Reading ancient history really makes you appreciate how good we have it post-enlightenment. The past is just 1000s of years of chaos and mayhem. Nazis trying to exterminate the Jews is the exception today but the norm in the past.

Tech entrepreneur. Founder @electricsql. Founder @gatsbyjs (acquired by Netlify). @kylemathews on Twitter

A Hobbesian reading of this (as you say, post-enlightenment) would be that putting a power individual in charge of some way to organize the state and giving up autonomy and freedom meant that we would curb this natural and savage tendencies for humanity to be - the basest of states (solitary, nasty short brutish lives)

creating and destroying; built flying cars & autonomous vehicles, now building /faust, more here: /july, web: july.rocks

Essentially you could trust an individual (or a series of individuals) - which Hobbes called a “sovereign” - that you would give up individual freedoms for in exchange for some level of civility and safety. You could have laws, but what power do laws have if you cannot enforce them - so you need a sovereign