The Social Contract

“Men are born free, yet everywhere are in chains.”- Rousseau 

In continuation with Montaigne and his colonial text, Jean-Jacques Rousseau also stresses on the importance of the hypothetical state of nature because he explains the benefits it has on an individual. This Privative Age reinforces manliness and independence as fruitful and romantic. However, when civil society is introduced, man changes for the worse. Colonialism operates to artificially create happiness -wants and desires- not of necessity. Civil society also creates laws and generally a leader, too. This perspective is reversed from Defoe, who viewed the state of nature as uncivilized and not corruptive. The idea here is that any stimulation of the imagination is artificial and abstracts from nature.

In A Discourse of Inequality, Rousseau diverges from the typical idea of classical Enlightenment, stating that as much a society can help a man grow it can also destroy him. Enlightenment is a philosophical movement that progresses language, and most importantly, reason between human beings.

What I found interesting about both Montaigne and Rousseau is their peeling back of history to develop their ideas about mankind and how nature became corrupted by “art”. Our contemporary ancestors lived in a hypothetical state of nature that is idolized by some, and criticized by others. Both these writers adapt a form of writing that shed light on the representation of Amerindigenes as a whole formed society and not individuals that need to be civilized.