Leviathan

People are bad by nature, wrote Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). If they had their way, they would kill one another until the only living things on the planet were animals and plants. To prevent “a war of all against all,” argued the English philosopher, people must be ruled by a strong sovereign – Leviathan.

Leviathan was a Biblical sea creature of gargantuan size that could only be defeated by God himself. For Hobbes, however, the monster symbolized an absolute ruler who stood at the apex of a commonwealth, established by people to save them from anarchy. Published in 1651, Leviathan revolutionized western philosophy, laying foundations for the development of modern states. The book influenced such figures as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith, among others.

The noun “leviathan” had been present in the English Language long before the publication of Thomas Hobbes's famous book. The word made its debut in the late fourteenth century and its original sense, derived from the Bible, was used to describe any large sea creature. “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?” asked Job in the Old Testament.

Within the years, “leviathan” became a synonym of a large ship and boat. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives this example: “He said oil slicks from the stricken leviathan still sometimes marred the bay.” In the same fashion, Yachting&Boating World, a London-based magazine, reported in 2007 that “another big carbon leviathan is being built for next year's races.”

If we are to believe British newspapers, the present usage of “leviathan” is even more liberal. Commenting on affluent European basketball clubs fighting for new talents, the Guardian concluded: “Europe's leviathans are flexing their financial muscle, and it will be the performers who benefit most.” The same daily also criticized the state bureaucracy for “jeopardizing all the government's grandiose schemes from ID cards to the leviathan health service computer.”

The popularity of Hobbes's masterpiece extended the meaning of “leviathan.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, capitalized “Leviathan” can be applied to “the political state” or “a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy.” Ryan Sager of Time cited one political writer as complaining that “the Republican Party has abandoned all pretense of being the party of small government and has instead embraced the Leviathan state – leaving the Democrats, the usual champions of the Leviathan state, in something of a bind.”

In all its meanings, the word “leviathan” describes large forms, either physical or imaginative. It was grandiosity of this eponym that made the US Navy rename the captured German cruiser and the world's largest ship, SS Vaterland, into SS Leviathan in 1917. It bordered on a paradox that Leviathan – Hobbes's ideal ruler – played a significant role in a “war of all against all,” also known as World War I.