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Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
If humans are benevolent by nature, how do societies become corrupt? And how do governments founded upon the defense of individual rights degenerate into tyranny? These are the questions addressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, a strikingly original inquiry into much-explored issues of 18th-century (and subsequent) philosophy: human nature and the best form of government.
Rousseau takes an innovative approach by introducing a "hypothetical history" that presents a theoretical view of people in a pre-social condition and the ensuing effects of civilization. In his sweeping account of humanity's social and political development, the author develops a theory of human evolution that prefigures Darwinian thought and encompasses aspects of ethics, sociology, and epistemology. He concludes that people are inevitably corrupt as a result of both natural (or physical) inequalities and moral (or political) inequalities.
One of the most influential works of the Enlightenment, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality offers a thought-provoking account of society's origins and a keen criticism of unequal modern political institutions.
Rousseau takes an innovative approach by introducing a "hypothetical history" that presents a theoretical view of people in a pre-social condition and the ensuing effects of civilization. In his sweeping account of humanity's social and political development, the author develops a theory of human evolution that prefigures Darwinian thought and encompasses aspects of ethics, sociology, and epistemology. He concludes that people are inevitably corrupt as a result of both natural (or physical) inequalities and moral (or political) inequalities.
One of the most influential works of the Enlightenment, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality offers a thought-provoking account of society's origins and a keen criticism of unequal modern political institutions.
73 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1755
About the author
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
4,381 books2,637 followersGenevan philosopher and writer Jean Jacques Rousseau held that society usually corrupts the essentially good individual; his works include
The Social Contract
and
Émile
(both 1762).
This important figure in the history contributed to political and moral psychology and influenced later thinkers. Own firmly negative view saw the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, apologists for various forms of tyranny, as playing a role in the modern alienation from natural impulse of humanity to compassion. The concern to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world of increasingly dependence for the satisfaction of their needs dominates work. This concerns a material dimension and a more important psychological dimensions. Rousseau a fact that in the modern world, humans come to derive their very sense of self from the opinions as corrosive of freedom and destructive of authenticity. In maturity, he principally explores the first political route, aimed at constructing institutions that allow for the co-existence of equal sovereign citizens in a community; the second route to achieving and protecting freedom, a project for child development and education, fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. Rousseau thinks or the possible co-existence of humans in relations of equality and freedom despite his consistent and overwhelming pessimism that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to contributions, Rousseau acted as a composer, a music theorist, the pioneer of modern autobiography, a novelist, and a botanist. Appreciation of the wonders of nature and his stress on the importance of emotion made Rousseau an influence on and anticipator of the romantic movement. To a very large extent, the interests and concerns that mark his work also inform these other activities, and contributions of Rousseau in ostensibly other fields often serve to illuminate his commitments and arguments.
This important figure in the history contributed to political and moral psychology and influenced later thinkers. Own firmly negative view saw the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, apologists for various forms of tyranny, as playing a role in the modern alienation from natural impulse of humanity to compassion. The concern to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world of increasingly dependence for the satisfaction of their needs dominates work. This concerns a material dimension and a more important psychological dimensions. Rousseau a fact that in the modern world, humans come to derive their very sense of self from the opinions as corrosive of freedom and destructive of authenticity. In maturity, he principally explores the first political route, aimed at constructing institutions that allow for the co-existence of equal sovereign citizens in a community; the second route to achieving and protecting freedom, a project for child development and education, fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. Rousseau thinks or the possible co-existence of humans in relations of equality and freedom despite his consistent and overwhelming pessimism that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to contributions, Rousseau acted as a composer, a music theorist, the pioneer of modern autobiography, a novelist, and a botanist. Appreciation of the wonders of nature and his stress on the importance of emotion made Rousseau an influence on and anticipator of the romantic movement. To a very large extent, the interests and concerns that mark his work also inform these other activities, and contributions of Rousseau in ostensibly other fields often serve to illuminate his commitments and arguments.
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April 5, 2021
What does it mean to be a natural human?
Rousseau directly engages with this question, contemplating just how far man is removed from what he once was (or is biologically supposed to be.) In developing from his primitive (his natural) state he has lost his origins and place in the natural order of things. He was once much simpler:
This is a deeply and profoundly philosophical work, one that discusses human development and our isolation from the natural world. Once man was just like any other animal: he was equal to them in in his basic survival needs and lack of developed community. He hunted. He gathered. He ate. He slept. He fucked. He died. He was primitive, basic, and natural. But then he grew and became something else.
Ownership is where this began according to Rousseau. Man made a claim on the land and the animals and created a dominion for himself. Societies were born. Language was formed. Different nations were born, and wars were fought over who owned what. People became rich whilst other people starved. Divisions became stronger and inequality began to define what followed. With our higher cognitive powers we separated ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom. Modern civilisation is not a reflection of our innate drives or desires; it has become warped and has led to inequality among people and between man and animals: we are not longer part of the natural world.
Instead, we claim the world as ours and exploit it. We use nature to our advantage, and this is where the power dynamic comes into play. A Discourse on Inequality discusses and presents a human superiority complex that is the causation of such a deviation from equality. And this branches into human society, politics and wealth. Every corruption Rousseau relates back to this ideology and he is correct. The book is clever. It understands the problems society has, but short of returning to the natural state, Rousseau’s words offer no insight into the mediation of such inequality.
Modern environmentalist thought tends to suggest that we should be maintaining what is left of the natural world. We need to protect it because it is vital in our long-term survival as a species. Rousseau understood that we are part of nature, and not above it, despite our deviation. And most environmentalists do not appreciate this. Rousseau also believed that man was naturally vegetarian and that the earth is not ours: it belongs to all species.
Remembering that we have a duty to others, both man and animal, is a powerful point the book tries to push because we do not own this world. And for philosophy written in 1755, this is on point with what some of us feel today.
___________________________________
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__________________________________
Rousseau directly engages with this question, contemplating just how far man is removed from what he once was (or is biologically supposed to be.) In developing from his primitive (his natural) state he has lost his origins and place in the natural order of things. He was once much simpler:
“I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak, quenching his first from the first stream, finding his bed under the same tree which provided his meal; and, behold, is needs are furnished.”
This is a deeply and profoundly philosophical work, one that discusses human development and our isolation from the natural world. Once man was just like any other animal: he was equal to them in in his basic survival needs and lack of developed community. He hunted. He gathered. He ate. He slept. He fucked. He died. He was primitive, basic, and natural. But then he grew and became something else.
Ownership is where this began according to Rousseau. Man made a claim on the land and the animals and created a dominion for himself. Societies were born. Language was formed. Different nations were born, and wars were fought over who owned what. People became rich whilst other people starved. Divisions became stronger and inequality began to define what followed. With our higher cognitive powers we separated ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom. Modern civilisation is not a reflection of our innate drives or desires; it has become warped and has led to inequality among people and between man and animals: we are not longer part of the natural world.
“The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.”
Instead, we claim the world as ours and exploit it. We use nature to our advantage, and this is where the power dynamic comes into play. A Discourse on Inequality discusses and presents a human superiority complex that is the causation of such a deviation from equality. And this branches into human society, politics and wealth. Every corruption Rousseau relates back to this ideology and he is correct. The book is clever. It understands the problems society has, but short of returning to the natural state, Rousseau’s words offer no insight into the mediation of such inequality.
Modern environmentalist thought tends to suggest that we should be maintaining what is left of the natural world. We need to protect it because it is vital in our long-term survival as a species. Rousseau understood that we are part of nature, and not above it, despite our deviation. And most environmentalists do not appreciate this. Rousseau also believed that man was naturally vegetarian and that the earth is not ours: it belongs to all species.
“It follows that animals ought to have a share in natural right, and that men are bound by a certain form of duty towards them.”
Remembering that we have a duty to others, both man and animal, is a powerful point the book tries to push because we do not own this world. And for philosophy written in 1755, this is on point with what some of us feel today.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
April 10, 2017
Why rulers are rulers and why we serve them
18 January 2013
I found this book an interesting read and it does has some interesting concepts. While it sort of reads like Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, much of the ideas are based upon speculation and Rousseau's conclusions seem to be little more than guess work. Mind you, it is interesting to see such a discourse written over one hundred years before Darwin wrote his Origin of the Species, and it appears that Darwin has borrowed from this text. However, Rousseau did not write this as a scientific text but rather a political discourse.
There are a number of us who would find the idea that we as humans came about from a bestial origin to be offensive, but I think that Rousseau does have a point with some of the things that he suggests. For instance, the moment we invent the sling, our ability to be able to throw a rock diminishes, in the same way that the moment we invent a ladder, our ability to climb a tree also diminishes. However this is one of those things that separates us from animals, and that is our ability to be able to develop and invent tools that enables us to do a job much better than we were able to previously. I find it difficult to accept that before we invented the spear, or the sword, we would have been able to take down a fully grown lion.
There is also his discussion on the development of private property. Private property began when somebody put up a fence around a block of land and made a declaration to the world at large that that block of land belonged to him. However it was not the act of putting up the fence that created ownership in that land, but rather the acknowledgement of the world at large that that piece of land belonged to that person. If, for instance, this person put up a fence, and the world at large then turned around, pulled down the fence, and then began to tear that person limb from limb, then the law of property would be meaningless.
In reality, law has no power in and of itself. I may declare a law, but it is the people whom are subject to the law that must accept it. If a population does not willingly submit themselves to that law, then the law has no power. However, that problem is solved through coercion, and in the modern state it is the threat of punishment, whether it be a fine, the revocation of some privileges, or even imprisonment, that gives the law some force. It is also the existence of an arm of government, that is the police and the army, that makes sure that that law is enforced.
However, as soon as laws were enacted, or created, to regulate human behavour, a class of people, known in our day and age as the lawyer, also arose to not only challenge these laws, but to look for ways, usually through fine sounding arguments, as to why this law should not apply. It is not a question of the indigenous tribe that is ruled by the wisdom of the elder, or even the dictatorship where the law is enacted by the will of a single ruler, but a sophisticated law (not necessarily a democracy) where the power to regulate the law is handed to a class of people, generally known as the bureaucracy.
Rousseau suggests that inequality arose at that point in time where one person was able to gather enough food for two people, and then to hold that food for himself. This, once again, is not necessarily a truth, since hunter-gatherers have always been able to gather more than a day's supply of food, and many of these tribes have habits of storing up food for lean years. However, it is not a question of storing food, but collecting it, making it your property, and then using it to make people do your will. This is how government is formed, because a class of people, not necessarily the strong ones, but the cunning and charismatic ones, are able to form a body that is able to administer the population for the best of the population. However, as they must dedicated their time to ruling, and need feed themselves, they must hand that duty over to others: thus a class of workers, or farmers, is formed to produce not so much enough for themselves, but for themselves and the administrative class. With that food the administrative class are able to create another class: enforcers. This class was not created so much as to keep the peace, or defend the realm, but to keep the administrators in power. As long as the administrators have control of the food supply, and are able to control who has it and who hasn't, then they are able to control the populace.
The final thing that I wish to mention has to do with enslavement. Rousseau indicates that when we hand a job over to another person to perform for us that is when we become enslaved. That is very much a truism, and indicates that even those who are in power, or live in their mansions, are really slaves. In fact, the uber-rich are probably the most powerless of them all because if you take away all of their servants they will be unable to do anything for themselves. If you don't believe me I have a simple proof:'feed yourself'. As soon as you go down to the shop to buy food, you have demonstrated your reliance upon another human being. In fact, we are also slaves to our inanimate objects, like our cars (take us to the shop) and our television (entertain us) or even the internet (teach us, connect us).
18 January 2013
I found this book an interesting read and it does has some interesting concepts. While it sort of reads like Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, much of the ideas are based upon speculation and Rousseau's conclusions seem to be little more than guess work. Mind you, it is interesting to see such a discourse written over one hundred years before Darwin wrote his Origin of the Species, and it appears that Darwin has borrowed from this text. However, Rousseau did not write this as a scientific text but rather a political discourse.
There are a number of us who would find the idea that we as humans came about from a bestial origin to be offensive, but I think that Rousseau does have a point with some of the things that he suggests. For instance, the moment we invent the sling, our ability to be able to throw a rock diminishes, in the same way that the moment we invent a ladder, our ability to climb a tree also diminishes. However this is one of those things that separates us from animals, and that is our ability to be able to develop and invent tools that enables us to do a job much better than we were able to previously. I find it difficult to accept that before we invented the spear, or the sword, we would have been able to take down a fully grown lion.
There is also his discussion on the development of private property. Private property began when somebody put up a fence around a block of land and made a declaration to the world at large that that block of land belonged to him. However it was not the act of putting up the fence that created ownership in that land, but rather the acknowledgement of the world at large that that piece of land belonged to that person. If, for instance, this person put up a fence, and the world at large then turned around, pulled down the fence, and then began to tear that person limb from limb, then the law of property would be meaningless.
In reality, law has no power in and of itself. I may declare a law, but it is the people whom are subject to the law that must accept it. If a population does not willingly submit themselves to that law, then the law has no power. However, that problem is solved through coercion, and in the modern state it is the threat of punishment, whether it be a fine, the revocation of some privileges, or even imprisonment, that gives the law some force. It is also the existence of an arm of government, that is the police and the army, that makes sure that that law is enforced.
However, as soon as laws were enacted, or created, to regulate human behavour, a class of people, known in our day and age as the lawyer, also arose to not only challenge these laws, but to look for ways, usually through fine sounding arguments, as to why this law should not apply. It is not a question of the indigenous tribe that is ruled by the wisdom of the elder, or even the dictatorship where the law is enacted by the will of a single ruler, but a sophisticated law (not necessarily a democracy) where the power to regulate the law is handed to a class of people, generally known as the bureaucracy.
Rousseau suggests that inequality arose at that point in time where one person was able to gather enough food for two people, and then to hold that food for himself. This, once again, is not necessarily a truth, since hunter-gatherers have always been able to gather more than a day's supply of food, and many of these tribes have habits of storing up food for lean years. However, it is not a question of storing food, but collecting it, making it your property, and then using it to make people do your will. This is how government is formed, because a class of people, not necessarily the strong ones, but the cunning and charismatic ones, are able to form a body that is able to administer the population for the best of the population. However, as they must dedicated their time to ruling, and need feed themselves, they must hand that duty over to others: thus a class of workers, or farmers, is formed to produce not so much enough for themselves, but for themselves and the administrative class. With that food the administrative class are able to create another class: enforcers. This class was not created so much as to keep the peace, or defend the realm, but to keep the administrators in power. As long as the administrators have control of the food supply, and are able to control who has it and who hasn't, then they are able to control the populace.
The final thing that I wish to mention has to do with enslavement. Rousseau indicates that when we hand a job over to another person to perform for us that is when we become enslaved. That is very much a truism, and indicates that even those who are in power, or live in their mansions, are really slaves. In fact, the uber-rich are probably the most powerless of them all because if you take away all of their servants they will be unable to do anything for themselves. If you don't believe me I have a simple proof:'feed yourself'. As soon as you go down to the shop to buy food, you have demonstrated your reliance upon another human being. In fact, we are also slaves to our inanimate objects, like our cars (take us to the shop) and our television (entertain us) or even the internet (teach us, connect us).
July 28, 2022
دوستانِ گرانقدر، این کتاب با عنوانِ "گفتاری در بابِ نابرابری" و "منشا عدم مساوات" ترجمه شده است ولی درکل، این کتاب ارزشِ خواندن و وقت گذاشتن ندارد و خوانشِ آن برایِ خردورزان و انسانهایِ اهلِ دانش و تمدن هیچ نکتهٔ آموزنده و مفیدی ندارد... ابتدا برخی از نظرات و جملاتِ عجیب و غریبِ روسو در این کتاب را برایتان در زیر مینویسم و سپس در بخشِ پایانی، این نظرات را با هم بررسی میکنیم
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نابرابری هایِ اقتصادی، سیاسی، اجتماعی و معنوی، همگی غیرِ طبیعی هستند و زمانی به وجود آمدند که بشر از زندگی و وضعِ طبیعی خارج شد و مالکیتِ خصوصی را برقرار کرد و برا�� حفظِ اموال و امتیازاتش، حکومتها و دولتها را به وجود آورد
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بیشتر ناراحتی های ما مخلوقِ خودِ ما است، چراکه از روشِ سادهٔ زندگی که طبیعت برایمان درنظر گرفته و تجویز کرده، فاصله گرفته ایم... من به جرأت میگویم که حالتِ تعمق و در فکر فرو رفتنِ بشر، حالتی بر خلافِ طبیعت است و بشرِ متفکر، حیوانی فاسد شده است... وحشی هایی که در طبیعت آزادانه زندگی میکردند، به جز زخم هایی که بر بدن داشتند و کهولتِ سن، هیچ ناراحتیِ دیگری نداشتند.. بررسی تاریخِ جامعهٔ مدنی، در حکمِ بازگو کردنِ سرگذشتِ بیماریِ بشر است
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اولین بشری که با محصور کردنِ یک قطعه زمین به خود گفت: این مالِ من است.. و اشخاصی ساده لوح را یافت که حرفِ او را باور کنند، بانی و تأسیس کنندهٔ واقعیِ جامعهٔ مدنی بود. اگر یکی پیدا میشد و فریاد میزد که به حرفهایِ این شیاد گوش ندهید و فراموش نکنید که ثمراتِ زمین متعلقِ به همهٔ ماست و خودِ زمین متعلق به هیچکس نیست، از اینهمه جنایت و جنگ و آدمکشی و بدبختیِ بشر، جلوگیری میکرد..... پس نابرابری هایِ اقتصادی، سیاسی و اجتماعی و بیشترِ زشتی هایِ زندگیِ امروزی، از برقراریِ مالکیتِ فردی و خصوصی، ناشی میشود
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برای حفظِ مالکیتِ خصوصی، زور جمع شد و به صورتِ دولت درآمد و سپس قوانین وضع شد تا ضعفا را عادت دهد که با حداقل زور و هزینه، تسلیمِ قدرتمندان شوند و وضعی پیش آمد که عده ای برخوردار از امتیازات، بیش از نیازشان بهره مند شوند، درحالی که انبوهی از گرسنگان فاقدِ نیازهایِ اولیهٔ زندگی هستند
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سقطِ جنین و اخته کردن برای جلوگیری از حاملگی و گناهانِ اینچنینی که حیوانات و بشرِ نخستین و وحشی ها از آن بری بودند، روحِ انسان را تباه میکند و تمدن را به صورتِ سرطان بر پیکرِ بشریت فرو می آورد.. در مقایسه با این فسادی که تمدن برای بشر آورده، زندگیِ وحشیان، سالم و عاقلانه است
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ما باید به حالِ توحش بازگردیم، ولی زهرِ تمدن در خونِ ما رفته است و با گریختن به جنگلها، ریشه کن نخواهد شد.. بهترین کار این است که تعلیماتِ عیسی مسیح را خوانده و با بکار بستنِ تعلیماتِ او در زندگی، شیطان را از خود دور کنیم!! باید قناعت کنیم و از فلسفه دست بکشیم و به ایمانِ مذهبی که از ما در برابرِ رنج و مرگ حمایت میکند، بازگردیم
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دوستانِ هوشی وار، همانطور که خواندید، این مرد، با تمدن و دانش و فلسفه مشکلی اساسی دارد.. روسو تکلیفش با خودش مشخص نیست و قیمه ها را داخلِ ماست میریزد و تا جایی پیش میرود که دانش، ادبیات، هنر، فیزیک، شیمی و نجوم و پیشرفتِ فلسفیِ انسانها را بلایایِ تمدن و عاملِ بدبختیِ انسانها قلمداد میکند... چنین آدمی اعتراض میکند که دستگاهِ چاپ به زیانِ مردم است، چراکه افکارِ فلسفیِ ولتر و اسپینوزا و دیگر اندیشمندانِ بزرگ بین مردم پخش میشود و این برایِ مذهب خطرناک است... وقتی نوشته هایِ روسو را میخوانید، تازه متوجه میشوید که چرا انسانِ بزرگی همچون شوپنهاور میگوید روسو در حد و اندازه هایِ اندیشمندانِ بزرگی چون ولتر نبوده است و او را در دستهٔ الاهیاتی هایِ متعصب قرار میدهد
روسو با وقاحتِ تمام و از رویِ تعصبِ مذهبی و ناآگاهی، دم از اخلاقِ دینی و نجاتِ انسانها به کمکِ اخلاقیاتِ دینی میزند، ولی شما برگ برگِ تاریخ را زیر و رو کنید و ببینید، این ادیانِ ابراهیمی، چه اسلام و چه مسیحیت و یهودیت، چه تعالیمِ متعالی تا به امروز برایِ بشریت رقم زده اند که منجر به سعادتِ انسانها در این کرهٔ خاکی شده باشد؟ جز ایجادِ صدها و صدها جنگ و کشتار و غارت و بردگی و کنیزی و ویرانیِ شهرها و نابودیِ تمدنهایِ بیشمار از آسیا گرفته تا آفریقا و آمریکایِ جنوبی و قتلِ اندیشمندان و خردمندانِ درمانده که رشدِ بشری و پیشرفتِ تمدن را سرلوحهٔ کارِ خویش کرده بودند.. بله عزیزانم، اینها همه، امتیازیست، که این ادیان برایِ بشریت در طولِ تاریخ به ارمغان آوردند و روسو با بی شرمیِ تمام از این ارمغان دم میزند و راهِ نجات را در آن میبیند و فراموش کرده که مسیحیان چگونه انسانهایِ آزاد در جنگلها که روسو آنها را بدوی و وحشی مینامد را سلاخی میکردند و مسیحیان و کلیسا چگونه به کودکانِ بومیانِ کانادا و دیگر سرخپوستان تجاوز کردند و امروزه پاپ به قول خودش با یک عذرخواهی ساده ماله بر آن همه قتل و جنایت و کارهایِ کثیف میکشد
دوستانِ گرامی، هیچگاه مثلِ روسو و موجوداتِ دُگم همچون او، با تمدن و دانش زاویه نداشته باشید و این را آویزهٔ گوشتان کنید، چنانچه خرد و شعورِ شما همگام با تمدنِ بشری و به روز نباشد، شما را به سوز مینشاند
روسو کتابش را برایِ ولتر میفرستد و ولتر برایِ روسو مینویسد: کتابی كه بر ضدِ نژادِ بشر نوشته اید، به دستم رسید، هرگز برایِ احمق ساختنِ ما مردم، چنين ذکاوتی به كار نرفته بود. انسان با خواندنِ كتـابِ شما ميل ميكند كه چهار دست و پا راه برود.. اما من چون بيش از شصت سال است كه اين عادت را از دست داده ام، با كمالِ تأسف احساس ميكنم كه از سر گرفتنِ آن برايم مقدور نيست... سرمشق گرفتن از اعمالِ ما، وحشيان را نيز تقريباً مانندِ خودِ ما فاسد ساخته است
روسو که توانِ مقابله با انسانی خردمند و باهوش چون ولتر را ندارد، برای ضربه زدن به او بازهم دست به دامانِ دین و مذهب میشود، او که برایِ منفعتش از مذهبِ پروتستان به کاتولیک تغییرِ مسیر داده بود، بازهم به مذهبِ قبلش بازگشت تا کتابش را بفروشد، ولی پروتستانی ها نیز از وی و نوشته هایش استقبال نکردند و برایِ کشیشان و اسقفها سخت بود که همهٔ انسانها با هم برابر باشند و همچون آدمیزادِ نخستین زندگی کنند.. ولتر هواخواهِ ادبیاتِ غنی و تئاتر بود، اما در شهرِ ژنو، مذهبی هایِ پروتستانی اجازهٔ اجرایِ نمایش و تئاتر را نمیدادند، ولتر همچون همیشه کوشید تا این بیخردان را آگاه سازد، ولی سر و کلهٔ روسو پیدا شد و فریاد زد: وحشيان هرگز نمايش نميدهند، افلاطون با نمايش مخالف بوده است، كليسا اجرایِ مراسمِ ازدواج و تدفینِ بازیگرانِ تئاتر را نمیپذیرد.. آقایان، تئاتر مكتبِ شهوت پرستیست
عزیزانم، عجیب است که روسو، چنین موجودی با چنین تفکراتِ خطرناک، دم از نجاتِ بشریت میزند و برایِ انسانها نسخه میپیچد
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امیدوارم این ریویو برایِ شما دوستانِ آگاه و خردگرا، مفید بوده باشه
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
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نابرابری هایِ اقتصادی، سیاسی، اجتماعی و معنوی، همگی غیرِ طبیعی هستند و زمانی به وجود آمدند که بشر از زندگی و وضعِ طبیعی خارج شد و مالکیتِ خصوصی را برقرار کرد و برا�� حفظِ اموال و امتیازاتش، حکومتها و دولتها را به وجود آورد
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بیشتر ناراحتی های ما مخلوقِ خودِ ما است، چراکه از روشِ سادهٔ زندگی که طبیعت برایمان درنظر گرفته و تجویز کرده، فاصله گرفته ایم... من به جرأت میگویم که حالتِ تعمق و در فکر فرو رفتنِ بشر، حالتی بر خلافِ طبیعت است و بشرِ متفکر، حیوانی فاسد شده است... وحشی هایی که در طبیعت آزادانه زندگی میکردند، به جز زخم هایی که بر بدن داشتند و کهولتِ سن، هیچ ناراحتیِ دیگری نداشتند.. بررسی تاریخِ جامعهٔ مدنی، در حکمِ بازگو کردنِ سرگذشتِ بیماریِ بشر است
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اولین بشری که با محصور کردنِ یک قطعه زمین به خود گفت: این مالِ من است.. و اشخاصی ساده لوح را یافت که حرفِ او را باور کنند، بانی و تأسیس کنندهٔ واقعیِ جامعهٔ مدنی بود. اگر یکی پیدا میشد و فریاد میزد که به حرفهایِ این شیاد گوش ندهید و فراموش نکنید که ثمراتِ زمین متعلقِ به همهٔ ماست و خودِ زمین متعلق به هیچکس نیست، از اینهمه جنایت و جنگ و آدمکشی و بدبختیِ بشر، جلوگیری میکرد..... پس نابرابری هایِ اقتصادی، سیاسی و اجتماعی و بیشترِ زشتی هایِ زندگیِ امروزی، از برقراریِ مالکیتِ فردی و خصوصی، ناشی میشود
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برای حفظِ مالکیتِ خصوصی، زور جمع شد و به صورتِ دولت درآمد و سپس قوانین وضع شد تا ضعفا را عادت دهد که با حداقل زور و هزینه، تسلیمِ قدرتمندان شوند و وضعی پیش آمد که عده ای برخوردار از امتیازات، بیش از نیازشان بهره مند شوند، درحالی که انبوهی از گرسنگان فاقدِ نیازهایِ اولیهٔ زندگی هستند
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سقطِ جنین و اخته کردن برای جلوگیری از حاملگی و گناهانِ اینچنینی که حیوانات و بشرِ نخستین و وحشی ها از آن بری بودند، روحِ انسان را تباه میکند و تمدن را به صورتِ سرطان بر پیکرِ بشریت فرو می آورد.. در مقایسه با این فسادی که تمدن برای بشر آورده، زندگیِ وحشیان، سالم و عاقلانه است
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ما باید به حالِ توحش بازگردیم، ولی زهرِ تمدن در خونِ ما رفته است و با گریختن به جنگلها، ریشه کن نخواهد شد.. بهترین کار این است که تعلیماتِ عیسی مسیح را خوانده و با بکار بستنِ تعلیماتِ او در زندگی، شیطان را از خود دور کنیم!! باید قناعت کنیم و از فلسفه دست بکشیم و به ایمانِ مذهبی که از ما در برابرِ رنج و مرگ حمایت میکند، بازگردیم
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دوستانِ هوشی وار، همانطور که خواندید، این مرد، با تمدن و دانش و فلسفه مشکلی اساسی دارد.. روسو تکلیفش با خودش مشخص نیست و قیمه ها را داخلِ ماست میریزد و تا جایی پیش میرود که دانش، ادبیات، هنر، فیزیک، شیمی و نجوم و پیشرفتِ فلسفیِ انسانها را بلایایِ تمدن و عاملِ بدبختیِ انسانها قلمداد میکند... چنین آدمی اعتراض میکند که دستگاهِ چاپ به زیانِ مردم است، چراکه افکارِ فلسفیِ ولتر و اسپینوزا و دیگر اندیشمندانِ بزرگ بین مردم پخش میشود و این برایِ مذهب خطرناک است... وقتی نوشته هایِ روسو را میخوانید، تازه متوجه میشوید که چرا انسانِ بزرگی همچون شوپنهاور میگوید روسو در حد و اندازه هایِ اندیشمندانِ بزرگی چون ولتر نبوده است و او را در دستهٔ الاهیاتی هایِ متعصب قرار میدهد
روسو با وقاحتِ تمام و از رویِ تعصبِ مذهبی و ناآگاهی، دم از اخلاقِ دینی و نجاتِ انسانها به کمکِ اخلاقیاتِ دینی میزند، ولی شما برگ برگِ تاریخ را زیر و رو کنید و ببینید، این ادیانِ ابراهیمی، چه اسلام و چه مسیحیت و یهودیت، چه تعالیمِ متعالی تا به امروز برایِ بشریت رقم زده اند که منجر به سعادتِ انسانها در این کرهٔ خاکی شده باشد؟ جز ایجادِ صدها و صدها جنگ و کشتار و غارت و بردگی و کنیزی و ویرانیِ شهرها و نابودیِ تمدنهایِ بیشمار از آسیا گرفته تا آفریقا و آمریکایِ جنوبی و قتلِ اندیشمندان و خردمندانِ درمانده که رشدِ بشری و پیشرفتِ تمدن را سرلوحهٔ کارِ خویش کرده بودند.. بله عزیزانم، اینها همه، امتیازیست، که این ادیان برایِ بشریت در طولِ تاریخ به ارمغان آوردند و روسو با بی شرمیِ تمام از این ارمغان دم میزند و راهِ نجات را در آن میبیند و فراموش کرده که مسیحیان چگونه انسانهایِ آزاد در جنگلها که روسو آنها را بدوی و وحشی مینامد را سلاخی میکردند و مسیحیان و کلیسا چگونه به کودکانِ بومیانِ کانادا و دیگر سرخپوستان تجاوز کردند و امروزه پاپ به قول خودش با یک عذرخواهی ساده ماله بر آن همه قتل و جنایت و کارهایِ کثیف میکشد
دوستانِ گرامی، هیچگاه مثلِ روسو و موجوداتِ دُگم همچون او، با تمدن و دانش زاویه نداشته باشید و این را آویزهٔ گوشتان کنید، چنانچه خرد و شعورِ شما همگام با تمدنِ بشری و به روز نباشد، شما را به سوز مینشاند
روسو کتابش را برایِ ولتر میفرستد و ولتر برایِ روسو مینویسد: کتابی كه بر ضدِ نژادِ بشر نوشته اید، به دستم رسید، هرگز برایِ احمق ساختنِ ما مردم، چنين ذکاوتی به كار نرفته بود. انسان با خواندنِ كتـابِ شما ميل ميكند كه چهار دست و پا راه برود.. اما من چون بيش از شصت سال است كه اين عادت را از دست داده ام، با كمالِ تأسف احساس ميكنم كه از سر گرفتنِ آن برايم مقدور نيست... سرمشق گرفتن از اعمالِ ما، وحشيان را نيز تقريباً مانندِ خودِ ما فاسد ساخته است
روسو که توانِ مقابله با انسانی خردمند و باهوش چون ولتر را ندارد، برای ضربه زدن به او بازهم دست به دامانِ دین و مذهب میشود، او که برایِ منفعتش از مذهبِ پروتستان به کاتولیک تغییرِ مسیر داده بود، بازهم به مذهبِ قبلش بازگشت تا کتابش را بفروشد، ولی پروتستانی ها نیز از وی و نوشته هایش استقبال نکردند و برایِ کشیشان و اسقفها سخت بود که همهٔ انسانها با هم برابر باشند و همچون آدمیزادِ نخستین زندگی کنند.. ولتر هواخواهِ ادبیاتِ غنی و تئاتر بود، اما در شهرِ ژنو، مذهبی هایِ پروتستانی اجازهٔ اجرایِ نمایش و تئاتر را نمیدادند، ولتر همچون همیشه کوشید تا این بیخردان را آگاه سازد، ولی سر و کلهٔ روسو پیدا شد و فریاد زد: وحشيان هرگز نمايش نميدهند، افلاطون با نمايش مخالف بوده است، كليسا اجرایِ مراسمِ ازدواج و تدفینِ بازیگرانِ تئاتر را نمیپذیرد.. آقایان، تئاتر مكتبِ شهوت پرستیست
عزیزانم، عجیب است که روسو، چنین موجودی با چنین تفکراتِ خطرناک، دم از نجاتِ بشریت میزند و برایِ انسانها نسخه میپیچد
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امیدوارم این ریویو برایِ شما دوستانِ آگاه و خردگرا، مفید بوده باشه
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
June 12, 2019
Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this. Or rather, I was expecting ‘the noble savage’ to play some sort of role and I got the noble savage , admittedly– so, I should be satisfied, but when people have told me about the noble savage in the past they have left things out. The main thing that excised is HE is a bloke, not just a man, a bloke. He is rarely happier than when he is on his own, he doesn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about stuff , there’s no football, so, obviously, there is also something missing in his life that he can’t quite put his finger on – but mostly his needs are met by what is immediately to hand. He lives in a forest and given how basic his needs are, they are all right there for the taking. Occasionally he will have sex with a noble savagess, but, as it is put so beautifully here – with more pleasure than ardour. And that just about sums up the book, in many ways. What the noble savagess gets up to in her spare time isn’t really detailed here. The noble savage had his own individual language – by necessity it was pretty rudimentary, and it seems a bit hard to know why he bothered. This meant he wasn’t particularly good at abstract thought. The savage was also without society, and so also without what get called here ‘moral inequalities’. The inequalities that existed in this happy early phase of human history mostly involved getting older and slower than other noble savages. Otherwise, everyone was essentially equal.
In some ways this book is the paleo-diet version of philosophy. There is a strong belief that we humans were most happy in our ‘native’ state, and that any shift from that state has been debilitating – whether in terms of the food we eat, the society we live in, the medicine we use, the houses we live in – despite the remarkable extensions to our life expectancy due in large part to all of these.
The problem is that unlike us deciding to eat nuts and meat – or whatever it is that paleo-types think we used to eat in our ‘the state of nature’ – we can’t really go back to the primordial forest – because, well, we chopped it down. And ‘the good life’ has perverted our tastes so much that now we can’t be satisfied with less, or even just ‘enough’.
This is all seriously pessimistic stuff – which is something else I hadn’t quite expected either. We are condemned to a life that makes us miserable, and there is no escape.
The main problem was in developing agriculture. He makes the point that unless you have a society – and an unequal society at that – that agriculture is basically impossible. I thought this was an interesting idea. It is a bit like the tragedy of the commons, but perhaps more forcefully put. He says that if you do all of the work in ploughing and planting fields and growing grain and so on, unless you have some way of saying ‘this is mine’ and backing that up with some sort of force – when the time comes to harvest then others will take everything and leave you with nothing. So, agriculture was pointless until there was society. And with society then came all the evils associated with it – the need for laws, the problem of rulers and ruled, of ‘the refinements of luxury and effeminacy’.
The part of this that I will remember of it, I think, is the surprise I had at finding him so certain that the base determination of the human condition is social isolation – the great individual standing free and depending solely upon his own ingenuity for his own well-being. This is basically wrong in every way. The only thing that makes us human is human society. He really could be describing Orangutans rather than humans. The idea that humans like such isolation seems an odd thing to have ever caught on. The whole things sounds too much like crushing loneliness – hardly something to be longed for.
In some ways this book is the paleo-diet version of philosophy. There is a strong belief that we humans were most happy in our ‘native’ state, and that any shift from that state has been debilitating – whether in terms of the food we eat, the society we live in, the medicine we use, the houses we live in – despite the remarkable extensions to our life expectancy due in large part to all of these.
The problem is that unlike us deciding to eat nuts and meat – or whatever it is that paleo-types think we used to eat in our ‘the state of nature’ – we can’t really go back to the primordial forest – because, well, we chopped it down. And ‘the good life’ has perverted our tastes so much that now we can’t be satisfied with less, or even just ‘enough’.
This is all seriously pessimistic stuff – which is something else I hadn’t quite expected either. We are condemned to a life that makes us miserable, and there is no escape.
The main problem was in developing agriculture. He makes the point that unless you have a society – and an unequal society at that – that agriculture is basically impossible. I thought this was an interesting idea. It is a bit like the tragedy of the commons, but perhaps more forcefully put. He says that if you do all of the work in ploughing and planting fields and growing grain and so on, unless you have some way of saying ‘this is mine’ and backing that up with some sort of force – when the time comes to harvest then others will take everything and leave you with nothing. So, agriculture was pointless until there was society. And with society then came all the evils associated with it – the need for laws, the problem of rulers and ruled, of ‘the refinements of luxury and effeminacy’.
The part of this that I will remember of it, I think, is the surprise I had at finding him so certain that the base determination of the human condition is social isolation – the great individual standing free and depending solely upon his own ingenuity for his own well-being. This is basically wrong in every way. The only thing that makes us human is human society. He really could be describing Orangutans rather than humans. The idea that humans like such isolation seems an odd thing to have ever caught on. The whole things sounds too much like crushing loneliness – hardly something to be longed for.
September 29, 2020
‘I received, sir, your latest book against the human race, for which I thank you,’ wrote Voltaire snarkily, after Rousseau sent him a copy of this treatise. ‘Never has so much ésprit been employed in trying to turn us into beasts.’ You can see why he might not have liked it: Voltaire was the archetypal civilised man – urbane, witty, a social animal. Whereas for Rousseau (a more pessimistic character), civilisation had been going steadily downhill literally since the Stone Age.
Oh, those hunter-gatherers never had it so good. Those were the days! Every man back then was ‘a free being, whose heart was at peace, and his body healthy’ – before the dark days. Before civilisation. Rousseau's image of ‘l'homme sauvage’ is a man perfectly in tune with his surroundings, whose needs (food, sex, safety) were all satisfactorily supplied by his environment, and who had no need for conflict nor any fear of death.
This is explicitly written against Hobbes's idea of pre-civilised life being ‘nasty, brutish and short’, but it does appear to be based on no real facts or evidence – it's just Rousseau working backwards from what he finds uncongenial about modern life. His point is that inequality was baked into the very foundations of civil society.
Rousseau suggests that this was a particular development in the human psyche: an evolution of selfishness, where none had existed before.
Anthropologically speaking, it is to be doubted whether there was ever any such prelapsarian time without any sense of ownership, selfishness or struggle – but that's hardly the point now, since we don't read Rousseau for anthropological insight but for political-historical ideas. (I think.) In any case, with his railing against metallurgy and agriculture, it's remarkable how often he comes across as a sort of eighteenth-century Jared Diamond – Muskets, Germs and Steel.
So if we discard all the anthropological speculation, what's left? Well, the important bit: the bit that makes a statement about how undesirable social inequality is. This may seem obvious, but it wasn't so obvious at the time (Samuel Johnson, famously, approved heartily of ‘subordination’.) There was a reason that the ‘democratists’ and ‘republicans’ at the end of the century were thought of as the spawn of Rousseau, because he set out this position in terms that soon came to seem very pointed: saying, for example, that inequality would continue to get worse ‘until new revolutions dissolve government altogether, or replace it with a legitimate institution’.
Rousseau didn't quite mean ‘revolution’ in the sense we use it today, but that was because the French Revolution hadn't happened yet. When it did, many critics saw it as the end-point of Rousseauism. And hints of violence do occur in his vision:
But overall the guiding motivation here is one of outrage – outrage against a world where ‘a handful of people are drowning in excess, while the starving multitude lack basic necessities’. For Voltaire this argument may have gone against the human race, but for Rousseau it was a way of bringing it some dignity and compassion.
Oh, those hunter-gatherers never had it so good. Those were the days! Every man back then was ‘a free being, whose heart was at peace, and his body healthy’ – before the dark days. Before civilisation. Rousseau's image of ‘l'homme sauvage’ is a man perfectly in tune with his surroundings, whose needs (food, sex, safety) were all satisfactorily supplied by his environment, and who had no need for conflict nor any fear of death.
This is explicitly written against Hobbes's idea of pre-civilised life being ‘nasty, brutish and short’, but it does appear to be based on no real facts or evidence – it's just Rousseau working backwards from what he finds uncongenial about modern life. His point is that inequality was baked into the very foundations of civil society.
Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de dire, ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile.
The first person who, having marked off a terrain, came up with the idea of saying, this belongs to me, and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.
Rousseau suggests that this was a particular development in the human psyche: an evolution of selfishness, where none had existed before.
…dès qu'on s'aperçut qu'il était utile à un seul d'avoir des provisions pour deux, l'égalité disparut […et] on vit bientôt l'esclavage et la misère germer et croître avec les moissons.
As soon as someone noticed that it was expedient for one person to have the provisions of two, equality disappeared: and we begin to see slavery and poverty sprouting and growing among the crops.
Anthropologically speaking, it is to be doubted whether there was ever any such prelapsarian time without any sense of ownership, selfishness or struggle – but that's hardly the point now, since we don't read Rousseau for anthropological insight but for political-historical ideas. (I think.) In any case, with his railing against metallurgy and agriculture, it's remarkable how often he comes across as a sort of eighteenth-century Jared Diamond – Muskets, Germs and Steel.
So if we discard all the anthropological speculation, what's left? Well, the important bit: the bit that makes a statement about how undesirable social inequality is. This may seem obvious, but it wasn't so obvious at the time (Samuel Johnson, famously, approved heartily of ‘subordination’.) There was a reason that the ‘democratists’ and ‘republicans’ at the end of the century were thought of as the spawn of Rousseau, because he set out this position in terms that soon came to seem very pointed: saying, for example, that inequality would continue to get worse ‘until new revolutions dissolve government altogether, or replace it with a legitimate institution’.
Rousseau didn't quite mean ‘revolution’ in the sense we use it today, but that was because the French Revolution hadn't happened yet. When it did, many critics saw it as the end-point of Rousseauism. And hints of violence do occur in his vision:
L'émeute qui finit par étrangler ou détrôner un Sultan est un acte aussi juridique que ceux par lesquels il disposait la veille des vies et des biens de ses sujets.
The riot that ends with the strangulation or deposition of a sultan is an act just as judicial as those by which he, the day before, had disposed of his subjects' lives and goods.
But overall the guiding motivation here is one of outrage – outrage against a world where ‘a handful of people are drowning in excess, while the starving multitude lack basic necessities’. For Voltaire this argument may have gone against the human race, but for Rousseau it was a way of bringing it some dignity and compassion.
December 30, 2017
مقال عن روسو على جزئين:
روسو ومشكلة الحرية- الجزء الأول
روسو ومشكلة الحرية- الجزء الثاني
تُعد فلسفة روسو السياسية هي الوسط ما بين استبدادية هوبز، وليبرالية لوك. في الباب الأول من كتابه «العقد الاجتماعي» يبحث روسو عن قاعدة شرعية صحيحة لإدارة النظام المدني يراعي فيها التوفيق بين الحرية المطلقة للإنسان، وبين فقده جزءًا من حريته في إطار النظام الاجتماعي والمدني للدولة، فيقول في مفتتح الفصل الأول من هذا الباب:
«يولد الإنسان حرًّا، ويوجد الإنسان مقيدًا في كل مكان، وهو يظن أنّه سيد الآخرين، وهو يظل عبدًا أكثر منهم، كيف وقع هذا التحول؟ أجهل ذلك، وما الذي يمكن أن يجعله شرعيًّا؟ أراني قادرًا على حل هذه المسألة».
روسو ومشكلة الحرية- الجزء الأول
روسو ومشكلة الحرية- الجزء الثاني
تُعد فلسفة روسو السياسية هي الوسط ما بين استبدادية هوبز، وليبرالية لوك. في الباب الأول من كتابه «العقد الاجتماعي» يبحث روسو عن قاعدة شرعية صحيحة لإدارة النظام المدني يراعي فيها التوفيق بين الحرية المطلقة للإنسان، وبين فقده جزءًا من حريته في إطار النظام الاجتماعي والمدني للدولة، فيقول في مفتتح الفصل الأول من هذا الباب:
«يولد الإنسان حرًّا، ويوجد الإنسان مقيدًا في كل مكان، وهو يظن أنّه سيد الآخرين، وهو يظل عبدًا أكثر منهم، كيف وقع هذا التحول؟ أجهل ذلك، وما الذي يمكن أن يجعله شرعيًّا؟ أراني قادرًا على حل هذه المسألة».
March 13, 2015
I shall hopefully write a proper review once I have composed my thoughts, but for now I will seek to emulate the delighted and reverential tone of those critics whose choiciest lines of praise are plastered on the back-cover, front-cover and insides of books:
"A magnificent triumph of imagination, scholarship and reason!"
***
The discourse is divided into two parts. Part I deals with Man in the "State of Nature" (a concept used to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence), i.e. Savage Man. Part II deals with how inequality originated and was perpetuated among us humans.
Part I
Rousseau basically argues in Part I that it was not possible for inequality to set in, in the State of Nature. In that pursuit, he gives us an elaborate, vivid and - most importantly - convincing portrayal of the life of Savage Man as he, Rousseau, imagines it to have been.
Let us conclude then that man in a state of nature, wandering up and down the forests, without industry, without speech, and without home, an equal stranger to war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow-creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps even not distinguishing them one from another; let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation; that he felt only his actual necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his understanding made no greater progress than his vanity. If by accident he made any discovery, he was the less able to communicate it to others, as he did not know even his own children. Every art would necessarily perish with its inventor, where there was no kind of education among men, and generations succeeded generations without the least advance; when, all setting out from the same point, centuries must have elapsed in the barbarism of the first ages; when the race was already old, and man remained a child.
Part II
Part II begins powerfully.
THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."
Rousseau then proceeds to begin from where he left off at the end of Part I. The life of Savage Man - a tranquil, solitary, equal one; what changed that?
In proportion as the human race grew more numerous, men's cares increased. The difference of soils, climates and seasons, must have introduced some differences into their manner of living. Barren years, long and sharp winters, scorching summers which parched the fruits of the earth, must have demanded a new industry. On the seashore and the banks of rivers, they invented the hook and line, and became fishermen and eaters of fish. In the forests they made bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In cold countries they clothed themselves with the skins of the beasts they had slain. The lightning, a volcano, or some lucky chance acquainted them with fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter: they next learned how to preserve this element, then how to reproduce it, and finally how to prepare with it the flesh of animals which before they had eaten raw.
Rousseau traces the journey (or descent, as he would probably call it) of Man into domesticity, the idea of property, political society; a journey that sees inequality originate and entrench itself firmly in the human race. It is, again, a convincing argument, and a rewarding one for the reader (to say the very, very, infinitesimally little least).
The crux of the argument:
It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws.
***
This is not something that I would have normally bothered to read. I owe this wonderful reading experience to the MOOC I am currently enrolled in, "The Modern and the Postmodern".
Link: https://www.coursera.org/course/moder...
The course is only three weeks in, and I would heavily recommend it to anyone who may have an interest in the subject matter.
Next up: The Communist Manifesto. Can't wait :)
"A magnificent triumph of imagination, scholarship and reason!"
***
The discourse is divided into two parts. Part I deals with Man in the "State of Nature" (a concept used to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence), i.e. Savage Man. Part II deals with how inequality originated and was perpetuated among us humans.
Part I
Rousseau basically argues in Part I that it was not possible for inequality to set in, in the State of Nature. In that pursuit, he gives us an elaborate, vivid and - most importantly - convincing portrayal of the life of Savage Man as he, Rousseau, imagines it to have been.
Let us conclude then that man in a state of nature, wandering up and down the forests, without industry, without speech, and without home, an equal stranger to war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow-creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps even not distinguishing them one from another; let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation; that he felt only his actual necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his understanding made no greater progress than his vanity. If by accident he made any discovery, he was the less able to communicate it to others, as he did not know even his own children. Every art would necessarily perish with its inventor, where there was no kind of education among men, and generations succeeded generations without the least advance; when, all setting out from the same point, centuries must have elapsed in the barbarism of the first ages; when the race was already old, and man remained a child.
Part II
Part II begins powerfully.
THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."
Rousseau then proceeds to begin from where he left off at the end of Part I. The life of Savage Man - a tranquil, solitary, equal one; what changed that?
In proportion as the human race grew more numerous, men's cares increased. The difference of soils, climates and seasons, must have introduced some differences into their manner of living. Barren years, long and sharp winters, scorching summers which parched the fruits of the earth, must have demanded a new industry. On the seashore and the banks of rivers, they invented the hook and line, and became fishermen and eaters of fish. In the forests they made bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In cold countries they clothed themselves with the skins of the beasts they had slain. The lightning, a volcano, or some lucky chance acquainted them with fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter: they next learned how to preserve this element, then how to reproduce it, and finally how to prepare with it the flesh of animals which before they had eaten raw.
Rousseau traces the journey (or descent, as he would probably call it) of Man into domesticity, the idea of property, political society; a journey that sees inequality originate and entrench itself firmly in the human race. It is, again, a convincing argument, and a rewarding one for the reader (to say the very, very, infinitesimally little least).
The crux of the argument:
It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws.
***
This is not something that I would have normally bothered to read. I owe this wonderful reading experience to the MOOC I am currently enrolled in, "The Modern and the Postmodern".
Link: https://www.coursera.org/course/moder...
The course is only three weeks in, and I would heavily recommend it to anyone who may have an interest in the subject matter.
Next up: The Communist Manifesto. Can't wait :)
April 3, 2016
I'm occasionally struck by how bad the great classics of political philosophy are. Consider that, when teaching philosophy, we spend an awful lot of energy convincing students that their arguments have to be tight, they have to avoid fallacies, they have to back up their reasoning, and they have to avoid special pleading. Then we give them Locke's treatises, or The Prince, or this great turd of philosophical unreason.
That said, once you decide this isn't a work of philosophy, it gets much better; it's not. It's pretty clearly a work of rhetoric, seeking to persuade rather than to reason. The first part, in particular, is utterly ridiculous taken as an argument of any kind: we have no reason to think that human beings outside of society are happy vegetables, but that's how Rousseau presents them. His 'argument' is entirely inconsistent; one minute he says these 'savages' have no need of tools or weapons, since they can just eat acorns, the next minute he's happily supplying them with spears to fight off wild beasts. Taken as a rhetorical attack on previous state-of-nature theories, however, and on the idea that civilization is always all good, it's okay. It's too silly to be anything other than okay, but that's fine. Read it ironically, and it makes sense: Rousseau's picture is no sillier than Hobbes', or Locke's, and his name is a lot less silly than Pufendorf's.
Part II is a bit more serious. Here Rousseau takes a lot from Hobbes (one of the few philosophically solid classics of political philosophy), his analysis tightens up, and we're suddenly faced with a whole bunch of fascinating questions: how did it happen that humans because social? how did it happen that some people get the power and wealth, while others get nothing? can that be justified?
His answers aren't particularly good, but as a way of showing us how difficult and important these questions are--and, pace Hobbes/Locke/et al., how difficult they are to solve--Rousseau's book works very nicely. It's much harder to justify inequality than previous philosophers had argued (slash some philosophers still argue), it's much harder to provide a rational basis for human society than most of us like to think, and it's very hard indeed to imagine how human institutions came into being.
Sadly, Rousseau seems to have led more people towards naturalism than away from it, even though you can easily read this book as an attempt to do the latter. The point about the 'state of nature' is that it probably never happened, not that we should return to it; if we can get out of the habit of thinking that there's some nature we can get back to, we can also get out of the habit of thinking we can justify our institutions and actions based on the 'fact' that they're 'natural.'
That said, once you decide this isn't a work of philosophy, it gets much better; it's not. It's pretty clearly a work of rhetoric, seeking to persuade rather than to reason. The first part, in particular, is utterly ridiculous taken as an argument of any kind: we have no reason to think that human beings outside of society are happy vegetables, but that's how Rousseau presents them. His 'argument' is entirely inconsistent; one minute he says these 'savages' have no need of tools or weapons, since they can just eat acorns, the next minute he's happily supplying them with spears to fight off wild beasts. Taken as a rhetorical attack on previous state-of-nature theories, however, and on the idea that civilization is always all good, it's okay. It's too silly to be anything other than okay, but that's fine. Read it ironically, and it makes sense: Rousseau's picture is no sillier than Hobbes', or Locke's, and his name is a lot less silly than Pufendorf's.
Part II is a bit more serious. Here Rousseau takes a lot from Hobbes (one of the few philosophically solid classics of political philosophy), his analysis tightens up, and we're suddenly faced with a whole bunch of fascinating questions: how did it happen that humans because social? how did it happen that some people get the power and wealth, while others get nothing? can that be justified?
His answers aren't particularly good, but as a way of showing us how difficult and important these questions are--and, pace Hobbes/Locke/et al., how difficult they are to solve--Rousseau's book works very nicely. It's much harder to justify inequality than previous philosophers had argued (slash some philosophers still argue), it's much harder to provide a rational basis for human society than most of us like to think, and it's very hard indeed to imagine how human institutions came into being.
Sadly, Rousseau seems to have led more people towards naturalism than away from it, even though you can easily read this book as an attempt to do the latter. The point about the 'state of nature' is that it probably never happened, not that we should return to it; if we can get out of the habit of thinking that there's some nature we can get back to, we can also get out of the habit of thinking we can justify our institutions and actions based on the 'fact' that they're 'natural.'
March 25, 2017
رغم أن العنوان رائع و فكرة الكتاب عموما لكن يصعب التركيز بسبب الترجمة السيئة و عدم ترابط الأفكار بها من أراد أن يقرأه فليعتمد النسخة المترجمة من بولس غانم
*ملاحظة: النسخة السيئة من ترجمة عادل زعيتر
https://ia601800.us.archive.org/9/ite...
*ملاحظة: النسخة السيئة من ترجمة عادل زعيتر
https://ia601800.us.archive.org/9/ite...
Read
June 20, 2019الترجمة سيئة
October 5, 2022
This was one of the first works of Rousseau (1755), the fruit of a public concourse (he always was in need of money). It's already clearly a work of genius, although certainly not completely thought through. Anyway it reveals the spirit of Rousseau's thinking: there's no such thing as original sin, civilization (and the unilateral use of reason) has brought decline to man and introduced inequality; but there is no way back, man has to proceed (so, in contrast with what often is stated, he does not plead for a return to Eden). Remarkably, he uses various terms for man in his natural state: "homme original", "l'homme sauvage", "l'homme naturel" and often makes reference to tribes in Suriname and the Caribbean. As is often the case in the writings of Rousseau his ideas are not always clearly formulated and uniform. But what a treat to read this, especially in the original French.
February 12, 2015
How did people start to use words to express abstract ideas such as love, reason, freedom, death, or life?
June 11, 2007
rousseau has written the first anti-civ, anarchist philosophical essay that i am aware of. it doesn't seem to be fully acknowledged as that, but it's clear what rousseau is talking about when he declares "All ran to meet their chains thinking they secured their freedom... Such was the origin of society and laws, which gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom for all time, established forever the law of property and inequality, changed a clever usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the whole human race to work, servitude and misery."
when i first read this book it was a wake up call to the highest degree, because i had never read someone who had such a similar viewpoint to my own before. it was a liberating experience, as if he was speaking my words.
rousseau takes the reader all the way back to the beginning of humanity and brings you one step at a time through the development of society (and the division of labor) until we reach our current, horrible state.
finally some realistic philosophy! beats the shit out of marx, THIS is materialism.
when i first read this book it was a wake up call to the highest degree, because i had never read someone who had such a similar viewpoint to my own before. it was a liberating experience, as if he was speaking my words.
rousseau takes the reader all the way back to the beginning of humanity and brings you one step at a time through the development of society (and the division of labor) until we reach our current, horrible state.
finally some realistic philosophy! beats the shit out of marx, THIS is materialism.
November 11, 2019
Plaudo all'analisi finissima che Rousseau conduce nel tentativo di trovare le cause prime della disuguaglianza sociale e di sconfessare le teorie espresse da Hobbes nel Leviatano in merito all'originario stato di natura dell'uomo. Tuttavia mi sento di dissentire da quanto edotto da Rousseau. Personalmente mi sento più vicino alle teorie di Hobbes e credo che l'essere umano, nello stato di natura primordiale, non fosse affatto così buono e altruista come Rousseau afferma, ma, dedito, per istinto autoconservativo, principalmente al proprio interesse personale e quindi indotto ad associarsi unicamente per difenderlo e per evitare le nefaste conseguenze del vivere isolati in uno stato di guerra di tutti contro tutti. Le teorie avanzate da Rousseau, pur magistralmente sostenute, sembrano in realtà poste solo per avvalorar la sua feroce, pur comprensibile, critica dei costumi dell'epoca, contrapponendole il mito del buon selvaggio. Un testo comunque illuminante e che consiglio a tutti.
January 12, 2016
يعدّ جان جاك روسو من أوائل الفلاسفة الذين ركزوا في العصر الحديث على الخطاب الفلسفي الناسوتي ,يتجلى لنا منظوره الأنثروبولوجي في خطابه أصل التفاوت بين البشر ,في اتخاذه الإنسان موضوعًا للدراسة, جاعلًا من البدائي نموذج يعكس لنا الحالة الطبيعية للإنسان , أو حتى "نموذج للفرز بين ماهو طبيعي وماهو اصطناعي في طبيعة الإنسان المدني" , مقارنًا _من الناحية الفيزيقية والأخلاقية_بين البدائي والمتمدن من جهة , وبين الإنسان والحيوان من جهة أخرى
في عام 1753 طرحت أكاديمية ديجون سؤالًا على عموم الكتّاب : ما أصل التفاوت بين البشر وهل يجيزه الناموس الطبيعي , وليعالج هذه المسألة سافر روسو إلى غابة سان جرمان لما يزيد عن أسبوع , متأملا في الصورة الأولى للبشر , ليتبيّن التضاد بين الانسان الاول والانسان الحالي
يستخلص روسو أن اللامساواة بين البشر بدأت بانتقال الإنسان من الحالة الطبيعية_البدائية ,إلى الحالة المدنية إذ كان المرء قبل المدنية لا يختلف عن أخيه الإنسان في شيء كما كان حرّا لا يخضع للاستعباد , إلى أن تغلغت مظاهر الحضارة في المجتمعات , فبرز حب التملك لدى البشر لتؤسس وضع الغني والفقير , ثم أجازت الرياسة وضع القوي والضعيف , بينما أسست السلطة الاعتباطية علاقة السيد والعبد , ومن ثم كان التفاوت المدني نفي للمساواة الطبيعية , وكانت المدنية منشأ للاستعباد والاضطهاد وشريعة الأقوى
وينفي روسو عن الإنسان البدائي صفة الكائن المتوحش كما يتصوّره الفلاسفة التقدميين بل يذهب إلى ابعد من ذلك إذ يرى أن الحالة المدنية للانسان هي التي تجعل منه كائنًا متوحشا أي أن إنسان العصر الحديث الذي يتخلى عن حقوقه الطبيعية باسم قوانين تجيز التفاوت يتردى بذلك إلى أسفل من الحيوانية , وإذ يشير إلى أن البدائي مسالم بطبعه , يقول حول وحشية الانسان المدني : إن ما يرتكب من مجازر قتل في يوم واحد من المعارك , وما يرتكب من فظائع في سبيل الاستيلاء على مدينة واحدة ,لأكثر مما حصل في الحالة الطبيعية طوال قرون كاملة وعلى وجه البسيطة جمعاء .
أيضا يعيد روسو النظر في نظام الملكات الإنسانية , فإذا كانت الفلسفة الكلاسيكية العقلانية تقول بأن ما يميز الانسان عن سائر الحيوان هو كونه عاقلا أولا , فإن فلسفة روسو تقول بأسبقية الشعور وملكة الإرادة على التفكير العقلي مؤكدا فكرة الحرية كخاصية ينفرد بها الإنسان , يقول في هذا المضمار أن التميي�� النوعي الذي للإنسا�� بين سائر الحيوان لا يقيمه الذهن بقدر ما يصنعه كون الإنسان فاعلًا حرًا
ذلك أن للحيوان ناموس طبيعي وقواعد بيولوجية لا يستطيع تجاوزها , وهو يختار بمقتضى غريزة , بينما يتجاوز الانسان الطبيعة ويختار بمقتضى إرادته الحرة : فالإرادة تظل تتكلم عندما تسكت الطبيعة
خاصية الانسان الثانية عند روسو هي ملكة التكامل أو التحسّن وهي التي تدفع الانسان إلى التطور عبر مرور القرون : بينما الحيوان يكون بعد بضعة أشهر ما سيكونه كامل حياته ويكون نوعه بعد ألف عام ما كانه منذ العام الأول من الألفية تلك , وينتقد روسو هذه الملكة عند الانسان بأنها مصدر جميع شقاوات الانسان وهي التي انتشلته من وضعه الاصلي فحوّلته بطول المدة إلى طاغية على نفسه وعلى الطبيعة
ختامًا , ولو أننّا نلتمس المنظور الموضوعي للفكر الروسوي اتجاه الانسان البدائي الأوّل , باتخاذه هذا الأخير نموذجًا يحدّد كل ما هو خاصية إنسانية طبيعيّة عند البشر , وكل ما هو خاصية اصطناعية تجيزها المدنية لا الطبيعة , إلا أن روسو يقع رغم ذلك يقع في بعض المغالطات الإثنولوجية الأولى : إذا كان روسو يرى في الانسان البدائي كائنًا بيولوجيا أبعد ما يكون عن التفكير العقلي , فإنه يستخلص من ذلك أنّ "التفكير حالة تُضادّ الطبيعة , وأن الإنسان الذي يتأمل بعقله حيوان فاسد" .
في الواقع ليس هناك ما يشير إلى أن التفكير العقلي أو حتى التأمل الفلسفي حكرا على الانسان المدني, يتخذ كلود ليفي شتراوس من الاسطورة مادّة لدراسة الفكر البدائي , لينفي كون التفكير البدائي مقتصرا على الحاجات البيولوجية , يقول في كتابه الأسطورة والمعنى أن هذه الشعوب : قادرة تماما على القيام بتفكير منزّه عن الهوى , وهم يتقدّمون لفهم العالم المحيط بهم من خلال وسائل عقلية , بالضبط كما يفعل الفيلسوف أو حتى العالم , إنهم يستطيعون ذلك ويطمحون إليه أيضا
في عام 1753 طرحت أكاديمية ديجون سؤالًا على عموم الكتّاب : ما أصل التفاوت بين البشر وهل يجيزه الناموس الطبيعي , وليعالج هذه المسألة سافر روسو إلى غابة سان جرمان لما يزيد عن أسبوع , متأملا في الصورة الأولى للبشر , ليتبيّن التضاد بين الانسان الاول والانسان الحالي
يستخلص روسو أن اللامساواة بين البشر بدأت بانتقال الإنسان من الحالة الطبيعية_البدائية ,إلى الحالة المدنية إذ كان المرء قبل المدنية لا يختلف عن أخيه الإنسان في شيء كما كان حرّا لا يخضع للاستعباد , إلى أن تغلغت مظاهر الحضارة في المجتمعات , فبرز حب التملك لدى البشر لتؤسس وضع الغني والفقير , ثم أجازت الرياسة وضع القوي والضعيف , بينما أسست السلطة الاعتباطية علاقة السيد والعبد , ومن ثم كان التفاوت المدني نفي للمساواة الطبيعية , وكانت المدنية منشأ للاستعباد والاضطهاد وشريعة الأقوى
وينفي روسو عن الإنسان البدائي صفة الكائن المتوحش كما يتصوّره الفلاسفة التقدميين بل يذهب إلى ابعد من ذلك إذ يرى أن الحالة المدنية للانسان هي التي تجعل منه كائنًا متوحشا أي أن إنسان العصر الحديث الذي يتخلى عن حقوقه الطبيعية باسم قوانين تجيز التفاوت يتردى بذلك إلى أسفل من الحيوانية , وإذ يشير إلى أن البدائي مسالم بطبعه , يقول حول وحشية الانسان المدني : إن ما يرتكب من مجازر قتل في يوم واحد من المعارك , وما يرتكب من فظائع في سبيل الاستيلاء على مدينة واحدة ,لأكثر مما حصل في الحالة الطبيعية طوال قرون كاملة وعلى وجه البسيطة جمعاء .
أيضا يعيد روسو النظر في نظام الملكات الإنسانية , فإذا كانت الفلسفة الكلاسيكية العقلانية تقول بأن ما يميز الانسان عن سائر الحيوان هو كونه عاقلا أولا , فإن فلسفة روسو تقول بأسبقية الشعور وملكة الإرادة على التفكير العقلي مؤكدا فكرة الحرية كخاصية ينفرد بها الإنسان , يقول في هذا المضمار أن التميي�� النوعي الذي للإنسا�� بين سائر الحيوان لا يقيمه الذهن بقدر ما يصنعه كون الإنسان فاعلًا حرًا
ذلك أن للحيوان ناموس طبيعي وقواعد بيولوجية لا يستطيع تجاوزها , وهو يختار بمقتضى غريزة , بينما يتجاوز الانسان الطبيعة ويختار بمقتضى إرادته الحرة : فالإرادة تظل تتكلم عندما تسكت الطبيعة
خاصية الانسان الثانية عند روسو هي ملكة التكامل أو التحسّن وهي التي تدفع الانسان إلى التطور عبر مرور القرون : بينما الحيوان يكون بعد بضعة أشهر ما سيكونه كامل حياته ويكون نوعه بعد ألف عام ما كانه منذ العام الأول من الألفية تلك , وينتقد روسو هذه الملكة عند الانسان بأنها مصدر جميع شقاوات الانسان وهي التي انتشلته من وضعه الاصلي فحوّلته بطول المدة إلى طاغية على نفسه وعلى الطبيعة
ختامًا , ولو أننّا نلتمس المنظور الموضوعي للفكر الروسوي اتجاه الانسان البدائي الأوّل , باتخاذه هذا الأخير نموذجًا يحدّد كل ما هو خاصية إنسانية طبيعيّة عند البشر , وكل ما هو خاصية اصطناعية تجيزها المدنية لا الطبيعة , إلا أن روسو يقع رغم ذلك يقع في بعض المغالطات الإثنولوجية الأولى : إذا كان روسو يرى في الانسان البدائي كائنًا بيولوجيا أبعد ما يكون عن التفكير العقلي , فإنه يستخلص من ذلك أنّ "التفكير حالة تُضادّ الطبيعة , وأن الإنسان الذي يتأمل بعقله حيوان فاسد" .
في الواقع ليس هناك ما يشير إلى أن التفكير العقلي أو حتى التأمل الفلسفي حكرا على الانسان المدني, يتخذ كلود ليفي شتراوس من الاسطورة مادّة لدراسة الفكر البدائي , لينفي كون التفكير البدائي مقتصرا على الحاجات البيولوجية , يقول في كتابه الأسطورة والمعنى أن هذه الشعوب : قادرة تماما على القيام بتفكير منزّه عن الهوى , وهم يتقدّمون لفهم العالم المحيط بهم من خلال وسائل عقلية , بالضبط كما يفعل الفيلسوف أو حتى العالم , إنهم يستطيعون ذلك ويطمحون إليه أيضا
May 24, 2019
Atatürk’ün okuduğu kitaplardan birisi olması nedeniyle dikkatimi çeken bu kitapta, insanlığın gelişimi, eşitlik, adalet ve toplumların oluşumu konuları ele alınmıştır.
Bende en çok iz bırakan iki konuyu paylaşmak istiyorum.
İki tür eşitsizlik tanımlıyor yazar. Biri doğa tarafından verilen fiziksel eşitsizlik, diğeri ise toplum olmanın yarattığı politik eşitsizlik.
Eşitsizliğin ilerleyişi ise üç aşamda tanımlanmış.
1.aşama: Kanun ve mülkiyet hakkınının kurulması. Zengin-fakir ayrımı burada ortaya çıkıyor.
2. aşama: Yüksek görev makamlarının kurulması. Güçlü-zayıf ayrımı burada çıkıyor.
3. aşama: Meşru ve kanunlara uygun erkin keyfi erk haline gelmesi. Köle-efendi durumu burada ortaya çıkıyor.
Okuması biraz zor bir kitap olsa da, kült bir eser olması ve incelediği konuların derinliği nedeniyle kendini geliştirmek isteyen herkese tavsiye ederim.
Bende en çok iz bırakan iki konuyu paylaşmak istiyorum.
İki tür eşitsizlik tanımlıyor yazar. Biri doğa tarafından verilen fiziksel eşitsizlik, diğeri ise toplum olmanın yarattığı politik eşitsizlik.
Eşitsizliğin ilerleyişi ise üç aşamda tanımlanmış.
1.aşama: Kanun ve mülkiyet hakkınının kurulması. Zengin-fakir ayrımı burada ortaya çıkıyor.
2. aşama: Yüksek görev makamlarının kurulması. Güçlü-zayıf ayrımı burada çıkıyor.
3. aşama: Meşru ve kanunlara uygun erkin keyfi erk haline gelmesi. Köle-efendi durumu burada ortaya çıkıyor.
Okuması biraz zor bir kitap olsa da, kült bir eser olması ve incelediği konuların derinliği nedeniyle kendini geliştirmek isteyen herkese tavsiye ederim.
Read
November 25, 2020This book was written centuries ago and it's interesting how the points it makes are still applicable to some extent to our modern world. It kind of solidifies beliefs I already had about society as a whole. The whole social game is a curse disguised as a blessing and our intelligence as human beings, although brings a lot of benefits, also creates unnecessary suffering. A lot of people in power are sadistic egomaniacs. A new idea he introduced is his belief that selfishness and cruelty aren't truly innate and that the savage man has no need for such instincts and that it was artificially instilled with the creation of advanced society. This does make sense to me. He also described that strong romantic love between two people and that of mother and child as artificial additions by society as well, his logic being that the savage man had no need for all of that, which also made negative sentiments like jealousy and possessiveness useless. I find myself agreeing with that too. I won't give this book a rating because I didn't spend too much time delving deep into it to give it a fair one and I read it quickly after more than 2 months of abandoning it because I was interested in the main points it was conveying.
December 16, 2023
وجدت صعوبة في هضم محتوى الكتاب، بدا لي غير مترابط وبه نوع من التكرار. التقييم المنخفض ليس لأني لا اتفق مع أفكار الفيلسوف، بل بسبب الملل الشديد ولغته "الثقيلة" و"المتكلفة" وشعوري بأني أعاقب نفسي لأنهيه😪
February 25, 2013
Without Rousseau’s careful reflections on “the distance from pure sensations to the simplest knowledge”, Kant couldn’t have applied his theory that, “Men work themselves gradually out of barbarity if only intentional artifices are not made to hold them in it.” Rousseau says the distance couldn’t have been bridged without communication and goes on to show how incredibly slow the process to create language must have been. Society must have been a precursor to real language, the first ideas must have been nouns and served as complete sentences, and thought as a whole must have been particular and not generalized. With the creation of language and abstract ideas comes the eventual creation of property, and property makes society the new state of nature. At the end of the discourse, Rousseau illustrates this new nature by saying, “The savage lies in himself; sociable man, who lives outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinion of others.”
Rousseau’s philosophy on the original nature of man is predicated on two principles, a human’s interest in his self-preservation and a “natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellow man, perish or suffer.” Society corrupts these two principles. Rousseau doesn’t think a man in his natural state would have ever committed suicide or harmed himself intentionally in any way, but he observes that people in the midst of enlightenment, with so much free time that they have the luxury of deep thought, sometimes commit suicide or harm themselves. He develops the idea that humans have lost much of their pity and compassion even more. The formation of societies and economic classes make humans jealous or scornful of each other. The wealthy value the poor or working class only as another piece of property, and the working class feels only jealousy and animosity toward the wealthy. This separation of humanity engenders hatred and a feeling of satisfaction at the misfortune of a person in a different class. He says, “Natural inequality in the human species must increase as a result of instituted inequality.”
February 12, 2018
The title of this marvelous essay might suggest that it is about politics, but no it's not. Rousseau tackled political problems and solutions in The Social Contract, and no, the social contract is not the solution to the problems of human condition he laid out in The Discourse on Inequality. Apparently Rousseau's radicalness goes way beyond politics; he sees inequality as stemming from material and spiritual dependence. We are materially dependent on others from the moment we collaborate to produce, and we are spiritually dependent from the moment we perceive ourselves through the eyes of another and develop vanity, envy, honor or shame. So basically inequality (due to our interdependence) is our human condition, and there is no going back to the savage state of nature. I don't think Rousseau is even suggesting that it is desirable to return to independent savageness, and this essay is simply his theory of alienation and his scorn of the vanity of our civilization. Politics aside, it is genius.
November 9, 2017
In this book, Rousseau sets out to explain how inequality evolves from the natural state of man. This he does in two steps.
In part 1 of the book, Rousseau offers a detailed description of the natural state of man. In opposition to Hobbes, who in his Leviathan claimed man was a 'homo homini lupus', Rousseau claims that savages are happy and innocent. This is what later commentaries called 'the noble savage'. In this natural state man looks only after himself, satisfies his base needs (food, shelter, occasional sex) and because of his simple intellect, has no notion of vice and virtue.
After explaining this natural state, Rousseau sets out to explain how explain inequality and consequently human misery evolves - this is part 2 of the essay. There comes a time, when some noble savages will claim a piece of ground for himself, put up a fence around it and build a hut. From that moment on, property becomes the defining quality of man and the family as a unit of society originates. It is only after the invention of metallurgy and agriculture ("iron and wheat") that inequality starts to become a problem - now there are people who own more than others and can make the others work for them.
This rich elite will be in continuous trouble though, since they have a lot to lose while the poor have anything to gain. Now the rich start to scheme and come up with the idea of laws - they will convince the poor that it is in their interest to give up liberty in order to live safely. When laws are set up, society enters a cascade of ever-increasing corruption: laws demand magistrates, which leads to civil inequality (wielding power over others). This cycle ends with despotism - in this state there is a despot that wields all the power over all the others, in effect ending the social contract (cf. Locke) and throwing man back to his state of nature.
It is easy to see the flaws in Rousseau's story: evolutionary anthropology has shown that the noble savage is an illusion, our ancestors were as war-like as any chimpanzee troop is. It is also clear that Rousseau is mistaken with regard to the steps in his story of the rise of inequality. Agriculture led to the specialization of society, this led to aristocracies and castes of priests and public servants, which in turn led to huge kingdoms.
Nevertheless, I admire Rousseau's bravery to criticize civilization - thinkers like Hobbes and Locke (and others after them) put way too much confidence in enlighenment ideals. Even though Rousseau's picture of our ancestors was skewed, he showed how the concept of property can lead to an endless competition between individuals and consequently to a perpetual state of unhappiness for all mankind. And even though his social contract hypothesis has been proven wrong, he was the first one to come up with an evolutionary account of human institutions and societies - you have to give the man credits for this (he predates Darwin for over 100 years!)
It is easy to see how the doctrines of (1) 'the noble savage' and (2) the corrupting effects of inequality carry the seeds of the French Revolution and, later on, Marxism and communism. I think we all feel the gnawing feeling of our own relative well being compared to more than half of the population on earth; this inequality is, in the end, philosophically speaking unjustifiable. But as the French Revolution and communism have shown, the battle for righting the social wrongs can fly out of control and destroy the one thing which it was supposed to cure.
Let this essay be a lesson of how misinterpretations can have dramatic consequences: Rousseau never said that inequality had to be destroyed, he only claimed that artifical inequality (based on civil conventions) had to make way for natural inequality. Rousseau wasn't a communist, he just wanted a meritocracy.
In part 1 of the book, Rousseau offers a detailed description of the natural state of man. In opposition to Hobbes, who in his Leviathan claimed man was a 'homo homini lupus', Rousseau claims that savages are happy and innocent. This is what later commentaries called 'the noble savage'. In this natural state man looks only after himself, satisfies his base needs (food, shelter, occasional sex) and because of his simple intellect, has no notion of vice and virtue.
After explaining this natural state, Rousseau sets out to explain how explain inequality and consequently human misery evolves - this is part 2 of the essay. There comes a time, when some noble savages will claim a piece of ground for himself, put up a fence around it and build a hut. From that moment on, property becomes the defining quality of man and the family as a unit of society originates. It is only after the invention of metallurgy and agriculture ("iron and wheat") that inequality starts to become a problem - now there are people who own more than others and can make the others work for them.
This rich elite will be in continuous trouble though, since they have a lot to lose while the poor have anything to gain. Now the rich start to scheme and come up with the idea of laws - they will convince the poor that it is in their interest to give up liberty in order to live safely. When laws are set up, society enters a cascade of ever-increasing corruption: laws demand magistrates, which leads to civil inequality (wielding power over others). This cycle ends with despotism - in this state there is a despot that wields all the power over all the others, in effect ending the social contract (cf. Locke) and throwing man back to his state of nature.
It is easy to see the flaws in Rousseau's story: evolutionary anthropology has shown that the noble savage is an illusion, our ancestors were as war-like as any chimpanzee troop is. It is also clear that Rousseau is mistaken with regard to the steps in his story of the rise of inequality. Agriculture led to the specialization of society, this led to aristocracies and castes of priests and public servants, which in turn led to huge kingdoms.
Nevertheless, I admire Rousseau's bravery to criticize civilization - thinkers like Hobbes and Locke (and others after them) put way too much confidence in enlighenment ideals. Even though Rousseau's picture of our ancestors was skewed, he showed how the concept of property can lead to an endless competition between individuals and consequently to a perpetual state of unhappiness for all mankind. And even though his social contract hypothesis has been proven wrong, he was the first one to come up with an evolutionary account of human institutions and societies - you have to give the man credits for this (he predates Darwin for over 100 years!)
It is easy to see how the doctrines of (1) 'the noble savage' and (2) the corrupting effects of inequality carry the seeds of the French Revolution and, later on, Marxism and communism. I think we all feel the gnawing feeling of our own relative well being compared to more than half of the population on earth; this inequality is, in the end, philosophically speaking unjustifiable. But as the French Revolution and communism have shown, the battle for righting the social wrongs can fly out of control and destroy the one thing which it was supposed to cure.
Let this essay be a lesson of how misinterpretations can have dramatic consequences: Rousseau never said that inequality had to be destroyed, he only claimed that artifical inequality (based on civil conventions) had to make way for natural inequality. Rousseau wasn't a communist, he just wanted a meritocracy.
February 11, 2018
اذا كان من المهم للمثقف ان يقرأ امهات الكتب لأعلام الفكر الإنسانى فإن القراءة المنهجية لهذه الكتب تضاعف من إفادته بها وتساعده على تكوين صورة اوضح لموضوع الكتاب وتكسب القارىء فهماً أعمق لمحتواه وتقربه من فكر الكاتب لدرجة يستحيل على القارىء المتشتت تصورها .
فعندما تناولت كتاب الع��د الإجتماعى منذ فترة بالقراءة لم تتكون لدىّ صورة صحيحة لفكر روسو وتكونت لدى ّ قناعة شخصية بأنه أديباً اكثر منه فيلسوفاً .
اما فى الواقع وبعد ان انتهجت منهجاً فى قراءاتى يتبع التطور التاريخى للفكر الإنسانى وتطور الفكر الشخصى لكل كاتب اتناوله بالقراءة وحين وصلت بقراءاتى لهذا الكتاب توصلت لنتائج مغايرة تماماً وهو أمر تكرر معى فى أكثر من قراءة لأكثر من كاتب .
فبعد ان كان روسو فى نظرى رجلا حالما خياليا ساقته خيالاته البعيدة عن الواقع الى نتائج فلسفية وسياسية حالمة فى كتاب العقد الاجتماعى توضحت لى أسس فلسفته العميقة الغور الضاربه فى جذور التاريخ الانسانى وان كان قبلئذ-فى نظرى - مجرد أديب يمتلك مناص لغته ليحاول ان يصوغ افكاره بطريقة مقنعة إذا بى اجده -بعد تعرفى لأسس فلسفته فى هذا الكتاب - ناقدا لروح الحداثة وفاضحاً لعيوبها وضعف أسسها. وإذا بى اجده من اوائل الانثروبولوجيين ذوى القدرة على التجرد والتحليل والاستنتاج .
وإذا بالفكرة المهوشة الدارجة المزعومة عن الفكر الروسوى الرومانطيقى تتخذ شكلاً مغايراً اكثر وضوحاً وصلابة وأبعد عن الإدعاءات والإستسلام للأحكام المسبقة.
الإنسان المدنى فى فلسفة روسو اكثر بؤساً وشقاءً من إنسانه المتوحش فلا تجر عليه مدنيته وعلومه وقوانينه إلا العبودية وهو لايزال يرزح تحت نيرها وهى لا تنفك تزداد رسوخا فى نفسه وتطورا فى حياته على مر الايام . وهى فكرة جد عسيرة على فهم اى انسان فى عصر روسو وما زالت كذلك بالنسبة للكثيرين من ابناء عصرنا . وهى الافكار التى كانت سبباً فى انقلاب اصدقائه من مفكرين عصره - عصر التنوير - الى الد اعدائه .
اما فى نظرى فالمحصلة دائماً بصفر فيما يخص أى من أمور دنيانا اسباباً ونتائج ولا يسعى الانسان الى ما يظن انه سيصبح سبب هناؤه او التخلص من بؤسه الا في مخيلته اما على ارض الواقع فإنه يغفل انه بسعيه الى حاله وهمية يظن فيها السعاده والمكسب اكثر مما فى حالته الاولى فإنه يجهل انه بهذا السعى يشقى ويخسر اشياءً اخرى كانت فى حوزته وكان يسعد بها أيما سعاده ولكنه لفرط إعتياده عليها ولأنه كثيرا ما يفكر فى شقاؤه الحالى قليل التفكير فى اسباب هناؤه المتيسرة يظن انه سيكسب شيئاً دون ان يخسر وانه حائزٌ دون ان يفقد وأنه سيسعد دون أن يشقى فهو ضعيف التنبؤ بقدر ما هو شديد التحوط نظرا لمحدودية معرفته . اما الحقيقة فى نظرى فهى ان كل ما يسعى الانسان للوصول اليه انما هو مجرد مظاهر وتحقق لممكنات طبيعة كينونتة اما فى حقيقتها فهى لا شىء ولا يبقى لأى من ذواتنا سوى فعله الاخلاقى الحر وان كانت نتائجه كاملة لا تظهر بالضرورة خلال لحظة وجوده العابره على هذه الارض .
فعندما تناولت كتاب الع��د الإجتماعى منذ فترة بالقراءة لم تتكون لدىّ صورة صحيحة لفكر روسو وتكونت لدى ّ قناعة شخصية بأنه أديباً اكثر منه فيلسوفاً .
اما فى الواقع وبعد ان انتهجت منهجاً فى قراءاتى يتبع التطور التاريخى للفكر الإنسانى وتطور الفكر الشخصى لكل كاتب اتناوله بالقراءة وحين وصلت بقراءاتى لهذا الكتاب توصلت لنتائج مغايرة تماماً وهو أمر تكرر معى فى أكثر من قراءة لأكثر من كاتب .
فبعد ان كان روسو فى نظرى رجلا حالما خياليا ساقته خيالاته البعيدة عن الواقع الى نتائج فلسفية وسياسية حالمة فى كتاب العقد الاجتماعى توضحت لى أسس فلسفته العميقة الغور الضاربه فى جذور التاريخ الانسانى وان كان قبلئذ-فى نظرى - مجرد أديب يمتلك مناص لغته ليحاول ان يصوغ افكاره بطريقة مقنعة إذا بى اجده -بعد تعرفى لأسس فلسفته فى هذا الكتاب - ناقدا لروح الحداثة وفاضحاً لعيوبها وضعف أسسها. وإذا بى اجده من اوائل الانثروبولوجيين ذوى القدرة على التجرد والتحليل والاستنتاج .
وإذا بالفكرة المهوشة الدارجة المزعومة عن الفكر الروسوى الرومانطيقى تتخذ شكلاً مغايراً اكثر وضوحاً وصلابة وأبعد عن الإدعاءات والإستسلام للأحكام المسبقة.
الإنسان المدنى فى فلسفة روسو اكثر بؤساً وشقاءً من إنسانه المتوحش فلا تجر عليه مدنيته وعلومه وقوانينه إلا العبودية وهو لايزال يرزح تحت نيرها وهى لا تنفك تزداد رسوخا فى نفسه وتطورا فى حياته على مر الايام . وهى فكرة جد عسيرة على فهم اى انسان فى عصر روسو وما زالت كذلك بالنسبة للكثيرين من ابناء عصرنا . وهى الافكار التى كانت سبباً فى انقلاب اصدقائه من مفكرين عصره - عصر التنوير - الى الد اعدائه .
اما فى نظرى فالمحصلة دائماً بصفر فيما يخص أى من أمور دنيانا اسباباً ونتائج ولا يسعى الانسان الى ما يظن انه سيصبح سبب هناؤه او التخلص من بؤسه الا في مخيلته اما على ارض الواقع فإنه يغفل انه بسعيه الى حاله وهمية يظن فيها السعاده والمكسب اكثر مما فى حالته الاولى فإنه يجهل انه بهذا السعى يشقى ويخسر اشياءً اخرى كانت فى حوزته وكان يسعد بها أيما سعاده ولكنه لفرط إعتياده عليها ولأنه كثيرا ما يفكر فى شقاؤه الحالى قليل التفكير فى اسباب هناؤه المتيسرة يظن انه سيكسب شيئاً دون ان يخسر وانه حائزٌ دون ان يفقد وأنه سيسعد دون أن يشقى فهو ضعيف التنبؤ بقدر ما هو شديد التحوط نظرا لمحدودية معرفته . اما الحقيقة فى نظرى فهى ان كل ما يسعى الانسان للوصول اليه انما هو مجرد مظاهر وتحقق لممكنات طبيعة كينونتة اما فى حقيقتها فهى لا شىء ولا يبقى لأى من ذواتنا سوى فعله الاخلاقى الحر وان كانت نتائجه كاملة لا تظهر بالضرورة خلال لحظة وجوده العابره على هذه الارض .
February 6, 2013
I had a much harder time diving into this discourse compared to his previous on art and science which I thoroughly enjoyed. Once I got through his ramblings, which was about half of the book, I was thoroughly captivated though which salvaged my rating and of course overall enjoyment. It seems to be an imperative to remember the timing of its release and not apply modern filters, otherwise you can easily groan and guffaw at his treatise on the "noble savages" in the first half of the book. If you can achieve this very difficult task you can begin to see between the lines and get at his deeper point which is that the more we develop and have the less happy we are and the greater the level of inequality between the haves and have-nots. The second half of this work was much more palatable as there were many juicy quotes and nuggets related to the rise and decline of all forms of government from monarchy to aristocracy to democracy. Some of his writing was incredibly eerie when you used it a lens for analysis of the current state of world affairs and global democracy. For the casual reader, I would personally recommend skipping to part II, though if you can again remove your filters, you may enjoy Part I as well.
March 8, 2019
Rousseau talks about what he calls « natural human being » and the origin of gouvernements and how they led to inequalities between human beings. The inequalities based on race, wealth and position and not based on natural capacities. The first part of the book is much more interesting but in the second part Rousseau mostly repeats the same ideas and towards the end the discourse becomes mostly irrational and uninteresting in a way that I my self found it really hard to read. Also there are so many footnotes written by Rousseau himself which are in my opinion (and in his of course as he added them to the end of the discourse) most of the time off topic. Rousseau sent a copy of this discourse to Voltaire and Voltaire added lots of notes to it so if you wanna read this book, I recommend the version with Voltaire’s notes so you can sense the battle between the two of them.
April 2, 2018
كتاب ألفه الفيلسوف الكبر تقريبا عام 1755، يعني من مدة تزيد عن قرنين ونصف قرن من الزمان، وبرغم طول المدة فالكتاب لا يزال رائجا لدي دور النشر، ولا أظن لذلك سببا إلا لأنه الكتاب لفيلسوف كبير. لكن مادة الكتاب نفسها أصبحت قيمتها ضعيفة جدا بسبب قدمها الشديد، وبسبب الفكرة المسيطرة علي عقل (جان جاك روسو) في أغلب أعماله. هذه الفكرة ��لأساسية في كتبه تتمركز حول العودة للطبيعة وعدم الانعزال عنها، فاحياة الفطرية في نظر المؤلف هي الحياة الحقيقية التي تنمو فيها ملكات الإنسان وأخلاقه الحقيقية بعيدا عن الصورة الاصطناعية التي يحياها إنسان عصره.
نفس الفكرة قراتها له في كتاب سابق وأعتقد أنها ستكون نفس فكرة كتابه تربية إيميل.
نفس الفكرة قراتها له في كتاب سابق وأعتقد أنها ستكون نفس فكرة كتابه تربية إيميل.
August 23, 2021
I really liked it, the introduction in this copy makes this book a whole lot easier to digest.
It can be summed up as an analysis on the progress of inequality throughout varying human societies from the state of nature to despotism.
I will need to read more to grasp a better, broader philosophical approach to Rousseau but for the most part I believe he is right in his understanding to this day.
It can be summed up as an analysis on the progress of inequality throughout varying human societies from the state of nature to despotism.
I will need to read more to grasp a better, broader philosophical approach to Rousseau but for the most part I believe he is right in his understanding to this day.
Read
December 18, 2020I highly recommend reading this! I certainly did not find myself agreeing with everything that Rousseau wrote but I found it a really compelling, well-written and 'enlightening' piece about mankind's accelerated perversion after leaving the state of nature and entering the state of society.
A few reviewers have criticised this discourse for being overly reliant on rhetoric and while I do see the validity in that, I think one should take into account that there was little, if any, scientific research on the origins of mankind (Darwin was not around yet) so much of what Rousseau could say about the state of nature could only be guesswork (which is actually pretty accurate).
The other criticism is that Rousseau is too idealistic about the 'state of nature', a concept some are even sceptical of. In my opinion, Rousseau does not paint an idealistic picture of the state of nature, nor does he promote a return to it; instead, he seeks to highlight the depravities of the modern age and contrast that with the purity of our ancestors. How is that false? Also, the state of nature most certainly exists, at least as Rousseau described it -- pre-language, pre-society, when humans lived as individual hunters and were only motivated by primordial, carnal needs like food and reproduction. We were animals once and that is a scientific fact anyways, no?
My main complaint with the discourse is that the main idea of inequality is not defined at the very start and it can also be pretty challenging to spot Rousseau's thesis. Taking the title at face value, I expected the work to be on modern inequalities of his time like socioeconomic inequality (in France, there were the 3 estates) and slavery. However, the philosophical discourse takes the shape of an anthropological exploration, without the scientific evidence that we have today. At times, the ideas that he raises also remind me of Homo Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (the one that comes to mind is the 'progress trap'). In spite of, or because of that, I was all the more engrossed and impressed by the work -- much of his analysis and evaluation actually made sense to a 21st-century reader! And where anthropological works tend to be inadequate, Rousseau's Discourse attempts to shed light on the fundamental changes in human nature, or in his words, "to strip man naked".
To do that, Rousseau visits the state of nature in Part 1. Personally, my conception of the state of nature was more or less aligned with the Hobbesian view that life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", in other words, something we should be glad we have escaped from. But Rousseau offers a different interpretation of the state of nature, an arguably more nuanced one.
For Rousseau, the state of nature is characterised by an interest in self-preservation and the lack of social attachments. Indeed, this mirrors Hobbes' view that life was solitary, in that our ancestors had no family nor romantic relationships; in fact, relationships were simply meant for progeniture. All we did was hunt, forage, hide from predators, mate with fellow 'humans' and hide from other stronger 'humans'. This theme of solitude would be one of Rousseau's main arguments against modernity; when people had little to no attachment to others, they had no dependence on anyone else, and that gave them freedom.
Read the following excerpt:
"I should be glad to have explained to me, what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease and whose body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would ask also, whether a social or a natural life is most likely to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. We see around us hardly a creature in civil society, who does not lament his existence: we even see many deprive themselves of as much of it as they can... In instinct alone, he had all he required for living in the state of nature; and with a developed understanding he has only just enough to support life in society."
So were our ancestors really more miserable than us? To be honest, this is a question that I have been thinking about every now and then as of late. Yes, we have seen so much Progress in our creations and inventions, and in our thought. But are we really better off than we were in the past? Perhaps if we consider the material side of life, security and physical health and what not, then I think we certainly are in the brightest epoch ever. Yet, have we considered the proliferation of mental illnesses as a sign of something fundamentally wrong with the modern psyche? It is also interesting to note how novel diseases only started plaguing the human race once we settled into agricultural civilisations, and famines and scarcity became a problem to be reckoned with. With Progress, we have also invented problems for ourselves, some of which we may never be able to solve. Alas, Rousseau does not recommend a return to the state of nature -- that's impossible.
Before I go on about the transition from the state of nature to the state of society, I'd like to note down the two inequalities that Rousseau identifies in mankind. Firstly, there is natural inequality, which is simply the difference in strength, intellect, etc. and secondly, there is moral inequality, which is the inequality in privileges (wealth, political power) as set out by conventions.
In the state of nature, according to Rousseau, there is hardly any inequality. If you're weaker than another human being, you'd just hide in a tree or find another place to be (if I'm not wrong); after all, all humans were interested in self-preservation and there was frankly nothing to get from killing another human being unless you were a cannibal. I think this is something that isn't very contentious.
So when did inequality start increasing? When we entered the state of society.
But when did we enter the state of society? When our faculties developed to the extent that we started claiming parts of the earth as private property. In Rousseau's opinion, the progress of inequality followed three stages: 1) the establishment of laws and the right of property, 2) the institution of the magistracy, and 3) the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power. With the first, there emerged the distinction between rich and poor; powerful and weak; master and slave.
I'll try to outline the progression as simply as I can, and I hope I haven't misunderstood too much.
When the first ambitious human claimed his property, there followed inequity. In the interest of self-preservation, others followed suit, and this was when natural inequality accentuated the differences in their ability to claim and defend their property. This would then become a self-perpetuating cycle, where natural inequalities are worsened by institutional inequality with the establishment of codes of conduct (the law) to protect private property.
The institution of the magistracy signified the endowment of a select group of humans with the power to enforce laws in order to protect property. This is the origin of the state. Whereas social contract theorists argue that the state was birthed as a result of a compromise between the now-out-of-the-state-of-nature humans and their leaders in which they exchanged some of their freedoms for security, Rousseau provides an interesting counter-argument. He asserts that the state was conceived of by the rich as a means to exploit the poor to defend their property. After all, would those without property require security?
Now, I think both arguments can coexist. While Locke's social contract proves more compelling in explaining the formation and sustaining of feudal societies, Rousseau's view arguably makes more sense for the time before the first political community existed and before everyone owned property. Hmm.
On to the final stage of inequality, the conversion of legitimate authority to arbitrary power. I'm not entirely sure what Rousseau meant by this but if I remember correctly, this final stage concerned the consolidation of political power in family dynasties or the elites. Hence, rather than being instituted by the people to protect their interests, government became arbitrary and tyrannical. I guess he was thinking of absolute monarchies when he wrote this.
Hence, with these three stages of inequality, mankind exists the largely equal state of nature to the dramatically unequal state of society. According to Rousseau, the state of society is one where humans begin to depend on others, forming various relationships (social, economic, political), and we begin to compare ourselves to others. This is where one of his more abstract and less germane ideas comes into play -- the idea that vanity increases our vulnerability to pain.
When one accumulates property, luxury becomes a necessity, for both the rich and those who aspire to become rich. This materialist yearning makes is such that it is more cruel to be deprived of our possessions that we are pleased to possess them, hence increasing our vulnerability to pain. While I don't know how this is relevant to inequality, I really liked the following quote:
"... the rich are so sensitive in every part of their goods."
Indeed, the well-to-do are the ones who need the state, the military, the police more than anyone else because inherently, it simply does not make sense for them to own things that ultimately do not truly belong to them. Absolute monarchs lose political power when their political power is seized by force; it is perfectly legitimate for that which was not theirs to begin with to be taken away from them. And I guess this fear must exist for the rich. Even though they do have legitimate claims to ownership, there is little moral support for the existence of their wealth when there are quarters of the world starving.
Which brings me to Rousseau's point that moral inequality clashes with natural right whenever it is not proportionate with physical inequality.
"It is contrary to the law of nature that children should command old men, fools wise men, and that the privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities while the starving multitudes are in want of the bare necessities of life." (Cool how this prefigures Marxist ideas)
Being a radical, Rousseau also writes that the rich are only happy with their wealth because the dispossessed, the destitute, the poor exist. Without that contrast in society, what can anyone even make of their wealth and status? Personally, I do not think rich people are all sadistic but there must certainly be some truth in Rousseau's damning critique of the accruement of wealth. If we had no one else to compare ourselves with, would we still feel so great about owning so much property? And if there was no measure of poverty or wealth, would we still feel the compulsion to earn more, buy more? That I'm inclined to refute those statements and argue for the fundamental human desire to be in possession of more, more, more, seems to suggest that greed is something fundamentally human. And greed probably was not a thing in the state of nature, perhaps because we were only interested in self-preservation.
To conclude, Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality brings us back, philosophically, to the state of nature (when man was equal) to our current state of nature (one that is rife with inequalities) and provides theories for the emergence and worsening of inequalities as well as a welcome critique of economic elites, then and now.
A few reviewers have criticised this discourse for being overly reliant on rhetoric and while I do see the validity in that, I think one should take into account that there was little, if any, scientific research on the origins of mankind (Darwin was not around yet) so much of what Rousseau could say about the state of nature could only be guesswork (which is actually pretty accurate).
The other criticism is that Rousseau is too idealistic about the 'state of nature', a concept some are even sceptical of. In my opinion, Rousseau does not paint an idealistic picture of the state of nature, nor does he promote a return to it; instead, he seeks to highlight the depravities of the modern age and contrast that with the purity of our ancestors. How is that false? Also, the state of nature most certainly exists, at least as Rousseau described it -- pre-language, pre-society, when humans lived as individual hunters and were only motivated by primordial, carnal needs like food and reproduction. We were animals once and that is a scientific fact anyways, no?
My main complaint with the discourse is that the main idea of inequality is not defined at the very start and it can also be pretty challenging to spot Rousseau's thesis. Taking the title at face value, I expected the work to be on modern inequalities of his time like socioeconomic inequality (in France, there were the 3 estates) and slavery. However, the philosophical discourse takes the shape of an anthropological exploration, without the scientific evidence that we have today. At times, the ideas that he raises also remind me of Homo Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (the one that comes to mind is the 'progress trap'). In spite of, or because of that, I was all the more engrossed and impressed by the work -- much of his analysis and evaluation actually made sense to a 21st-century reader! And where anthropological works tend to be inadequate, Rousseau's Discourse attempts to shed light on the fundamental changes in human nature, or in his words, "to strip man naked".
To do that, Rousseau visits the state of nature in Part 1. Personally, my conception of the state of nature was more or less aligned with the Hobbesian view that life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", in other words, something we should be glad we have escaped from. But Rousseau offers a different interpretation of the state of nature, an arguably more nuanced one.
For Rousseau, the state of nature is characterised by an interest in self-preservation and the lack of social attachments. Indeed, this mirrors Hobbes' view that life was solitary, in that our ancestors had no family nor romantic relationships; in fact, relationships were simply meant for progeniture. All we did was hunt, forage, hide from predators, mate with fellow 'humans' and hide from other stronger 'humans'. This theme of solitude would be one of Rousseau's main arguments against modernity; when people had little to no attachment to others, they had no dependence on anyone else, and that gave them freedom.
Read the following excerpt:
"I should be glad to have explained to me, what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease and whose body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would ask also, whether a social or a natural life is most likely to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. We see around us hardly a creature in civil society, who does not lament his existence: we even see many deprive themselves of as much of it as they can... In instinct alone, he had all he required for living in the state of nature; and with a developed understanding he has only just enough to support life in society."
So were our ancestors really more miserable than us? To be honest, this is a question that I have been thinking about every now and then as of late. Yes, we have seen so much Progress in our creations and inventions, and in our thought. But are we really better off than we were in the past? Perhaps if we consider the material side of life, security and physical health and what not, then I think we certainly are in the brightest epoch ever. Yet, have we considered the proliferation of mental illnesses as a sign of something fundamentally wrong with the modern psyche? It is also interesting to note how novel diseases only started plaguing the human race once we settled into agricultural civilisations, and famines and scarcity became a problem to be reckoned with. With Progress, we have also invented problems for ourselves, some of which we may never be able to solve. Alas, Rousseau does not recommend a return to the state of nature -- that's impossible.
Before I go on about the transition from the state of nature to the state of society, I'd like to note down the two inequalities that Rousseau identifies in mankind. Firstly, there is natural inequality, which is simply the difference in strength, intellect, etc. and secondly, there is moral inequality, which is the inequality in privileges (wealth, political power) as set out by conventions.
In the state of nature, according to Rousseau, there is hardly any inequality. If you're weaker than another human being, you'd just hide in a tree or find another place to be (if I'm not wrong); after all, all humans were interested in self-preservation and there was frankly nothing to get from killing another human being unless you were a cannibal. I think this is something that isn't very contentious.
So when did inequality start increasing? When we entered the state of society.
But when did we enter the state of society? When our faculties developed to the extent that we started claiming parts of the earth as private property. In Rousseau's opinion, the progress of inequality followed three stages: 1) the establishment of laws and the right of property, 2) the institution of the magistracy, and 3) the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power. With the first, there emerged the distinction between rich and poor; powerful and weak; master and slave.
I'll try to outline the progression as simply as I can, and I hope I haven't misunderstood too much.
When the first ambitious human claimed his property, there followed inequity. In the interest of self-preservation, others followed suit, and this was when natural inequality accentuated the differences in their ability to claim and defend their property. This would then become a self-perpetuating cycle, where natural inequalities are worsened by institutional inequality with the establishment of codes of conduct (the law) to protect private property.
The institution of the magistracy signified the endowment of a select group of humans with the power to enforce laws in order to protect property. This is the origin of the state. Whereas social contract theorists argue that the state was birthed as a result of a compromise between the now-out-of-the-state-of-nature humans and their leaders in which they exchanged some of their freedoms for security, Rousseau provides an interesting counter-argument. He asserts that the state was conceived of by the rich as a means to exploit the poor to defend their property. After all, would those without property require security?
Now, I think both arguments can coexist. While Locke's social contract proves more compelling in explaining the formation and sustaining of feudal societies, Rousseau's view arguably makes more sense for the time before the first political community existed and before everyone owned property. Hmm.
On to the final stage of inequality, the conversion of legitimate authority to arbitrary power. I'm not entirely sure what Rousseau meant by this but if I remember correctly, this final stage concerned the consolidation of political power in family dynasties or the elites. Hence, rather than being instituted by the people to protect their interests, government became arbitrary and tyrannical. I guess he was thinking of absolute monarchies when he wrote this.
Hence, with these three stages of inequality, mankind exists the largely equal state of nature to the dramatically unequal state of society. According to Rousseau, the state of society is one where humans begin to depend on others, forming various relationships (social, economic, political), and we begin to compare ourselves to others. This is where one of his more abstract and less germane ideas comes into play -- the idea that vanity increases our vulnerability to pain.
When one accumulates property, luxury becomes a necessity, for both the rich and those who aspire to become rich. This materialist yearning makes is such that it is more cruel to be deprived of our possessions that we are pleased to possess them, hence increasing our vulnerability to pain. While I don't know how this is relevant to inequality, I really liked the following quote:
"... the rich are so sensitive in every part of their goods."
Indeed, the well-to-do are the ones who need the state, the military, the police more than anyone else because inherently, it simply does not make sense for them to own things that ultimately do not truly belong to them. Absolute monarchs lose political power when their political power is seized by force; it is perfectly legitimate for that which was not theirs to begin with to be taken away from them. And I guess this fear must exist for the rich. Even though they do have legitimate claims to ownership, there is little moral support for the existence of their wealth when there are quarters of the world starving.
Which brings me to Rousseau's point that moral inequality clashes with natural right whenever it is not proportionate with physical inequality.
"It is contrary to the law of nature that children should command old men, fools wise men, and that the privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities while the starving multitudes are in want of the bare necessities of life." (Cool how this prefigures Marxist ideas)
Being a radical, Rousseau also writes that the rich are only happy with their wealth because the dispossessed, the destitute, the poor exist. Without that contrast in society, what can anyone even make of their wealth and status? Personally, I do not think rich people are all sadistic but there must certainly be some truth in Rousseau's damning critique of the accruement of wealth. If we had no one else to compare ourselves with, would we still feel so great about owning so much property? And if there was no measure of poverty or wealth, would we still feel the compulsion to earn more, buy more? That I'm inclined to refute those statements and argue for the fundamental human desire to be in possession of more, more, more, seems to suggest that greed is something fundamentally human. And greed probably was not a thing in the state of nature, perhaps because we were only interested in self-preservation.
To conclude, Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality brings us back, philosophically, to the state of nature (when man was equal) to our current state of nature (one that is rife with inequalities) and provides theories for the emergence and worsening of inequalities as well as a welcome critique of economic elites, then and now.
May 30, 2017
Estoy muy contenta de que la profesora de historia me haya mandado a leer este libro; porque no se piensen que agarraría así como así una obra de Rousseau por mi cuenta...
Antes de comenzar con Un discurso sobre la desigualdad (o como sea que se haya traducido en español), me esperaba un lenguaje súper complicado y unos conceptos en extremo complejos. Además, iba mentalizada con la tarea que iba a tener que hacer después, por lo que no me esperaba disfrutar demasiado de esta lectura.
Sin embargo, soy apasionada de la historia, sobre todo la que ocurre durante el período del Absolutismo y alrededores (no es que hayan sido unos tiempos bonitos en los que vivir, pero son la mar de interesantes); sé que Rousseau no habla exactamente de la situación política y social que se estaba viviendo en Europa en aquellos momentos en específico, sino que más bien hace como una mirada a las sociedades (y a la formación de éstas) en general, pero aún así siento que me ayudó a expandir mis horizontes históricos.
Si estás interesado en leer algo de Rousseau (o algún otro filósofo contemporáneo, podemos decir) te recomendaría muchísimo que lo respaldaras con cierto conocimiento histórico y/o filosófico. No es que no puedas entender nada del Discurso si no has dado la Edad Moderna en clase, pero creo que sacarás mucho de cualquiera de este tipo de lecturas con al menos una base de conocimiento previo.
Este discurso trata sobre cómo se originó la desigualdad entre los hombres, que está tan patente y naturalizada hoy en día. Rousseau intenta descubrir la raíz de las diferencias entre las personas, cómo surgió todo desde el principio de los tiempos. Es cierto que me hubiera interesado leer algo más político o del estilo crítica social más intensa (a una sociedad en particular), pero me tocó lo que me tocó, así que no me quejaré.
Tras leer este libro (o discurso, o lo que quieras llamarle), no puedo más que admirar a Rousseau. Sus pensamientos no sólo son bien planteados y justificados, sino que son... muchas veces superiores a lo que estamos acostumbrados. Quizá si lees este libro entre muchos otros libros publicados en el siglo XXI no quedarás tan sorprendido, pero tenemos que entender que este hombre vivió en los 1500´s, que sus ideas fueron revolucionarias, que nadie jamás (o más bien sólo unos pocos) habían mirado a la humanidad de la manera en que él lo hizo. Así pues, su pensamiento se me hizo deliciosamente moderno para su época.
La mayoría de los pensamientos expuestos no fueron nada reveladores para mí, pero sí que han ido a lugares a los que nunca se me había ocurrido explorar con mi propia mente, eso se lo debo reconocer. También plantea ciertas preguntas filosóficas que son muy, muy interesantes, y dejan lugar para la interpretación y reflexión del lector, cosa que aprecio mucho.
También hay mucha crítica social , a la humanidad, a las leyes por las que nos regimos. Ya sé que yo quería crítica a una sociedad más específica, pero los puntos que hizo Rousseau sobre el ser humano estuvieron excelentes.
Como es bastante obvio, me convenció con sus razones para el origen de la desigualdad (aunque ése nunca fue una preocupación personal o algo parecido), y sobre todo me encantaron las dos o tres líneas que le dedicó a la religión.
Si le bajo una estrella es porque sentí que se iba bastante por las ramas en algunos puntos, y que hizo demasiado incapié en el hombre en su estado natural, en vez de pasar a la civilización un poquito más rápido, como me hubiera gustado. Hay cosas que me parecen no caben dentro de este discurso, pero que están tan bien expuestas que la mayoría de las veces ni molestaban.
Dejo a Rousseau recomendadísimo, y honestamente me halagó mucho el hecho de que pensara como él, de que pude coincidir en todo lo que exponía. Ha llevado mi mente a lugares que nunca me había molestado en explorar, y me siento muy feliz con los conocimientos que he adquirido gracias a esta lectura.
Antes de leerla, no hubiera valorado saber el origen de la desigualdad, pero, hell, ahora me siento un poquito más llena sabiéndolo.
No digo que vaya a leer más del autor en el futuro por simple voluntad mía, pero es que estoy segura de que en clase me van a encomendar a otro filósofo (en Bachillerato o durante la carrera), así que aguardaré feliz y paciente a que eso ocurra (y desear que sea algo más de Rousseau, me quedaron bastantes ganas de leer The Social Contract ).
Ahora sólo me queda hacer el trabajo para la clase, que es el único aspecto negativo de esta lectura. Pero, ¿saben qué? no me va a pesar tanto, porque son ideas que comparto y el autor me ha dejado bastante entusiasmada por compartirlas.
Antes de comenzar con Un discurso sobre la desigualdad (o como sea que se haya traducido en español), me esperaba un lenguaje súper complicado y unos conceptos en extremo complejos. Además, iba mentalizada con la tarea que iba a tener que hacer después, por lo que no me esperaba disfrutar demasiado de esta lectura.
Sin embargo, soy apasionada de la historia, sobre todo la que ocurre durante el período del Absolutismo y alrededores (no es que hayan sido unos tiempos bonitos en los que vivir, pero son la mar de interesantes); sé que Rousseau no habla exactamente de la situación política y social que se estaba viviendo en Europa en aquellos momentos en específico, sino que más bien hace como una mirada a las sociedades (y a la formación de éstas) en general, pero aún así siento que me ayudó a expandir mis horizontes históricos.
Si estás interesado en leer algo de Rousseau (o algún otro filósofo contemporáneo, podemos decir) te recomendaría muchísimo que lo respaldaras con cierto conocimiento histórico y/o filosófico. No es que no puedas entender nada del Discurso si no has dado la Edad Moderna en clase, pero creo que sacarás mucho de cualquiera de este tipo de lecturas con al menos una base de conocimiento previo.
Este discurso trata sobre cómo se originó la desigualdad entre los hombres, que está tan patente y naturalizada hoy en día. Rousseau intenta descubrir la raíz de las diferencias entre las personas, cómo surgió todo desde el principio de los tiempos. Es cierto que me hubiera interesado leer algo más político o del estilo crítica social más intensa (a una sociedad en particular), pero me tocó lo que me tocó, así que no me quejaré.
Tras leer este libro (o discurso, o lo que quieras llamarle), no puedo más que admirar a Rousseau. Sus pensamientos no sólo son bien planteados y justificados, sino que son... muchas veces superiores a lo que estamos acostumbrados. Quizá si lees este libro entre muchos otros libros publicados en el siglo XXI no quedarás tan sorprendido, pero tenemos que entender que este hombre vivió en los 1500´s, que sus ideas fueron revolucionarias, que nadie jamás (o más bien sólo unos pocos) habían mirado a la humanidad de la manera en que él lo hizo. Así pues, su pensamiento se me hizo deliciosamente moderno para su época.
La mayoría de los pensamientos expuestos no fueron nada reveladores para mí, pero sí que han ido a lugares a los que nunca se me había ocurrido explorar con mi propia mente, eso se lo debo reconocer. También plantea ciertas preguntas filosóficas que son muy, muy interesantes, y dejan lugar para la interpretación y reflexión del lector, cosa que aprecio mucho.
También hay mucha crítica social , a la humanidad, a las leyes por las que nos regimos. Ya sé que yo quería crítica a una sociedad más específica, pero los puntos que hizo Rousseau sobre el ser humano estuvieron excelentes.
Como es bastante obvio, me convenció con sus razones para el origen de la desigualdad (aunque ése nunca fue una preocupación personal o algo parecido), y sobre todo me encantaron las dos o tres líneas que le dedicó a la religión.
Si le bajo una estrella es porque sentí que se iba bastante por las ramas en algunos puntos, y que hizo demasiado incapié en el hombre en su estado natural, en vez de pasar a la civilización un poquito más rápido, como me hubiera gustado. Hay cosas que me parecen no caben dentro de este discurso, pero que están tan bien expuestas que la mayoría de las veces ni molestaban.
Dejo a Rousseau recomendadísimo, y honestamente me halagó mucho el hecho de que pensara como él, de que pude coincidir en todo lo que exponía. Ha llevado mi mente a lugares que nunca me había molestado en explorar, y me siento muy feliz con los conocimientos que he adquirido gracias a esta lectura.
Antes de leerla, no hubiera valorado saber el origen de la desigualdad, pero, hell, ahora me siento un poquito más llena sabiéndolo.
No digo que vaya a leer más del autor en el futuro por simple voluntad mía, pero es que estoy segura de que en clase me van a encomendar a otro filósofo (en Bachillerato o durante la carrera), así que aguardaré feliz y paciente a que eso ocurra (y desear que sea algo más de Rousseau, me quedaron bastantes ganas de leer The Social Contract ).
Ahora sólo me queda hacer el trabajo para la clase, que es el único aspecto negativo de esta lectura. Pero, ¿saben qué? no me va a pesar tanto, porque son ideas que comparto y el autor me ha dejado bastante entusiasmada por compartirlas.
November 30, 2016
The problem with reading Rousseau’s ‘Discourse on Inequality’ more than 250 years after its composition is that the content alternately seems obvious, because it had such influence on subsequent work, and archaic, because so much has been superceded. On balance it was still worth reading, although I wouldn’t have bothered if my mum hadn’t given me a copy. The overall argument about human nature inevitably seems dated and repeated references to 'savages' grate. Rousseau’s views on women also really get on my nerves: ‘Happy are we so long as your chaste power, exerted solely within the marriage bond, makes itself felt only for the glory of the state and the wellbeing of the public!’ Do shut up. I was pleased to find in the footnotes that Voltaire disagreed with Rousseau’s misogyny and took the view that, ‘Women are capable of doing everything we do: the only difference between them and us is that they are nicer’. Nevertheless, Rousseau does make some points in this discourse that still appear powerful and well-articulated today. His arguments about the development of language are notably well-put and it is not hard to see why they were influential at the time. It is likewise fascinating how easily he sets aside god and religion from the start, obviously a radical stance at a time when people were still being burnt for heresy.
I think this point still merits repetition, given the current trend of claiming to have discovered timeless and immutable truths about human nature from behavioural economics experiments:
I also appreciated the critique of explorers’ accounts of so-called savages, which he finds unscientific (to use an anachronism) and likely inaccurate. Rousseau's feelings on environmental destruction also appear prescient. Perhaps most memorable to me, though, was this rhetorical question: ‘What is one to think of a system in which the reason of each private person dictates to him maxims contrary to the maxims which the public reason preaches to the body of society, a system in which each finds his profit in the misfortunes of others?’ It could probably be translated more tidily than that, but remains powerful. What indeed are we to think when compassion and co-operation are celebrated as individual virtues, but totally inimical to the wider economic system?
‘A Discourse on Inequality’ is only 114 pages long, including Rousseau’s introduction and notes, yet the introduction by Maurice Cranston runs to 44 pages. This is frankly excessive and I don’t think Rousseau’s entire biography, in addition to commentary on the discourse, was necessary for context. I read the introduction last as ever and did not find it terribly enlightening. The editor’s notes were very good, however, especially the grumpy interjections from Voltaire.
I think this point still merits repetition, given the current trend of claiming to have discovered timeless and immutable truths about human nature from behavioural economics experiments:
For it is no light enterprise to separate that which is original from that which is artificial in man’s present nature, and attain a solid knowledge of a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, and which will probably never exist, yet of which it is necessary to have sound ideas if we are to judge our present state satisfactorily. Indeed it would require more philosophy than people realise in anyone who undertook to determine exactly what precautions must be taken to ensure reliable observation in this field...
I also appreciated the critique of explorers’ accounts of so-called savages, which he finds unscientific (to use an anachronism) and likely inaccurate. Rousseau's feelings on environmental destruction also appear prescient. Perhaps most memorable to me, though, was this rhetorical question: ‘What is one to think of a system in which the reason of each private person dictates to him maxims contrary to the maxims which the public reason preaches to the body of society, a system in which each finds his profit in the misfortunes of others?’ It could probably be translated more tidily than that, but remains powerful. What indeed are we to think when compassion and co-operation are celebrated as individual virtues, but totally inimical to the wider economic system?
‘A Discourse on Inequality’ is only 114 pages long, including Rousseau’s introduction and notes, yet the introduction by Maurice Cranston runs to 44 pages. This is frankly excessive and I don’t think Rousseau’s entire biography, in addition to commentary on the discourse, was necessary for context. I read the introduction last as ever and did not find it terribly enlightening. The editor’s notes were very good, however, especially the grumpy interjections from Voltaire.
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January 6, 2022
The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
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