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Jean-Jaques Rousseau and William Golding

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Jean-Jaques Rousseau and William Golding had very different beliefs on human nature. Rousseau Felt that all people are born good and that society is corrupt and corrupts humans. Yet Golding had very different views. Golding’s beliefs are that all humans are born with evil intent and that society is the very thing that keeps us from again becoming a primitive species. As you can see they obviously have very different views. But I happen to agree more with Rousseau’s beliefs more so than Golding’s. Rousseau’s beliefs in human nature are that all humans are born with good intent. Rousseau says “Hence although men had become less forebearing…… the development of human faculties, maintaining a middle position between the indolence of our primitive state and the petulant activity of our egocentrism……. the subsequent progress has been in appearance so many steps toward the perfection of the individual, and in fact toward the decay of the species.” (Wikipedia. Theory of human nature) as he says the steps toward perfecting one can lead to the downfall of an entire species. Rousseau believed that the savage stage was not the first stage of human development. But it was indeed the third. It was the middle between the brute animals and/or animal-like “ape-men and complete civilized life (Wikipedia. Theory of human nature). That is Rousseau’s beliefs about human nature. Golding has a much more negative view of things. His view of human nature was that all human beings are born with
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