Conservation and resistance: political readings of Hobbes and Spinoza from the perspective of affection

Abstract

This article examines the configuration of political community in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza from a perspective grounded in affect theory. In Hobbes, political order arises from the transfer of natural right to a sovereign, articulating an affective rationality based on fear and the pursuit of security. This transfer constitutes a strategy of conservation that subordinates individual will to a transcendent figure. In contrast, Spinoza develops an immanent conception of political community, in which the conatus—the striving to persevere in one’s being—emerges as an affirmative force and the foundation of collective resistance. From this perspective, politics is not based on the negation of fear, but on the production of joyful passions that strengthen common action. Through a comparative analysis, the article argues that in both Hobbes and Spinoza, political community is inseparable from the management of affects, although oriented toward radically different ends: conservation and obedience in the former, resistance and affirmation in the latter.