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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34966 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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I don't mean to nitpick, but wouldn't Hobbes agree that other people really are the source of quite a lot of the violence, inequity, and injustice that humans have to deal with?

Yes, but the difference is whether the social barriers/contracts/taboos etc.. we erect are the source of these problems or a bulwark against them. Is peace, prosperity and egalitarianism the "default state"? Or is it a hard-won victory that must be actively cultivated by each successive generation if it is to be maintained? That is the fundamental point of disagreement.

Well, I don't think Rousseau actually proposes that peace, prosperity, and egalitarianism is "default" to humans. After all, the first line of "Emile" is "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature [i.e. God], but everything degenerates in the hands of man." Moreover, remember that the societies that Hobbes and Rousseau were dealing with were two very different things, and so when each speaks of "society" they're not actually talking about the same thing. I'd bet that Hobbes, confronted with the ridiculously-ossified nonsense of the French ancien regime would not have failed to condemn it as strongly as Rousseau did ("these two words, country and citizen, ought to be expunged from modern languages!"). Similarly, I can't think that Rousseau would have held to his extreme atomistic individualism if he had lived through the horrifying warfare and social turmoil that Hobbes did. Also, Rousseau's optimism has to be read against the ridiculously dour Calvinism that ruled the Geneva of his youth.

But now I really am nitpicking. Sorry!

After all, the first line of "Emile" is "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature [i.e. God], but everything degenerates in the hands of man."

I feel like your quote only reinforces my point. The Rousseauean take is that "good" is the default and that everything else (ie evil/degeneracy) is the artifice of man. And while we can theorize about what positions Rousseau might have held had he grown up under different circumstances, fact is that he didn't and that his theories still hold a great deal of influence.

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