We often think of philosophy as a head in the clouds activity. As some one once said to me “It’s like f**rting ‘Annie Laurie’ backwards through a key hole- all very clever, but what’s the point!”.
Well you will see that I do think there is a point ( in fact more that one). So I will use these pages to put forward some reasons for bothering with the ideas of people in most cases long dead.
The other day I went to see an Italian film called Gomorra. I urge your to see it. The film deals with the workings of the Mob in what appears to be the depressed suburbs of Naples.

I used the common singular “The Mob”, but in reality there are a number of conflicting gangs continually struggling to gain and maintain control of their patch. There is an un-written contract between the people of the estate and the controlling gang; you work for us or you pay us and we will protect you, if you break the contract you will be dealt with harshly, you are with us or against us.
Don’t look for Al Pachino, the film uses real places and the people who live in them. They are playing themselves and therefore it is almost rediculous to say that they are doing it very well. The estate would sit “comfortably” in Grozny; if things work, it is more good luck than by planning and there is a palpable sense of menace in all the walkways and underground car parks. Children play in there small plasic swimming pool, couples get married and parade down the walkways to the applause of their neighbours, but always there is the sense of the fragility of ordinary life.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) said that he was twinned with fear since his mother was said to have gone into labour on hearing of the approach of the Spanish Armada. He believed that the physical world was made up of invisible particles called corpuscles which come together to make up the natural and ordered objects that we see about us. He observed that man was in some respects like these corpuscles.

Without society, we would live in Nature wherein we would be forced to compete for our needs. As food and shelter are often in short supply, this competition would lead to conflict where the most aggressive would succeed and the weakest would go to the wall. In effect this life would pitch everyone at war with everyone else and “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

The only way to avoid this was for the creation of strong states which would protect the individual. There should be a Social Contract between the state and the individual in which the individual gives up some of his individual freedom in return for protection and the imposition of law and order.

This principle has come down to us in various political systems and in varying degrees of rigour. In times of increased uncertainty, there has been a willingness of the individual to cede greater powers to the State often lead by a powerful head of state. The extremes of this can still be seen in various parts of the world and the history of the 20th century is dominated by the rise of totalitarian regimes. Even in a more moderate sense, one can see the success of Reagan and Thatcher as reaction to the uncertainties surrounding the fundamental changes in the world economies during the seventies.

The individuals or groups who feel that they have been left out of the Contract are presenting a danger to the social equilibrium. Many feel that they have never agreed to a contract at all and that their needs are never taken into consideration. Currently the economic down-turn coupled with terrorism is causing us to examine the balance between our need for the strength of the state and our individual freedom. The balance is difficult and we should be constantly making our voices heard and call to account those who go too far in either direction.

I suppose that it is implicit in what Hobbes wrote that Nature abhors a vacuum and that if the legitimate government does not supply the security and structure, then someone else will and on their terms. The weakness of poor decisions by the American liberators of Italy in 1944 allowed the Mafia to establish itself and the weakness of the countless governments since, has compounded the problem.

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