pretty much have to choose a side. Given Sartre’s no excuses policy, you can choose neither; it just won’t bode well for you. You’ve got no real choice.
In Anna’s eyes, upon the death of her mother and brother, she is persuaded with reluctance to return with Peter to his community, a God-fearing bunch. Her mum had indoctrinated her into this cult of God through bible readings, so she was primed for the eventuality. Some independent interlopers attempted to block their return journey by claiming trespass, so Peter summarily offed them rather than paying their ransom—a fee Anna has been willing to tender.
When the two finally reached the sanctuary, Anna quickly realised that she had no say in the matter: she was either a (good) member or (an evil) dead. To reiterate, this is an underlying problem with social contract theory. There is no exit clause.
Side Bar: Some have argued that the cost of coerced—though they’d never use this term—participation and compliance is owed to the greater good. There is no reason given why this is preferred or across which dimensions better is being assessed—or good for that matter—, so don’t ask. Long live Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill with a hat tip to David Hume.
“The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.
From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau each approached social contracts from their own perspectives, but it may be interesting to note that each was a privileged white male of his day. Sure, Hobbes was a monarchist, and Rousseau was the Thoreau of his day, a nostalgist, but he like the others were beneficiaries of the status quo, save perhaps at the margins.
Anna thought she had sovereignty over her choices. In the end, the plot line prevailed, but then again, this was just a movie, so even her choices were scripted.
Philosophics 