Rousseau, Thoreau, And Marx

Henry David Thoreau’s words that “disobedience is the true foundation of liberty” and that “the obedient must be slaves” is a political statement that never lost its topicality during the Romantic era. Thoreau served as an important contributor to the philosophical and American literary movement known as New England Transcendentalism. Nature and the conduct of life are two central themes that are often weaved together in his essays and books that were published in the Romantic era of literature. Thoreau brought these two themes together to write on how people ought to live a simplistic life through embracing nature. His naturalistic writing intertwined cataloging and observation with Transcendentalist views of nature. Through his life and

An influential literary movement in the nineteenth century, transcendentalism placed an emphasis on the wonder of nature and its deep connection to the divine. As the two most prominent figures in the transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau whole-heartedly embraced these principles. In their essays “Self-Reliance” and “Civil Disobedience”, Emerson and Thoreau, respectively, argue for individuality and personal expression in different manners. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson calls for individuals to speak their minds and resist societal conformity, while in “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau urged Americans to publicly state their opinions in order to improve their own government.

Both Marx and Rousseau disagree with the classical liberal tradition and offer alternatives. Unlike the classical liberal tradition which is built on the ideas of individual natural rights, Marx and Rousseau believe that there is no such thing as rights by nature. Rousseau believed that you cannot talk about rights until there is consent. He also said that no individual has a claim to anything. For people to have rights in Rousseau’s eyes everyone must sit down as equals in a community and make a unanimous decision on the rights people have. Rousseau calls this the social construct. Marx believed that humans do not have rights by nature and that if you look to the past it will show that there have always been people ruling over others.

Chris McCandless: a man so infatuated with nature, he practically committed suicide to bring himself nearer to it. This extreme liking for nature, along with other ideals, makes up the core tenets of the transcendentalist philosophy. McCandless demonstrates other tenets of transcendentalism as well, most notably the supremacy of the individual, by detaching himself from the mammon of this world. Another way he shows the supremacy of the individual, by the belief that one should not conform to the usual policies of life, causes him great trouble in some cases. As well as the belief that the individual supersedes all else, McCandless received much of his inspiration from nature. Finally, always following what he believes correct, McCandless

Although Thoreau expresses his opinions deliberately in his essay Civil Disobedience, Lawrence and Lee illuminate Thoreau’s opposition to the government more vigorously by implementing potent assertions into Thoreau’s dialogue in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. Thoreau’s essay alludes to men’s materialistic desires and their sole concern for wealth. Lawrence and Lee cogently convey his idea by describing “every man shackled to a

Leadership is the most important quality for the head of any nation, or any other political leader. To be a good leader, you must have many attributes that qualify you for such a huge responsibility. There are good crisis leaders who would fail in a period of "calm." What is clear, is that leadership is a complicated concept. We have consistently found that good leaders have passion and values, confidence yet humility, knowledge and realism; Having these attributes and the ability to use them and develop them in others is the foundation for reaching goals and being successful in a leadership position. Henry David Thoreau and Niccolo Machiavelli are two men who have influenced some of the most influential people in the world, as the two were writing to different audiences, it 's easy to see why their ideologies might clash or unite; Henry Thoreau and Niccolo Machiavelli both use an abundant amount of rhetorical strategies in both of their stories, including ethos, pathos, and logos; both of the stories also have their fair share of differences.

Human reason has been one of the guiding principles in our society since the beginning of time and because action is preceded by thought, these two go hand in hand. Every choice we make is based on our thinking process, differentiating between what is good or bad, and contemplating cause and effect. Machiavelli, Locke, and Marx all have distinct conceptions of human nature, which has led to a variety of conclusions regarding the political structures of society that still have resonance today, which goes to show how much of an impact their theories have.

Both authors Frederick Douglass and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels focus on the topic of freedom. Both authors argue that they are being oppressed. However, this is where the similarities end. Engels and Marx believed that capitalism was a social system used by the proletariats to oppress the bourgeoisie, and that the only way to be free was to fight back against the system. On the other hand, Frederick Douglass focuses more on his individual story and his struggle for freedom, while he tries to appeal to his audience from an ethical point of view.

Government is built on the premises of the established ideas of former politicians and then the new outlooks of recent politicians. All ideas on government are based on the structure and laws of former civilizations. Thus, many politicians can have similar viewpoints on government due to basing their ideas on the same former structures. But, in contrast new government structures include a variety of variations. Therefore, Jean Domat, Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau have major differences in their outlooks on government, but they do share similar aspects.

The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of

Topic #1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes the provocative claim that the transfer of sovereignty involves in the election of representatives signifies a loss of freedom: "The instant a people chooses representatives, it is no longer free." (On the Social Contract, p.103) Do you agree with Rousseau?

In his "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality," Rousseau argues that the arts and sciences "which first civilized men, ruined humanity." The philosopher challenges Thomas Hobbes' theory of the wicked nature of man, arguing that it is not man's nature but society and the pleasantries of civilization that have weakened and demonized mankind: "It appears, at first view, that men in a state of nature, having no moral relations or determinate obligations to one another, could not be either good or bad, virtuous or vicious" (279). The nature of man, therefore, is naturally untainted and based on compassion- a basic, innate virtue. Man's nature is neither good nor evil, neither wracked with steadfast competition nor satiated of philanthropy.

While the writings of Karl Marx and Jean-Jacque Rousseau occasionally seem at odds with one another both philosophers needs to be read as an extension of each other to completely understand what human freedom is. The fundamental difference between the two philosophers lies within the way which they determine why humans are not free creatures in modern society but once were. Rousseau draws on the genealogical as well as the societal aspects of human nature that, in its development, has stripped humankind of its intrinsic freedom. Conversely, Marx posits that humankind is doomed to subjugation in modern society due to economic factors (i.e. capitalism) that, in turn, affect human beings in a multitude of other ways that, ultimately,

Though Karl Marx and Alexis de Tocqueville differ, they both contributed greatly to revolutionary concepts of their era. To better understand the analyses between politics, social, and economic changes Marx and Tocqueville discuss, we must first understand the shift of their time and the need for sociological analysis. The 19th century was a time of change and adaptation for everyone and few scholars were capable and willing to understand the impacts these changes would have on society and its entities. Both industrial and democratic revolutions affected their times and created shifts in society. The industrialization affected many aspects of society. It created a structural change in the economy shifting from agrarian income to industrial and commercial income. Technology impacted labour force and production shifting to large-scale manufacturing creating new types of investments. These changes affected class structure, migration, and workers which in turn affected economy and a shift in politics.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche are both prominent figures of Modern Political thought even though they lived more than a hundred years apart from each other. Rousseau and Nietzsche tend to differ from each other in terms of their views on what we now call “globalization”.