State of Nature and further Reflections

In my reading, his description of the state of nature and the possible transition therefrom was very informative of his ideas on government and society. Although the entire idea of society as a social construct itself struck me as interesting as this becomes a similar chicken and egg problem to what he points out as his conception of how language and society grew. As an answer to that question of his, I answer with the following: likely the two grew together. A basic means of communication, even if it did not originally rise to the level of a language, existed for chance encounters, and even presuming the family unit stayed practically non-existent, mothers would pass on what language they had discovered growing up to their children (in addition to any technical innovations, which Rousseau also claims must originally must disappear each generation). Since unlike in the chicken and egg question, community and language can form simultaneously, that is what likely occurred, each allowing (and demanding) more complexities than the other. In the totality, while I do not agree with the extreme solitariness of humans before society (he gives no reason why humans wouldn't be in groups like many animals), nor of there complete incomprehension of the future (storing food for winter would require some level of forethought), his conception of people seems more realistic than Hobbs'.

However, combining the two pieces, I still see that the ideal place for man to be is in small societies of towns that can expect no interference from other groups. He acknowledges that true happiness can also be found when around family, which although he does not directly say so, he implies can be greater than the not quite idyllic peace and freedom from obligations found by man alone.


Going through the texts again also gave me further thought into who he would truly consider a citizen and part of the general will. While he does not address the role of children as part of this either way, he does make several implications throughout as to the role of women. Their role is clearly stated to be less than that of men in other spheres, and he clearly thinks that there value is less, and makes only a slight mention of the Roman's non-inclusion of women in there system, which is much less than he talks about the non-inclusion of slaves and non-citizens. Therefore there is an inconsistency in his reasoning in regard to women. They can either be a full part of the general will and an equal part of the sovereign, or they can be hold a lesser place in society. To try to place them in both categories seems paradoxical to me. I also cannot recall any point in which he describes if any portion of the population should not be accounted for in the general will, accept those who are traitors. And yet he did not seem deeply troubled that some of the governments of the past that he held in higher esteem were highly exclusive.