Rousseau: 'Man Was Born Free but Is Everwhere in Chains'.Explain

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

Rousseau disagreed with the idea of natural rights being something you’re born with and believed that there are no rights by nature. In addition, he thought that the classical liberals were wrong to start from the individual because by nature humans are social creatures and there is nothing that is ours, and ours alone. Everything we are has been influenced by other human beings so there is literally nothing that we can call our own. Rousseau believed that human beings are dependant on one another for everything we have. Rousseau also believed that the right of war or conquest doesn’t exist because you can’t talk about rights when there is no choice. He also rejects Aristotle’s idea of slaves by nature. Aristotle believed people were unable to control or govern their passion with their reason which is why they needed to be ruled over. Aristotle said that, “Men are not naturally equal, but that some are born for slavery and others for dominion.” Rousseau countered with, “Aristotle was right; but he mistook the effect for the cause. Nothing is more certain than that all men who are born in slavery are born for slavery. Slaves become so debased by their chains as to lose even the

In the philosophical fiction, “A Discourse on Inequality,” John Rousseau, in the state of nature, distinguishes man from animals with the concepts of man possessing freewill and man’s sense of unrealized perfectibility. Furthermore, he emphasizes throughout the first discourse that man, in the state of nature, does not obtain knowledge that surpasses that of animals. Man’s free will is a prerequisite for a further gain in knowledge to be acquired; also, the sense of perfectibility man is naturally derived with allows man to change with time. I argue that free will is a necessary and crucial factor for man to leave the state of nature. Because of free will, man retains the capability to acquire and develop knowledge. Moreover, knowledge

One of the most important writers of the Enlightenment was the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The work of Rousseau has influenced a generation and beyond and it is argued that the main ideals of the French and American revolutions arose from his works, for example The Discourse on Equality. The main concept of Rousseau's thought is that of 'liberty', and his belief that modern society forced humans to give up their independence, making everyday life corrupt and unfree. One of the central problems Rousseau confronted is best summed up in the first line of arguably his most important work, The Social Contract.

“I have freedom,” you say? Do you really? Perhaps, in some ways, you do. But in the end, you’re just another puppet being controlled by invisible strings whether you know it or not. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said. In society, man is “chained” and controlled by the government, by pressure of conforming to the social norms, by wealth and social class, and by one’s desires and emotions. Prior to birth, man is not restricted by such factors but that is merely a fleeting moment as he is slowly exposed to more and more of the world. I agree that “everywhere [man] is in chains,” but on the contrary, I believe man is already chained from the start—that man is never free. In the novel, Brave New

In this book, Rousseau aims to discover why people gave up their liberty and how political authority became legitimate. In his case, sovereignty is vesting in the entire populace, who enter into the contract directly with one another. He explained, “The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remains as free as before.” That was the fundamental problem which Social Contract provides the solution.

In Rousseau’s essay he starts off with an extremely powerful quote that stays, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (59). Rousseau is referring to the slaves that are being held captive. Everyone is born free in this country, but he is not in this. He is considered a slave from day one. He compares this first section of his essay to family and how they interact and bond. I thought that when Rousseau says, “The oldest form of society- and the only natural one- is the family. Children remain bound to their fathers for only just so long as they feel the need of him for their self- preservation. Once that need ceases the natural bonds is dissolved” (59). We eventually grow apart from our families naturally whether or not we actually realize it, but if we decided to be bonded with them and stay it’s a choice. The ruler is your father and he is your master. One of Jefferson’s famous sayings in the Declaration of Independence is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with

When it comes to property (or capital), Rousseau concludes that the citizen has the right to take everything that is needed. He also has the right to work his labor and cultivate enough for a profit. He calls the State as the “in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights; but, in relation to other powers, it is so only by the right of the first occupier, which it holds from its members” (Rousseau pg 13). He warns against not occupying land that is claimed by the citizen. This a basic call that entering into the social contract is giving up the right to personal possessions. It is a general will for the common good. You give up everything to get back what you require from the state. The state makes decisions for its members. It

The book "On the Social Contract" published on 1762 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of his most important works, which points out the basis for a genuine political order and freedom. One of Jean-Jacques Rousseau main ideas in this book is the significance of the loss of freedom. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau freedom is loss when people elect representatives . In my personal opinion, I am not agreeing with the point of view of Jean-Jacques

Locke and Rousseau present themselves as two very distinct thinkers. They both use similar terms, but conceptualize them differently to fulfill very different purposes. As such, one ought not be surprised that the two theorists do not understand liberty in the same way. Locke discusses liberty on an individual scale, with personal freedom being guaranteed by laws and institutions created in civil society. By comparison, Rousseau’s conception portrays liberty as an affair of the entire political community, and is best captured by the notion of self-rule. The distinctions, but also the similarities between Locke and Rousseau’s conceptions can be clarified by examining the role of liberty in each theorist’s proposed state of nature and

Man experiences the same impulsion but recognizes that he is free to comply or resist (Rousseau, 33).”

With this, all peoples are equal and completely free or, to put it more eloquently, “in giving himself to all, each person gives himself to no one” (Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Basic Political Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1987. p. 148). In this respect, Marx and Rousseau share common ground. They both believe that a community or state ruled by all needs to exist to ensure freedom for all. Marx and Rousseau agree that control that comes from above/without/utilizing force can never be rendered legitimate. Likewise to Rousseau, the core of Marx’s notion of freedom is epitomized in this phrase: “Liberty is, therefore, the right to do everything which does not harm others” (C., Tucker, Robert, and Engels, Friedrich. The Marx-Engels Reader, First Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. p. 40). The break between the two is most noticeable concerning Marx’s central idea that the procurement of the rights of production is the key to freedom. When human beings are estranged from their labor they are estranged from themselves, from each other, and, ultimately, made subjects because of it. Freedom necessarily means that human beings must have the right to produce freely as production is a natural extension of oneself. As we shall see, this problem is only exacerbated by civil society.

In contrast, Rousseau had a generally positive view on human nature though a rather negative view on modern society. He proposed that humans had once been solitary beings and had learned to be political. He believed that human nature was not fixed and was subject to changed. Likewise, he believed that man was good when in a state of nature, but was corrupted by society as shown in his quotation, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Also differentiating himself from other humanists, Rousseau taught that the sciences and the arts were not beneficial to man. Rousseau believed the general will must always be right and to obey the general will is to be free.

Locke indicates that, by giving up some of one's rights, the state gains legislative power and is obliged to use this power to make laws that benefit the people, who hired it. Locke writes that, "This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it...over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them." (XI 134) Rousseau argues that the state should not be able to acquire legislative power, but simply acts as an executive. He claims that the legislative power comes from the people, for the sovereign is simply the general will of everyone, in which the state should obey and enforce. Rousseau states that, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme control of the general will, and, as a body, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" ( ), showing that the aggregate mind of the people, the general will, has the legislative power as "all" powers are given to it.

Over the course of history this idea of freedom has been developed and defined by many famous political and philosophical thinkers. Many of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas are acknowledged in the “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and more notably the “The Social Contract”. John Stuart Mill’s major points originate from a book called “On Liberty”. All of these works are still read today and taught in schools around the world. In particular, their ideas on freedom and liberty have drawn a considerable amount of attention. For instance, Rousseau is well known for his idea of “forcing citizens to be free”, while Mill claims that freedom can be found in “pursing our own good in our own way”. Therefore, it is evident that fundamental differences occur between Rousseau’s and Mill’s ideas on liberty and freedom. Rousseau’s rejects this classical liberal idea of freedom of the individual, and instead argues that the highest quality of freedom is achieved through a social contract where collective decisions represent the law and people have a duty to the state, while Mill sees freedom as not being constrained by the government (freedom from laws) and pursuing one’s own good as long as it does no harm to others.