Contextual Analysis of Rousseau’s Origin on the Discourse of Inequality
“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." But there is great probability that things had then already come to such a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they were; for the idea of property depends on many prior ideas, which could only be acquired successively, and cannot have been formed all at once in the human mind. Mankind must have made very considerable progress, and acquired considerable knowledge and industry which they must also have transmitted and increased from age to age, before they arrived at this last point of the state of nature. Let us then go farther back, and endeavour to unify under a single point of view that slow succession of events and discoveries in the most natural order.”
This passage can be found as the first paragraph of the Second Part of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. It is one that encapsulates most of his general ideas that can be found in the Discourse in a single paragraph. Rousseau’s philosophy is that by nature, humans are essentially peaceful, content and equal. “It is the socialization process that has produced inequality, competition and the egoistic mentality.” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Rousseau opens with the observation that the human race would have been spared great misery and cries if the first person who claimed to have appropriated a plot of land as his private property had been exposed as an impostor and not allowed to maintain his appropriation. By the time this event occurred it was probably
This passage can be found as the first paragraph of the Second Part of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. It is one that encapsulates most of his general ideas that can be found in the Discourse in a single paragraph. Rousseau’s philosophy is that by nature, humans are essentially peaceful, content and equal. “It is the socialization process that has produced inequality, competition and the egoistic mentality.” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Rousseau opens with the observation that the human race would have been spared great misery and cries if the first person who claimed to have appropriated a plot of land as his private property had been exposed as an impostor and not allowed to maintain his appropriation. By the time this event occurred it was probably