The Greatest Rivalry

The Greatest Rivalry

            When this Saturday in November comes every year it is almost like an extra holiday between Thanksgiving and Christmas for those living in Michigan and that state just south of Michigan. As a son of two Michigan alumni and a fan who has not missed a home game since September 1993, six months after my birth, when I wake up on the morning of “The Game” I am like a child on Christmas morning. Before the game is played I always enjoy reliving and appreciating the greatest rivalry in the whole sporting world. While both sides of the rivalry have had their fetes and downfalls, streaks and blemishes, the series is so great because over time it has been so even and both schools claim such immense tradition (Michigan has the edge in both categories but for argument’s sake we can let that slide for now). No matter how great this rivalry has been, is, and will continue to be however, it will never be as prominent as the political rivalry in this nation. Just like Bo and Woody gave the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry the battles that created the greatest sports rivalry, two men, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, laid the foundation for the great political theory rivalry that exists in our nation today.

            Hobbes and Rousseau can be thought of rudimentarily as a conservative and a liberal, respectively, thus putting them in the perspective of the political rivalry we know of today. While only Rousseau lived to see the beginning of the formation of our nation, the ideals of both men not only inspired many concepts in our constitution, but can also still be heard in conservatives and liberals alike. Rousseau’s ideas about government and human nature align with modern day liberals. A very important passage in Rousseau’s discourse on inequality that alludes to this states that “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real 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.’” Rousseau is saying that individual property creates inequality and that the earth is everyone’s to share, with no man owning more of any piece of land than any other man. In the Leviathan Hobbes shows how much his views rival those of Rousseau. Hobbes, in Chapter 14, claims that the liberty of man means living without “external impediments”, or government, to tell a man what to do. He also discusses property a few times within the 3 chapters we read, referring to it merely as the property of a man that he may sell or transfer with contracts. In general Hobbes thought that man was bad, but that everyman was entitled to life guided by his or her own reason and that the role of government was merely to maintain order. Rousseau on the other hand thought naturally, man was good but that civil society created inequality. Therefore, he believed that government’s duty was to keep everyone on the same page and try to limit inequality.

Conservatives, and libertarians especially, tend to see things like Hobbes: that man should be allowed to do what he or she wants (i.e. own property, own guns, etc.) and that government should be small and only exist to keep the evil nature of humans in check (i.e. stop abortion, maintain a strong military, not stray from a religious base). Liberals have views more based on Rousseau’s discourse: that humans are good (i.e. people are good and guns are harmful, if woman so chooses to have an abortion it must be for the best) but society and property create inequality (i.e. the wealthy and those in charge dominate the poor, the wealthy should be taxed more, things like education and healthcare should be shared by all citizens). These are the drastically differing views that caused Hobbes and Rousseau to write so passionately about their beliefs. These are the diverging views that birth such contended political arguments and create a great chasm in America every four years. However, just like the rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State, it takes both types of views to make this country as strong at his been throughout time. If either team had won every year or if Michigan always had more talent than Ohio State, nobody would care when these two teams met every December and one side would regularly enjoy a very routine win. In America, if, since our conception as a nation, we had been controlled solely by republicans or democrats, we would not be the nation we are today. No one set of views is always right but it is the discussion and the debate that makes us come up with the ideas that best serve our nation and that best represent our people. It is this great mix of culture and beliefs that makes America what it is. Just like the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is great for the game of football, it is the great rivalry and blend of ideals in this country that allow us to thrive.