Page 52 - GALIET BEAUTY´S LURE: WAR Helen of Troy and Margareta of Germany IV

respectively, for Helen and Margareta’s sakes. Their sadistic behavior reinforces and also subverts Hobbes’ theory. Indeed, humanity’s natural state is to be at war with each other, and to be in “continualle feare, and danger of violent death,” says Hobbes. Given that human nature is evil, and that life “is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,”95 he argues that it is best “to cede individual rights to an absolute ruler... to enforce ... social rules.”96 If we are to analyze Troy’s governance beyond honor-shame morality, pursuant to Hobbes’ political philosophy, it elucidates that its absolute ruler, King Priam, subverts Hobbes’ ideology of enforcing social rules that encourage well-being, by forcing his citizens to perish by abiding to his autocratic rule. In this sense, to preserve beautiful Helen, he behaves in a worse manner than Hitler: he does not enforce these social rules, there is no social contract of any sort, not even with the elders, for he does not heed their advice to return Helen twice, instead, he sacrifices his own children, and family, and his own race, and all of Troy. Ultimately, he will perish to preserve Paris’ wishes to keep Helen. He never makes any attempt to persuade Paris, or to return Helen by force, nor does terrible Helen express, other than through mere lamentation, any desire to sincerely depart of her own volition. In the end, Troy falls and perishes, and women are enslaved, children murdered, without any reasonable justification, except that King Priam heeds Paris’ caprice. Similarly, Hitler’s social contract vanishes when
95 Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ch. 13. 1651. 96 Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ch. 13. 1651.
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