Human Nature

The way I have started to think about Hobbes's philosophy is through my basketball team. My coach would be the leader, the assistant coach her advisor, and the captains could be representatives of the players, or common people. The way Hobbes describes human nature would mean that, if my coach wasn't there, each player would be attempting to steal the ball from her own teammates to make the basket herself. The people on the bench would be running on the court trying to pull their teammates off believing they would be doing better on the court. This scenario obviously isn't happening because we have our coach (I can't really see this happening with my team, but perhaps it is a possibility in a bigger picture.) My coach creates structure and control for us. She tells us who is going on and the plays we can make. She has our free will and uses it to put us in the best position to win the game. In practice, if someone is late, we do extra sprints. In this way my coach rules with fear.

I believe the only two differences between this and an actual state is that my team and I are kids and do need someone smarter and more mature than us in charge. The second would be that the power the leader has would be on a much bigger scale. In a real state, everyone would be adults and it would be a lot harder for the leader to keep absolute power. The reason I disagree with Hobbes about one leader or group with complete control is because of current totalitarian governments. They all seem to be corrupt, creating chaos, killing people who aren't completely loyal. Also, if humans are all "dangerous", how can a leader be found that doesn't have the natural qualities Hobbes describes, and instead controls and balances the common people to create peace and structure? Its seems that it is a lot more common to have a corrupt leader with absolute power then the perfect leader Macchiavelli describes, who also would have absolute power. I definitely don't agree with Hobbes in every aspect.