Julien wrote... a society such as the one John Lennon sings about in "Imagine" : a brother/sistehood of men/women that would share the world together in love, peace and harmony (which are the common goal, whatever Morrissey can say). ...although I think Locke (or it may be Hobbes) would disagree. According to Locke, man's natural state is war and conflict. His socio-political model is roughly, give or take a few interpretations and a bit of memory loss, as follows. Before a society is formed, you have a disparate collection of people or peoples all or some of whom are in ownership of distinct territories. The extent of the territory is not important - it could be a small circle carved round where you sit, but basically what is important is that they feel that it is theirs. When another person arrives on the horizon, they are a potential threat to your territory. You don't welcome them with open arms because they may cross you, perhaps by killing you, and thus claim ownership of your territory. By being nice, you have been deprived of your territory, and possibly killed. Your victor now owns more land etc, etc. This expands into a political model, where people in a society appreciate that they need rules to stop this kind of barbarity, so they club together and elect in some way an individual to rule them. Given the potentially evil nature of their leader they give him / her limited powers within which they can rule, so if their leader oversteps they get to oust them. I think in the Hobbes model everyone is so loving and kind and naïve that they just elect someone and decide that they're so trustworthy they give them unlimited power, probably because they weren't around when Lord Acton told the world that "power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Apologies to esteemed political students and academics on the list if I've lied, pretended I know things I don't, or just get everything the wrong way round. B&S content?...erm, if you play B&S music to people they won't invade your territory? Love neil +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+