Thomas Hobbes (Maria Nunez)

Hello, my name is Thomas Hobbes and I am from Malmesbury, Wiltshire.  I am a seventeenth-century English thinker who was born on April 5, 1588 in Westport, which is now a part of Malmesbury, Wiltshire.  I died on December 4, 1679 in Derbyshire, United Kingdom.  I went to Hertford College, Oxford, from 1603 to 1608.  I believe in the importance of a powerful government.  I wrote in my work, the Leviathan, that people are naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish and would fight, rob, and oppress each other if they are not strictly controlled.  This way of life is nasty and brutish so people decided to make and follow a social contract, an agreement by which they give up their freedom for an organized society.  I believe that only a powerful government would cause such an orderly society.  An absolute monarchy can impose order and compel obedience in order to create this orderly society.