Rousseau Reflections

"One would see the leaders fomenting whatever can weaken men united together by disuniting them; whatever can give society an air of apparent concord while sowing the seeds of real division; whatever can inspire defiance and hatred in the various classes through the opposition of their rights and interests, and can as a consequence strengthen the power that contains them all" (Blue Book 89).

I wanted to present this quote to promote discussion on some of Rousseau's briefly mentioned ideas that  we didn't have time to focus on in class because we were more focused on his big ideas in the essay. When I read this section, I immediately circled it and wrote in the margins: "Britain with India's Hindus and Muslims." I sat in on a class early this semester that discussed the roots of India's revolution. Before class we had read Gandhi's Critique on Civilization (1908), where he discusses (I'm simplifying this, but it's very interesting to read) how he essentially blames railroads and technology as the downfall of India because they allowed man to travel farther than his feet naturally could take him--leading him to communities different than his own and to cause race and religious tension. (I actually didn't remember this until I started writing this blog, what I was going to bring up was...) While (Wikipedia tells me) Britain was not the first to build railroads in India, they were responsible for expanding it. In class, Professor Moss Roberts discussed how one way the British raised and maintained their political power in India was by pushing the Muslim and Hindu communities toward conflict. So rather than working together to push out the British, they were pre-occupied with land and religious tension.

While my first thought went to that seemingly far away history lesson, it seems to be this foreign politics tactic has been reused again and again, existent even today--in our own government.

Did any other particular "truths" pop out to you guys in Rousseau's text that are prevalent to our history?

Thoughts on Rousseau

The questions I am choosing to ponder while reading Rousseau include:

Does human being in the state of nature have reason? Why does human being in the state of nature not need language? And finally (because of course we all know I am extremely concerned with this subject) Can human being in the state of nature love others?

Rousseau thinks that the state of nature is freedom. He thinks that modern society disrupted this natural, perfect state. In his ideology, humans don't have reason and that's why they don't have conflict in the state of nature. They simply exist with each other. Once modern society comes along, that's when you get the greed and fear stuff going on. In the natural state, man will only fight for self-preservation.

Why don't they need language? Because they don't have reason. Is this a chicken or the egg type situation? I'm not sure. Did they not have reason and therefore they didn't have language or vice versa? We know that they felt pity for others, but not love...which brings me to my next point.

If Rousseau is comparing humans in the natural state to animals of today, why does he say they never loved?! I know for sure that animals love. And not just because they are domesticated. Lions in packs and other animals have self-preservation for themselves (duh) and love-preservation for others like their cubs and such (new word). We know Rousseau says that man in the natural state feels pity. How far off is love from pity, really? Eventually, these emotions get deeper and we are left with 1) competition 2) self-comparison with others 3) hatred 4) urge for power which all lead us to 'civil society' --- exactly like the one we so humbly live in today.