choosing tyranny

14 - 01/22 /12:35

Kenneth Pike, professor of Philosophy and Law at Florida Institute of Technology recounts giving a lecture in which he compared the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. At the conclusion of the lecture he asked students which seemed worse: tyranny or anarchy. In the discussion a consensus began to gel around anarchy being preferable over tyranny; anarchy affords greater personal freedom and, therefore opportunity for improvement.

But then Tamara raised her hand. Tamara’s classmates mostly reflected middle-class post adolescent Americans of assorted races. But Tamara herself was conspicuously Muslim. “I’m from Iraq,” she told the class. Read More…