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No golden age

The state of nature is not a lost paradise but a war: scarcity and the desire to dominate set men against one another before any society.

Objects to Anthropological optimism

Hobbes · Leviathan, ch. XIII · 1651

1. The argument assumes a peaceful state of nature, where man has only self-love and pity.
2. But two men who desire the same scarce thing, with no judge above them, become enemies: distrust, the pursuit of glory, and fear suffice for war, without any corrupting society having to intervene.
3. And the child, before any upbringing, already wants everything for himself, with no pity for the brother he bites: greed and comparison are there from the cradle, not laid down by institutions.

Therefore So man had no golden age to lose: society does not invent conflict, it contains it. Remove it, and it is the war of all against all that returns, not goodness.