Not Bees

Some political theorists have thought that we can live like bees – sociable without command, law, speech, punishments. Hobbes demurs ( Hobbes: Leviathan , II.17). And not because we are superior to bees.

We can’t live like bees because we are “continually in competition for honour and Dignity” and thus prone to “Envy and Hatred, and finally Warre.”

Bees have no private/public distinction since “being by nature enclined to their private, they procure thereby the common benefit.” Man has joy only in “comparing himselfe with other men,” and thus cannot be happy unless he is eminent.

Bees don’t complain. We do: “there are very many, that thinke themselves wiser, and abler to govern the Publique, better than the rest.” And so the “strive to reforme and innovate.”

We can’t live like bees because we speak, and speaking grants us a very non-apian capacity to seduce, mislead, and distort. Only speakers “can represent to others, that which is Good, in the likenesse of Evill; and Evill, in the likenesse of Good.” Only speakers, not buzzers, can “augment, or diminish” the good and evil that we encounter, and thereby provoke discontent and undermine peace.