Hobbes vs. Burke. It’s an old argument. It’s also the argument we shall have between now and Nov. 6

2012 Campaign: Thomas Hobbes vs. Edmund Burke

by GEORGE WEIGEL

You likely think, gentle reader, that the 2012 presidential race is a contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

That, of course, is true, insofar as the names on our Nov. 6 ballots go.

But the 2012 race for the White House is something more, something more profound — something with deeper historical roots in modernity’s wrestling with political power and how that power contributes to the common good.

This is a contest, to take symbolic reference points, between Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Edmund Burke (1729-1797).

Both were British subjects. Both had a profound impact on modern political theory. Both knew that religion and politics — Church and state — had been thickly interwoven into the history of the West, although here the deep differences between these two paradigmatic figures begin to sharpen: Hobbes tried to drive religious conviction out of the modern public square, while Burke fashioned a vision of political modernity that drew in part on the rich social pluralism of the Catholic Middle Ages.

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