Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[[File:Jean-Jacques Rousseau (painted portrait).jpg|thumb|165px|Roussea's enigmatic smile.]]{{philosophy|1}}
'''Jean-Jacques Rousseau''' {{lived|1712|1778}} was a [[France|French]] [[Enlightenment]] [[philosopher]] and writer born in Geneva, [[Switzerland]]. He believed that the natural goodness of man was warped by society, and [[Social contract|his ideas]] warped the French Revolution.<ref>[http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/32284-rousseau-and-revolution/ "Rousseau and Revolution"], University of Notre Dame.</ref> He managed to get both the French and the Swiss pissed at him, so that's something.

==Philosophy==
Rousseau's core philosophy has a tendency to get either misrepresented or outright [[strawman|strawmanned]], depending on who's doing the criticizing. His work was largely a response to [[Thomas Hobbes]] (1588-1679), who argued that pre-society humans were violent and brutal to one another. Rousseau, however, posited that pre-society humans were largely docile, timid, and solitary - furthermore, they were completely amoral, as morality and concepts of justice could, in his view, only be established through a [[social contract]].<ref>http://www.iep.utm.edu/rousseau/#SH3b</ref> Rousseau believed that active hatred of one's fellow man - and other corrupting values - had to be learned through society, which he argued - 
by yelling at clouds
 through his writing - was happening during his time. Hence he advocated for developmental [[education]] in children, aimed at combating this and increasing our autonomy, which he thought was the best way to preserve our typical docile roots.<ref>http://educationalroots.weebly.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.html</ref><ref>http://www.iep.utm.edu/rousseau/#SH3b</ref>

This ends up being flanderized<ref>https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flanderize</ref> into the belief that Rousseau saw all humans as inherently good - an interpretation of Rousseau shared even by some of his contemporaries, such as [[Voltaire]]<ref>http://www.iep.utm.edu/rousseau/#SH3b</ref> (1694-1778). In reality, Rousseau thought humans were "good" in so far as pre-society peoples didn't actively bite each other's throats out but mostly kept to themselves, which isn't quite the same thing.

Rousseau also believed that personal [[freedom]] and authoritative power would need to be in balance in an effective society, this balance would be kept by the concept of a general [[will]],<ref>{{wpa | general will}}</ref> the collective will of the citizen body, as the source of law in a state.<ref>
[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/#Lif/ "Jean Jacques Rousseau"], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
</ref>

Since both Rousseau's and Hobbes' conception of a "State of Nature"<ref>{{wpa | state of nature}}</ref> predate [[Charles Darwin |Darwin's]] research, and since our common ancestors are now widely known to have been social animals, it seems unlikely that human beings ever existed without some form of a society present. As such, saying that society corrupted us or is the only thing keeping us from burning our neighbors' house down might be a tad simplistic in light of new information.

==External links==
*[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3913 Rousseau's ''Confessions'']

==References==
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