From The Writer's Almanac:
Today is the birthday of Thomas Hobbes (books by this author), born in Westport, Wiltshire, England (1588) who witnessed a chaotic time in English politics, with two civil wars and the execution of the king. He wrote his most famous book, Leviathan, in the midst of it, in which he argues that people need a strong central authority to keep them from collapsing into war and chaos, a world with "no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He believed that because we don't share the same ideas about what's right and wrong, we need a sovereign to enforce a set of laws.
We talked about him in our Search class Tuesday night. That class was discussing The Prince, by Machiavelli, and our instructor told us that every philosopher since Machiavelli has had his roots in him.
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