I think I recognize Thomas Hobbes in Hobbes of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes," but I'm not sure how much John Calvin I see in the comic's Calvin. The truth is that I didn't even think to look for a long time, even though my kids have the a complete collection of "Calvin and Hobbes," which I think I understand, and a complete collection of "The Far Side" that I'm still working on. I looked for the Calvin/Calvin and Hobbes/Hobbes connection because a student put me up to it.
We were studying some history of philosophy, and I asked the class to bring any news clippings or magazine articles in which they found evidence that people today discuss important issues with some philosophical perspective.I suppose I was trying to show that the study of philosophy isn't detached from the real world. I was hoping to demonstrate that understanding philosophy could elevate the discussion of current issues. Philosophy is an important resource when dealing with the ethical dilemmas of life and the problems of the world.
In response to the assignment, an enterprising student brought a rib tickler by Bill Waterson, creator of "Calvin and Hobbes." It was the kind of joke that one finds taped to the office doors of philosophy professors. The student said that the cartoon was not only evidence of philosophical discussion, but evidence that the ideas of specific philosophers have found their way into popular discussion.
I have not asked Waterson if he envisioned John Calvin when he created Calvin. I have no idea if Thomas Hobbes lurks in the psyche of stuffed tiger Hobbes. It probably doesn't matter what Waterson had in mind.
It is for the reader to give the meaning, and if a reader knows John Calvin or Thomas Hobbes then the reader is enriched for the literary or philosophical allusion when reading the comic section of the Deseret News. My student was such a reader.
Thomas Hobbes was born in England at the time the Spanish Armada sailed, and the very old joke perpetuated by Hobbes was that he was born prematurely when his mother heard of the Armada. "Fear and I were born twins."
According to a biography I read of Thomas Hobbes, one of his particular contributions to philosophy was the idea that the fear of death and the need for security is the foundation of the world.
Thomas Hobbes was influenced by Galileo to the point that Galileo's ideas of motion found their way into philosophy. The view of Aristotle, which Galileo refuted, was that rest was the natural state. He supposed that motion is the natural state. It's at this point that maybe I see a little Thomas Hobbes in Waterson's Hobbes.
Perhaps a quotation from the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy" is in order. It's not a big point but a bit interesting: "Dreams fascinated Hobbes. He attempted to determine what distinguishes them from waking thoughts and to develop a mechanical theory to explain them. He claimed that they lack coherence because they lack the thought of an end to guide them." That's Thomas Hobbes, maybe even John Calvin.
But John Calvin isn't quite that easy. The truth is that there may be no connection, but good readers do ask what's in a name. When the family read a fairy tale recently, we smiled that the daughter of King Midas should be Marigold and nodded in understanding when Midas turned first flowers and then his daughter to gold. But again, Calvin as Calvin may be a leap in the wrong direction.
There is such an evangelical tone to John Calvin, the protestant reformer of the first half of the 1500s, and I'm not sure Waterson's Calvin is evangelical. Readers will judge for themselves.
"Nearly all the wisdom we possess consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." This we find in the beginning of his "Institutes of the Christian Religion." Perhaps the encyclopedia is the place to start: "He taught that when we accurately reflect on ourselves, we realize the excellence of our natural gifts; but we also realize that our exercise of these gifts yields `miserable ruin' and unhappiness, and that `our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God.' "
This is a philosophical break with the church fathers. Thomas Aquinas had taught that the theologian should start with God and John Calvin was saying that theology could start with self. Perhaps it is a more accurate Calvinist perspective to suggest that his claim was that knowledge of God is so interrelated with knowledge of ourselves that one cannot be had without the other. I'm not sure we have found the Calvin of Bill Waterson in John Calvin.
The point is that one doesn't necessarily have to find a connection to make a connection. The fact that someone has studied at all will make the comic section of the newspaper, the news of the day, literature, music, art and life more meaningful. The student who saw John Calvin in Calvin and Thomas Hobbes in Hobbes found more meaning in the comic than those who do not make these connections.
If knowledge really is power, it is surely more than power to go to work at some skilled occupation. Education is power to think clearly and appreciate life. Perhaps finding John Calvin in Calvin and Thomas Hobbes in Hobbes is a small piece of evidence that someone appreciates life as a result of some education. If nothing else we have an argument for studying philosophy. It is useful after all. Studying philosophy means that we can get more out of the comics, if not more out of life.