HOMO HOMINI LUPUS — WHAT IF WE'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG?

It was Plautus who wrote « Lupus est homo homini » in his play The Comedy of Asses, although Thomas Hobbes made it famous much later in his Leviathan. It's fascinating to see how a simple line from a Latin play became the cornerstone of such a dark political philosophy.

By the way, speaking of contrasting worldviews, do you prefer Hobbes' harsh realism or Rousseau's idealism and his "noble savage"?

BUT ISN'T THIS BASED ON A MISTAKE?

If man were a wolf to man, wouldn't things go better for Humanity? Isn't the wolf actually a very social animal toward its own kind?

That's a very accurate observation. In modern ethology, the wolf is a model of cooperation and family loyalty, which completely contradicts the metaphorical use made by Plautus or Hobbes. These authors used the image of the wolf to symbolize a prediction of anarchic violence, ignoring the complex social structure of the pack.

This is actually a fascinating misunderstanding in the history of ideas. If we followed the wolf's true nature, the Leviathan would be a manual of solidarity!

THE WOLF, JACK LONDON, AND US

On that note, do you enjoy works that explore precisely this link between animality and human organization, like Jack London does in White Fang or The Call of the Wild?