So far, the focus has been on Hobbes’s strengths and achievements. For a more balanced judgment, we must now turn to Canetti’s critical observa- tions. His main objection is that Hobbes “explains everything through self- interest (Selbstsucht)” (PM, 50–51) and fails to see that this supposedly ultimate motive of human behavior is “composite” (zusammengesetzt) and only becomes dominant by incorporating or taking control of other parts of human nature, of which Hobbes takes no notice. The task that Canetti sets himself is to explore these neglected dimensions of the human condition. To grasp the logic of his search for a hidden complexity behind the façade of
simple self-interest, it may be useful to begin with the point most closely related to mainstream critiques of Hobbes’s work As we have seen, the fusion of economic and political man was central to Borkenau’s reading of Hobbes, and it would be easy to find other interpretations in the same vein. Canetti does not pose the problem in conventional terms, but his reflections on power and survival are unmistakably concerned with the same issues.
A conceptual short-circuiting of power and survival is evident in Hob- bes’s most basic assumptions, beginning with his definition of power as “present means, to obtain some future apparent good.”7
Power thus be- comes an instrument of survival in the broadest sense: as the ongoing satis- faction of needs and desires. But since all human activities, achievements, and acquisitions can serve this purpose, the pursuit of power knows no limits other than those of human life: “I put for a general inclination of all man- kind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death.”8 In the natural condition of mankind, marked by the war of every man against every man, this external limit becomes an acute threat. The constant fear and omnipresent danger of death are the main reasons why human beings opt for organized societies and accept sovereign power. In so doing, they set the stage for a new chapter in the history of power; but the sequel is beyond the scope of the present discussion.
For Canetti, power is more intimately and problematically linked to death and survival than the instrumentalist conception would have us be- lieve. The ostensibly realistic and value-neutral conception of power as means to an end can thus be seen in a new light: it is a neutralizing device, a sanitized image that serves to screen out the most disturbing aspects of power. To be fully aware of mortality is to face ultimate disempowerment: “the slavery of death is the core of all slavery” (PM, 110–11), not only because all human beings share the fate of inescapable annihilation, but also in the more indirect sense that meanings imposed on this fate — more or less capable of mitigating its existential impact — have been at the center of beliefs and traditions that served to dignify social power. From this point of view, the experience of survival — of surviving another human being — has a double-edged meaning. It is a reminder of mortality, as well as a foretaste of power, and the latter aspect becomes more salient when survival is the result of struggle and victory. The primordial affinity of power with killing in battle has been acknowledged and glorified in different ways across the vast spectrum of human cultures. At its most extreme, this trend culminates in visions and practices of mass killing as a manifestation of power. “All famous conquerors in history have taken this road” (GW, 33). Canetti makes
it clear that the claim applies to very recent experiences no less than to the traditional archetypes of conquest, and that the inherently murderous “pas- sion of power” cannot be seen as a spent force.
This very brief summary cannot do justice to Canetti’s detailed phenome- nology of power and survival. However, in the present context it should suffice to indicate the distance between his perspectives and those of mainstream theorizing about power. To bridge the gap, it may be helpful to reconsider the question from an angle that relates loosely to Canetti’s concerns but shifts the emphasis closer to traditional approaches. As a first step, it can be argued that the significance of power over death and life has been obscured by the gener- alized concept of sanctions: the importance of the ultimate sanction for the most authoritative forms of power should be underlined. But if the ability and authority to inflict death is crucial to power at its most intensive and revealing, the inability to transcend death may also be critical in the same context: an inbuilt tendency to maximize power and project its internal logic beyond all external limits would confront the ultimate limit of mortality. Seen in this way, the human pursuit of power would not only be “perpetuall and restlesse,” as Hobbes put it, but inherently prone to excess, hubris and delusion. Such arguments have been put forward by some analysts of power, including those who regard phantasies of omnipotence — rooted in the psyche — as a perma- nent de-rationalizing factor. As we shall see, Canetti takes a distinctive line on this issue and links it to other aspects of the problem. A conflict between hubristic power and human mortality will result in the invention or imagining of perpetuating devices, more or less explicitly conceived as detours to or substitutes for immortality. It is also possible to think of mass killing, on the battlefield or elsewhere, as the most lethal of these attempts to defy death: the survivor who has destroyed human life in the grand manner can more easily cultivate the illusion of invulnerable sovereignty. The question to be asked here is whether Canetti did not link this extreme aspect of power too directly to elementary figurations; or, to put it another way, whether there is more to say on the mutations that power undergoes when it confronts and aspires to overcome the constraints built into the human condition. As we shall see, this line of interpretation links up with other themes in Canetti’s work. The inter- relations of power, death and survival are essential to the understanding of varieties and pathologies that reductionistic theories have tended to overlook. But at this point, another round of reflection — on the “other domains of human nature,” alluded to in Canetti’s comment on Hobbes — is needed to clarify the claim that power and self-interest are composite phenomena, dependent on multiple sources and embedded in a broader context. Only a
more explicit grasp of these connections can reconcile Canetti’s praise of Hobbes with other statements to a seemingly contrary effect: Hobbes is ranked with De Maistre and Nietzsche as one of the great enemies (PM, 206), and his conception of power is to be most directly targeted for de- struction (PM, 176). His de-mystifying insights and descriptions would, looked at from this point of view, be vitiated by the misperception of power as a simple and ultimate datum.