Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke

Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration Reviews

• 
  Scriptor Ignotus

  As I was finishing Locke and beginning to put this review together, a news story came to my attention which, in a circuitous manner, reminded me of why I felt the need to do some (re)reading about liberalism this year.
  
  A FRIVOLOUS DIGRESSION
  
  An American woman was going through security at Frankfurt International Airport when she was taken aside and told that her carry-on bag contained too many liquids, and that she would have to either dispose of a stick of deodorant in her bag or put it in her checked luggage. While a reasonable person would likely have parted with their deodorant without much fuss, this woman decided to have a debate with the German federal police as to whether her rub-on deodorant was a solid or a liquid. According to the police report, the woman was adamant, uncooperative, and increasingly belligerent; apparently having chosen to fight and die on Speed Stick Hill rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of conforming to a quite standard airport security regulation. Then she did something really stupid. She called them Nazis. Now I’ve never been to Germany before, but even I know that references to Nazism, in speech or in symbol, are treated with extreme seriousness by German law. The woman was forced to pay a preliminary fine at the airport before continuing on her way. She now faces criminal charges for slander.
  
  The story could have ended here; but it’s a testament to the peculiar “character” of our protagonist that it didn’t. This woman was not just some ignorant American tourist; one of those stock-and-trade “ugly Americans” who routinely bring shame and dishonor upon my nationality through feats of international asshattery. She’s an associate professor of Peace and Security Studies at the foreign service school of Georgetown University. For those unaware, Georgetown was founded by the Jesuit Order, and is famous for providing a high-quality education in international affairs, and for training a good portion of America’s foreign service officers.
  
  A professor at this prestigious institution, suffice it to say, should be one of the last people one would expect to make so unsightly a spectacle of herself in a foreign airport. But the spectacle having been made, her reaction was even more galling. Did she apologize? Did she do damage control? Did she quietly move on with her life and let the incident be forgotten? Negatory! She’s an American, silly goose! She wrote a political hit piece in the Huffington Post.
  
  “No!”, I screamed to myself, alone in my car, reading the story on my phone during a work break and seeing a link to the HuffPost article. “I’m not going to read it! No! Never!”
  
  But I had already clicked the link, like a man possessed. Like that lecherous lactophile from A Clockwork Orange, my eyes felt like they were being held open, my retinas burned by this woman’s idiocy. The article is fascinating in a number of ways; none of them positive. For one, it reads as if it were written by a precocious middle schooler with a thesaurus close at hand. This is a woman who never met an adverb she didn’t like, or a metaphor she wasn’t willing to use, whether or not it makes sense. Superfluous description abounds, as well as oracular vocabulary plucked from the scriptures of Merriam-Webster; words that amateurs use to make their writing feel more “grown up”, but which have the ironic effect of highlighting the whole piece as a shallow contrivance.
  
  But even more damning than the style of the piece is its content, which is, in two words, preposterously typical. So rote and predictable and mindless is the procedure by which she checks every requisite box of a progressive liberal diatribe that it occurred to me that the entire article could have been composed by a computer algorithm.
  
  By her telling, not only were the German police “thuggish” fascists; they were misogynists as well: Agent Smiths of the Matrix of Patriarchy terrified by the “assertiveness” (i.e. insolence) of a woke woman—despite the fact that at least one of the officers was a woman herself. She asserts that while she did use the word “Nazi”, she was not directing it at the police officers, but at a young American man in line behind her, whose haircut, in her eyes, made him look like a member of “the Hitler’s Youth.” In an article about her, a white woman, being stopped by police in Germany, she finds a way to invoke the specter of “white privilege” in the United States. She wonders whether a Muslim woman wearing a hijab would receive even worse treatment than she did. She makes an obligatory quip about Donald Trump’s self-description as a “stable genius”. Check, check, check, check, and check.
  
  The article should be stored in the Smithsonian. It's a pristine example of the shitshow of furious intellectual wheelspinning that American liberalism has become in the year 2018.
  
  LIBERALISM AS TABOO
  
  Liberalism has always been the political religion of the United States; if not the actual, theological one as well. John Locke was not only the greatest influence on the Founding Fathers; his writings established the parameters and the very language of our political discourse. Anyone with clout in American politics is a Lockean. The Democratic and Republican parties are best described as representatives of progressive and classical liberalism, respectively. Partisan animus is so acute not because of their ideological differences, but because of their overwhelming, stifling uniformity. The superficial differences must be accentuated to give the illusion that political debate in the United States is robust and thriving, when it is anything but. When you strip away the snark, the cultural prejudices, and the bandying of slogans, clichés, and soundbites that constitute the American electoral process, you find that the subject of politics, how best to organize and improve our life together under this constitutional order, is hardly ever broached.
  
  When real political discussion disappears in a liberal democracy, the language of liberalism remains, but functions only like a religious artifact that has been taken from an Indigenous American tribe and placed in a museum. It has a certain natural beauty and elegance to it—one suspects that it represents something important—but outside of its original social context it is a dead thing, disconnected from the roots of its spiritual power.
  
  Like the professor in our story, our liberalism, which was once the subject of intense, high-stakes physical and rhetorical combat among the midwives of our republic, has devolved into an endless regression of clichés, which are waved about like incense. The professor ran into an embarrassing situation of her own making, but as an acolyte of our ritualized liberalism, she could only write about her experience by invoking the fashionable controversies of American politics as if they were animistic deities. She has a vague sense that her rights and autonomy were violated; that she is perpetually victimized by “fascists” who are all around her, desperate to deprive her of her self-ownership, which is constantly under threat by people who want to tell her what to do. As a woman, she identifies herself with other groups of people who she believes are deprived of their “rights” like she is; African-Americans, Muslims, and so on.
  
  But it’s clear that, like most of us, she is not thinking critically about the historical and intellectual roots of the “freedom” that her intuition tells her is so existentially threatened in the age of The Donald. This way of (not) thinking, of praying to our ideals instead of wrestling with them, is draining the blood of our civil society. We need to do something about it.
  
  
  
  It’s not enough anymore to lay flowers at Locke’s tomb, to light candles at his altars, or to collect relics of his to try and piece them together like Frankenstein’s monster. We must dare to attempt more than an incantation. It’s time for a conjuration. Let’s put on our necromancer’s robes and try to resurrect Locke wholesale. The master must be summoned. Arise, Lazarus!
  
  FIRST TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
  
  Okay, so when you crack open Locke’s First Treatise of Government, it doesn’t seem to promise much in terms of contemporary relevance. It is a refutation (more like a demolition) of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha; a Biblical defense of absolute monarchy by divine right. Sir Robert believed that absolute monarchy was established by God from the creation of Adam, and that this right to absolute, patriarchal authority had been passed down through all the generations of human history, right down to the absolute monarchs of Sir Robert’s day. Monarchical power passed from Adam down to Noah, and from him to his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, each of whom, according to Sir Robert, was given absolute power over a continent of the eastern hemisphere after the Flood. All legitimate monarchs are descendants of one of these three, and thus exercise total, private power by dictate of God.
  
  
  
  Contrary to republican thought, Sir Robert held that laws were derived from the persons of kings, rather than the other way around. Laws were instituted to serve as symbolic expressions of the king’s personal will; they were to be consulted in order to get an idea of the king’s will when the king’s personal presence was unavailable.
  
  Locke takes this theory apart piece by piece through his own exegesis of the book of Genesis. It deserves mentioning that the Hebrew Bible had taken on a critical importance for virtually all the political theorists of the seventeenth century; historians have nicknamed it the “Biblical Century” for this reason. New rabbinical sources allowed intellectuals to look upon the familiar scriptures with fresh eyes. Political theorists came to believe that the Hebrew Bible contained a total blueprint for God’s ideal human government, and that the perfect political system, through a proper application of reason, could be extracted from it.
  
  Locke cuts off Sir Robert’s argument at the roots. Contrary to his claim, there is no evidence in scripture that God gave Adam authority over other people. God gives Adam dominion over the natural environment and the lesser animals, but never over another person. Sir Robert cited scripture where God tells Eve that she is to be subordinate to Adam, but Locke counters that this occurs after their fall from grace, and so does not reflect on the original condition of mankind. Locke points out that it’s a bit silly to say that Adam was given “paternal” authority over mankind when he didn’t even have any children over which to exercise this authority. Sir Robert believed that he possessed this power in potentiality; but Locke, humorously, wonders whether this means that Sir Robert became an author before he wrote his book.
  
  And even if Adam had been given this power, there’s no indication that it passed down to Noah and his sons. If Noah were an absolute monarch, he would have had absolute authority over the life and death of his sons; but scripture doesn’t attest to this. After the flood, God gives the new world to Noah and his sons to share in common. Sir Robert apparently argued that when God gave the likes of Adam and Noah power over the “beasts” of the earth, the meaning of the Hebrew word for “beasts” could be extended to include their human subjects as well. If this is so, says Locke, then God gave Noah the power to eat his sons after the flood, and thus the absolute monarchs who now rule the world in his stead have the power to consume their subjects as a healthy midnight snack. And this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how such an original lineage of absolutism could have survived unbroken through the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities.
  
  Sir Robert’s theory is easy to ridicule, as Locke’s rebuttals demonstrate. Given that there’s virtually no one left in the world who believes what he believed (if you know someone who does, please introduce us), is there anything we can learn from Locke’s takedown? I think you can rehabilitate Sir Robert a little by reading him non-literally. His argument derives from a simple inversion of the republican theory we’re accustomed to: that good governments are governed by laws, and not by men. Sir Robert is arguing that good laws are derived from the example of good men; that the norms established through history, by well-adjusted people living real lives, make a more beneficial model for good government than any abstract legal principles. Reading it this way, Sir Robert might be described as taking a more traditionalist, Catholic view, while Locke is rebutting him from a legalistic, protestant view. Even back then, after all, Anglicans were trying to be both Catholic and protestant at the same time.
  
  
  
  If you want to be really irresponsible (I do), you could even map their comparative positions onto the debate between “evolutionism” or “Darwinism”, on the one side, and “creationism” or “intelligent design” on the other. Sir Robert is an “evolutionist” because he believes that the concept of rulership has been established by rulers themselves, demonstrating through historical trial, error, and adaptation, how power and legitimacy is acquired and maintained. Locke, conversely, is more of a “creationist”, because he believes that God created nature and humanity through abstract reason, and so good government consists merely in adhering to the timeless natural law that God has handed down. Locke’s humanity owes nothing to the past; Sir Robert’s humanity is constituted by it.
  
  Neither position—that of traditionalism or that of legalism—is unassailable. A Filmerian monarch who rules merely by dictate of tradition can still be a corrupt bastard who brings ruin to the people under his protection. Good norms may be derived from good men, but it’s just as true that bad norms can be derived from bad ones. A state founded by a Frederick the Great is not invulnerable to the later ravages of a Caligula. A Lockean legalism can become dehumanizing when its precepts fail to align with actually-existing human nature but are still forcibly imposed over it. Traditionalism can turn over into tyranny, while legalism can turn over into fundamentalism.
  
  SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
  
  Having demolished Sir Robert’s political theory, Locke now has the task of advancing a positive conception of his own. His basic ideals are hinted at apophatically in the first treatise, but now he makes them explicit. From the days of Genesis until now—eternally, providentially—God has written the law of reason into the fabric of creation. Man’s capacity for reason is what separates him from the animals, and an individual’s reasoning mind is what guarantees his access to equal rights in the commonwealth. Just as Adam was given authority over nature by God, so each man’s reasoning consciousness entitles him to the same endowment. Reason allows man to possess nature and make it his property (and his “property”, by the way, includes his own body).
  
  In the state of nature, every individual has an inalienable right to their own property; to dispose of themselves and their possessions as they see fit. Locke’s model for life in the state of nature is the Biblical patriarchs, who go out into the world, dominate nature, and proliferate the species. God intended every man to be a Noah, an Abraham, an Isaac, a Jacob, or a Joseph. Nor is prosperity a zero-sum game; God created nature in such abundance that the enlargement of one man’s estate does not need to come at the expense of another’s. Jacob and Esau, though rivals, went their separate ways, built separate livelihoods, and had an emotional reunion later in life, having both sired prosperous dynasties quite independently of one another.
  
  In such a free and non-competitive state, there is a natural peace and equality among all people, because there is no impetus for envy or interpersonal domination. War is thus an aberration and an imposition on individual rights under natural law. According to Locke, a state of war is what happens when one person or group is trying to take away the natural rights of another person or group. It is not necessarily a matter of explicit, physical violence. In war, the aggressor is trying to assert their power over the defender. By attempting to take the defender’s life, the aggressor is first and foremost claiming the power to deprive the defender of his right to his life, which is naturally his alone. All injustices stem from the usurpation of an individual’s natural rights. A legislature that passes a law depriving you of your property is as much an enemy combatant as a guy trying to hack through your door with an axe.
  
  Everyone having these natural rights, each individual in a state of nature also has a natural executive power which allows him to protect those rights and restore them when they are encroached upon. You have the right to kick someone’s ass if they’re trying to take your property; whether that property is your life or any of your possessions. Locke even thinks that men in the state of nature have the right to kill someone who is just trying to steal money or goods from them. Before he is trying to steal from you, a thief is trying to usurp your natural right to your own stuff, making you the subject of his arbitrary will. Once he has established this power over you, who is to say that he will use it only to deprive you of your money? A threat to liberty is a threat to life, so both must be defended with the sword.
  
  Having established an individual’s right to property, how does a person legitimately claim property as his own? For Locke, people gain a right to property by using it. Their legitimate domain consists precisely of everything they’re able to make use of and improve without letting it go to waste. Nature is originally the common property of mankind, but when people use it, it becomes an extension of their person.
  
  Governments are instituted not to limit the rights of the individuals of whom it is composed, but rather to protect those rights. To be legitimate, a government must be based in natural law, and thus to make no further impositions on individual autonomy than those strictly necessary in order to more fully secure that autonomy from outside forces. In the Lockean liberal state, government and personal property are not adversaries; they in fact buttress each other.
  
  Now there’s something your progressive Democrat and your small-government Republican would do well to learn; each party being inheritors of part of the Lockean legacy. The liberal state and the individual accumulation of wealth through the “free market” are deeply reliant upon one another. Statism and individualism are two halves of an arch; you cannot expand one without expanding the other. It is common for American political commentators to say that the left won the culture war, while the right won the economic war. It is more accurate to say that liberalism won both wars, liberalizing both social relations and economic ones, and now stands unchallenged over American life like a colossus.
  
  For the discontents of neoliberal American life, wary of the darkness brooding beneath its grinning exterior but at a loss to formulate a coherent response to it, the way forward may be to look beyond the boundaries of liberalism itself.
• 
  Zachary

  I figured that at some point or another it would be a responsible thing to read through some of the foundational documents and ideas that founded America - which is why I picked this up and dove into it. It's fascinating to read from this vantage point in history, where our nation and its constitution have been around for so long. Many of the ideas in the book seem self-evident, or commonsensical, and so it was a fascinating exercise to try and put ones mind into the arena of the day it was written, and to understand how radical the ideas in this slim volume really were. Additionally the letter concerning toleration was just a fascinating look into the way that the church ought to be and behave--and yet doesn't. The ideas that Locke gives here are so straightforward and ought to be the way that the Gospel and the church function, and yet it is clear in our world today that there are so many who have forsaken the true mission and motives of the gospel for their own ends. This is tremendously sad, and Locke really hits home hard for those who seek to practice their religion faithfully in that concluding chapter.
  
  Overall an interesting and useful historical read that also provided a fresh sense of perspective on some modern religious and political issues.
• 
  James Knowles

  I was already familiar with Locke before reading this, but I'm blown away at his clarity and insight. Most Americans think they know Locke, but really don't. We're vaguely familiar with the ideas, but can't articulate them, and frequently scorn them.
  
  The First Treatise is kind of tedious, aimed at knocking down the then-recent concept of the divine right of kings. He tackles it from every single angle possible.
  
  The Second Treatise is astoundingly clear, refreshing, and compelling. Many ideas are familiar to people, particularly those living in abundance and productivity. These are important ideas that some wish to sweep under the rug so that they can rule over us.
  
  The only difficulties that I see people having thus far are (1) English has changed (including the meanings of some key words), and (2) the language has a strong legal slant.
  
  I'm working around these with:
  
  (1) Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary (on-line version
  here). It's 138 years later than Locke, but 180 years more recent than modern dictionaries.
  
  (2) Black's Law Dictionary
  
  
• 
  Jack

  Locke believes that in the state of nature a man is born free and independent, an individual: he associates with others only for the defense of his property. Therefore for Locke society is nothing but a mutual defense pact between individuals. If you accept this premise, everything Locke says makes a lot of sense. But how can you accept this premise? If you were cast in the wilderness alone, naked and without tools made by other humans, you would last only a few days (especially in England in the winter). Now think of a pregnat woman, how could she deliver babies?
  Locke's essays are just mental gymnastics to try to justify the mentality of a spoiled teenager who wants to smoke pot. Locke has to admit that parents have duty towards their children (but that's not a political society, he assures us), and that originally governments were extended families with the father in charge (but they don't count), and so on. Apparently the parents' duty over their children ends the moment in which the children become adults, when they are able to freely choose their government and their religion (...wait, what?).
  
  Locke's idea of sociey revolves around maintaining property, hence it is pure materialism. Not only society is just a bunch of individuals, the only goal of said individuals is to keep their property (which they acquired on their own in the wilderness I guess) and that's the only reason they enter an association with other free individuals. Locke quotes a lot from the Bible but it doesn't cross his mind that the history of humanity is the history of tribes with tribe members working together for a common goal (often not a materialistic one). History is not about free voluntary associations. A Canaanite couldn't walk up to Moses and say "I would like to join into your self-defense pact so that you'll defend my property". Speaking of the Bible, Locke denies that a woman is subject to her husband according to the Scriptures but this is wrong. The New Testament says multiple times that a woman must submit to her husband (e.g. Ephesians 5:22-24). This seems a very odd mistake to make (it's in the first Essay where Locke attacks another philosopher for misinterpreting the Bible).
  Could it be that Locke found it convenient to ignore this, because a woman being unequal to her husband would debunk the idea of society being founded on individuals (it would be founded on the family at least)? Locke's vision of marriage doesn't correspond to reality: if marriage was a voluntary association between two individuals, it would cease to exist the moment in which these two individuals decide to end it. But even in today's society divorce is not automatic, because society at large has a stake on a man and a woman being together.
  
  Another odd thing was that in the Letter Locke is very repetitive in talking about freedom of religion, but in a few lines he mentions that Muslims and Atheists are not ok. His position is not really explored. Could it be that Muslims or atheists are incompatible with his vision of society based on individuals wanting to keep their property? Perhaps society needs something more, like a common set of values that needs to be defended? I really got the feeling that Locke was ignoring the topics that would be inconvenient to his ideology.
  
  Lastly, Locke's ideology is also based on equality between individuals, at least political equality. This causes the usual problems that liberals have, for example that they need to come up with an arbitrary number of years after which a human becomes "emancipated". Locke mentions an age of 21. Modern science found that the brain finishes its development only at the age of 25, therefore completely rejecting Locke's assumption that every adult is equally capable. The fact that in most countries people vote at 18, and in some countries at 16, is pure science denial; but this was just an extension of Locke's ideas that "everybody" is equal, where the definition of "everybody" keep expanding and soon even 5-year-olds will be given the right to vote in the name of liberalism.
  
  This book also comes with 3 essays by random authors. Here's my comments on them (again, these are NOT Locke's essays):
  
  1) Just useless blah blah blah.
  
  2) A woman nagging about being oppressed. Note that she doesn't talk about women in Locke's time, but she claims that women are subordinated NOW and she tries to use Locke to find weapons for her political goals. The addition of a feminist essay is even more grating considering that Locke discusses how originally political power came from war. This woman of course ignores this inconvenient bit: men had exclusive political power because they were exclusively required to go die in wars (or enslaved, like British men (and not women) forced to work in coal mines during WWII).
  
  Feminism is rooted in Locke's idea that society is based on individuals, as it only makes sense within this assumption. Locke demolishes the concept of paternal authority (by lying about the Bible as I mentioned above), also denying that the family is a political union. Locke's mindset of individual conflict was then exploited by feminists to claim that women are in conflict with their men, allowing one of the most destructive alien ideologies to take hold in White people's civilization.
  
  
  3) The third essay is interesting. It argues that Locke was a precursor of democracy, because while Locke didn't talk about political representation his ideology of (political) equality would naturally lead to a democratic system. Locke also discusses that the only check against government power is the majority, while individuals who feel treated unjustly by their government has no recourse (I think this contradicts what Locke had said elsewhere about society being a voluntarily association). I believe this is Locke being practical, rather than him giving some political legitimacy to the majority (in addition to the political legitimacy of the individuals) so I don't quite agree with this essay's author but this was a good read nonetheless.
  
  
  In summary, I found Locke's ideology to be full of holes, with him avoding difficult topics that would have been hard for him to tackle. I also found a few contradictions. I feel less liberal after reading Locke than I was before; this either means that the author did a bad job, or it means that liberalism is wrong.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Phillip

  First, a disclaimer: I only read the Second Treatise on Government, which is the only section of this book really relevant to my current research, so all of my comments focus on this one specifically.
  
  This is one of those books that's incredibly important to political history, and yet when read today it's obvious how problematic many of Locke's views and assumptions are. Probably Locke's most lasting contribution is the idea of the consent of the governed, specifically that people leave the state of nature and form societies/governments in order to collectively preserve their lives, liberty, and estates more effectively than they could do alone in a state where anyone could claim someone else's property or even life if he was strong enough (and yes, it is "he" because Locke assumes male property owners). This political fiction of the state of nature gives Locke a basis for arguing that all government is effectively done through consent, even if that consent is simply tacit in the form of remaining within a polity and enjoying its protection. He makes a compelling argument that if all government is based on the consent of the governed, then people have a duty to obey and submit to lawful authority that serves the interests of the people in common by preserving the law and behaving for the commonwealth. However, it also follows from this line of reasoning that if the governing authority begins to act in ways contrary to the interests of the people--specifically, if they seek to unlawfully and arbitrarily take away people's property or lives--then the government has failed to fulfill it's role in the social contract, and therefore the people have a right and a duty to alter or abolish that government. It's basically a straight line from John Locke to the US Declaration of Independence.
  
  There are several issues with Locke's perspective from today's political and socio-cultural standpoint. One big logical flaw is that his argument is ostensibly historically grounded, but his history is remarkably bad. Locke's fiction of about the state of nature is a useful allegory for contrasting what life might be like without society, but he frequently discusses it as though it was a real time and the founding of societies was a specific conscious choice made at some historical juncture by a group of individuals who had until then been living in relative isolation. To a certain extent, this could parallel the rise of urbanization, but it would be highly misleading to suggest that pre-urban societies didn't have governance and weren't capable of complex organization. The other element of Locke's history that's problematic is that he take Biblical events to be historically accurate, including things like Adam and Eve or Noah's flood--which we now know to be theological, rather than historical. At the time (1689) it wasn't necessarily understood how much Biblical chronology actually diverged from historical events, but today it's pretty clear that this understanding of how the past occurred is pretty well incorrect.
  
  The other big issue for today's readers is that Locke's political ideas essentially only encompass white property-owning men. Very early in the Second Treatise, Locke gives a defense of slavery, which is almost inconceivable for a work that champions individual liberty and harshly critiques absolute authority over another person. Basically, Locke claims that if enslaved people didn't either fight to the death for their freedom or commit suicide once enslaved, they were clearly chill with being slaves. Locke elsewhere argues that no one can give up complete control of himself, and that no slavery in history had ever allowed masters complete domination over enslaved peoples, including prohibitions on serious injuries and murder. This is an absolutely bonkers claim given that by 1689 race-based slavery (of both Africans and Indigenous Americans) was widely and brutally practiced in both North and South America. The only way to make any sense of this massive and apparently glaring contradiction in logic and abrogation of common facts is to bear in mind that Locke invested in a slave trading company, and therefore made money from the institution of slavery. Locke has similarly problematic views of Indigenous North Americans, and both women and property-less men play relatively little role in his political schema because property ownership is the key consideration for being part of the body politic.
  
  https://youtu.be/_CTkk-ytt-A
• 
  Micah Jakubowicz

  I can understand why Thomas Jefferson thought John Locke was one of the greatest men to ever live.
  
  The second Treatises of Government is probably the greatest work of political philosophy ever and you can see how much it influenced the founding fathers. What a great read.
• 
  Guillermo

  What else can be said, his radical ideas at that time are still with us and serve us, specially in a more integrated diverse world that necessitates political bodies that allow for coexisting diverse cultural groups interacting under one umbrella.
• 
  thethousanderclub

  I have a new Brow-Bruising Read. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration is one of the most influential works of political philosophy ever published. It's also quite a slog to get through.
  
  Without a doubt the most brutal part of Two Treatises is the first treatise in which Locke provides an exhaustive refutation to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha. The biggest issue I had with the treatise is not necessarily how it is written, although I did find it redundant and overwrought, but how irrelevant it is. The thrust of Filmer's argument is that monarchy or political rule is derived from the first man, Adam. No one is arguing this point in our day. The debate feels more like a product of its time than any other political philosophy argument I have read thus far. Often times these kinds of books provide first principles which are still being debated, albeit they have taken on a different outward appearance. Locke's first treatise doesn't really do that. It's a product of a particular place and a particular time, and it is so far removed from our current experience I found very little benefit from it.
  
  Locke's second treatise, however, does strike at the heart of many of our ongoing debates. John Locke was certainly an influence on the founders of the United States and the political culture, traditions, and structure they designed. (The extent of Locke's influence is debatable, of course, but his influence was present). Locke's work is most interesting when you can see his commentaries intersecting with the considerations of today. His explanations of socially and naturally important topics such as private property and political representation are fascinating and compelling. It must be said that his writing is not terribly accessible. Unless you love political philosophy and have a need to read one of its most influential works, I would steer clear of this book.
  
  Lock's letter concerning toleration is probably the most enjoyable of this collection. It's a skewering indictment of inquisition-like Christianity and the forceful expansion of any religious faith. He asserts forcefully and persuasively the private and sensitive nature of religious faith and devotion, and the necessity for magistrates to protect religious liberty for all members of a society. As a deeply religious person, I found Locke's observations on the matter poignantly instructive. There is much to be admired in his prose, however obtuse it can be at times, and much more to be admired in his conclusions. Locke has a powerful understanding of the spiritual and transcendent nature of mankind, and much of his political philosophy reflects that.
  
  I'm so glad I can say I have read Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration. It is an indispensable part of a political science enthusiast's collection and understanding. It was also brutal to read. I didn't enjoy much of it, but I'm glad I stuck through it.
  
  
  http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com/
• 
  Matt

  Separation of powers, separation of church and State and taxation without the consent of the governed. Sound familiar? It doesn’t take long to see that Locke’s Second Treatise on Government is the philosophical grandfather to the American Revolution. One hundred years after it was written, many of Locke’s principles were etched out by Thomas Jefferson’s quill. For Locke, civil government was a tool to maximize individual freedom while providing protection and a forum to resolve disputes.
  
  The First Treatise on Government is talked about less and is a bit of a tedious read. Locke writes his refutation of Sir Robert Filmer’s Biblical-based argument for submission to “royal authority.” Chapter and verse are provided time and time again to refute Filmer’s own Biblical interpretation. Not exciting stuff, but a disciplined and effective argument. Locke’s opening sentence, though, is a rhetorical cannonade:

  Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it. pg. 7

  Locke wins the spin battle in the first paragraph.
  
  Finally, in A Letter Concerning Toleration Locke stresses it’s not the diversity of religious thought which is the problem, it’s the lack of tolerance. A religious man himself, he sees no right for any civil authority to dictate the beliefs of the community. Everyone operates according to their conscience and should be free to do so unless trespassing on the individual liberty of others. A belief compelled is a meaningless belief.
  
  In great libertarian fashion, Locke sees that “the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good.” pg. 156, Second Treatise. In sweeping terms, he lays out a form of government authorized by the people and checked by the institutions of government itself.
  
  But he has his detractors as well. The technical aspects of governance are touched on sparingly. Admittedly, Locke has grandiose claims of individual freedom, has little to say about how to remedy oppression of the minority by the majority and assumes others have a belief system which can accommodate individualism. The essays at the back also provide some critical analysis on the true extent of Locke’s toleration and his legacy viewed through the lens of feminist theory.
  
  Despite all that, five stars anyway. His words turned into a country.
  
• 
  Koen Crolla

  Say what you will about the theology of Richard Dawkins and other Gnu Atheists, but there is no sense in which the theology of actual religious people is more sophisticated.
  In the first of his Two Treatises, Locke argues against Robert Filmer's justifications of monarchy through divine right, largely on biblical grounds, and like Filmer himself, he uses literalist readings when convenient (and from whichever version and language is most so), and argues from (what he imagines to be) the spirit of the text when not. Many have decried Filmer's Patriarcha as bad theology, but then holding up Locke as an example of good theology just because his conclusions are more palatable is nonsense.
  The second Treatise is slightly better; here, Locke outlines his own theories of legitimate government and society, on largely secular grounds. It's more coherent than many contemporary theories, but for a modern reader, none of it will be too revolutionary.
  
  The Letter Concerning Toleration is the usual no-true-Scotsman, holier-than-thou onanistic back-patting, and even less interesting.
  
  Ultimately, none of it is really worth reading anymore. If you're reading it because you're interested in theories of government and civil society, you've probably already formulated more sophisticated frameworks for yourself than Locke did (shoulders of giants, presumably), and there will be little to interest you here. If you're reading it for historical context, you'd be better off reading about Locke than actually reading Locke, and be spared his questionable and largely impenetrable grammar.
  An annotated version would probably be more interesting, but this edition just exists as a vessel for the essays of Ian Shapiro (the editor) and his friends, which are the expected Kool-Aid circle-jerk. The stereotype of the Soviet revisionist looking for proto-Marxists in every well-regarded historical figure is well established, but American capitalists are at least as eager to do the same.
• 
  Martin

  This is one of the most important works ever written. In the Second Treatise, Locke lays down the theory of natural law and how it relates to the individual as well as to government. Although he was not the first or the only writer tp elaborate such a theory, his interpretation is clear and eloquent, as can be seen in its use in the Declaration of Independence. The First Treatise was basically a refutation of the now obscure authoritarian work "Patriarcha" by Sir Robert Filmer. Although it is an interesting piece, it has long been rightfully overshadowed by its partner. If for some reason you are actually seeking a refutation of Filmer, I would refer you to Algernon Sidney's more lengthy "Discourses Concerning Government." By far the finest edition of this work is Peter Laslett's, and I consider the purchase of any other edition a sorry waste of money. In his lengthy introductory essays, he traces the historical,political, and philosophical background of John Locke's life and ideas as well as the actual writing of the work itself. His greatest contribution however, is proving that the work was written well before the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
• 
  Zach

  The first treatise is almost entirely irrelevant - as a refutation of absolute monarchy you would think it would at least be interesting, but it's clear that Locke is not dealing with anyone who actually formulated the argument for absolute monarchy cogently.
  
  The second treatise is, of course, the point. And while I think Locke laid out his political principles pretty well, I was actually kind of struck by how unmoved I was. I generally agree with his political philosophy and think his right of revolution is important and a much better solution than Hobbes's slavery, the work didn't really draw or excite me. Which was odd.
  
  The Letter Concerning Toleration is quite nice. That there can be no compulsion in religion is an excellent thought, but Locke still only tolerates other Protestants. Catholics and heathens are not acceptable due to owing allegiance to a foreign power, and atheists are right now. True toleration would have to wait a few more generations.
• 
  Don Mashak

  
  I can think of nothing more empowering than to learn Natural Law by Reading Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government
  http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=co...
  
  Confused about how you fit in the world? This will improve your Perspective of Reality. Natural Law:How WE THE PEOPLE got to July 4, 1776
  http://donmashaksmn10judicialdistrict...
  
  Reading Locke's 2 Treatises of government & learning Natural Law should be as inspirational as this song by Katy Perry - Firework
  http://youtu.be/QGJuMBdaqIw
  
  The Purpose of government is to give each of us more liberty than we would have in the chaos of pre-government natural state; not to force us to serve government or corporations
  
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  Natasha

  Extremely influential work referenced by the Founding Fathers. You can see why they call The Declaration of Independence a Lockeian document. Locke argues against the right of kings and claims that all men have equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property. He also adds that the right to govern comes from the people who turn this God-given right over to the people they choose to govern in their behalf.
• 
  Zahreen

  So Prof. Shapiro edited and contributed to this book (he also teaches Moral Foundation of Politics, which I read this book for). Can I say (and I know I am risking being called a dork) that I love Locke? I think he's brilliant and when I read this, it really grabbed me as a logical and moral way of thinking of human nature and the responsibilities of government.
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  carl

  hey! he wrote my constitution...kinda. well read the us constitution with this in the other hand. you ll see what i mean.
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  J.

  Too many commas, but I agree with a lot of what Locke has to say.
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  Despond

  Reading it. Quite hard.
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  Jeffrey

  Essential to understanding the underpinnings of political thought and toleration.
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  Steve

  The second Treaties sould be mandatory reading!!
• 
  Kelsey

  Excellent version of Locke's writings! This is a must-read for anyone who may want to discover the origin of natural rights philosophy and individualism in the political realm.
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  Jeremy

  Skimmed the Second Treatise.
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  Jasper Burns

  View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at
  jasperburns.blog.
• 
  Sean Rife

  A footing of my intellectual heritage