Currently reading Stephen Pinker’s book The Better Angels of our Nature : Why Violence has declined, recommended by Nitin Pai of Takshashila, who suggested we needed a Leviathan to unify India. I had issues with the Leviathan, simply because it was written at a different point of time, where power was concentrated in fewer hands. You didn’t have universal franchise, decisions were made by land owners, the poor had no say nor did women – it was a deeply unequal time. At which point Nitin pointed me to this book.I have been enjoying reading it)

Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan,quoted in the book. And for some reason with all this furore over money & honour, this quote seemed kind of apt.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

Also worth hearing him speak at TED