Rousseau When Jean-Jacques Rousseau Wrote Research Paper

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Martin Luther King can also allude to Rousseau in the formation of the concept of civil disobedience. As Scott notes, "Rousseau argues that civil society is based on a contractual arrangement of rights and duties which applies equally to all people, whereby natural liberty is exchanged for civil liberty, and whereby natural rights are exchanged for legal rights." Legal rights are a natural extension of natural human rights. If any law is unjust, then that same law is invalid.

Rousseau seems to be strongly pessimistic about the role of society as a whole and not just government ("ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques (1712-78)"). This is because human beings make sacrifices that compromise their natural state of being, which is pure joy. Whenever a person sacrifices what they want to do for a job or for another person, that act potentially creates unhappiness. At worst, the person acts selfishly and with total disregard to other human beings. This is another form of slavery, which would be slavery to the self or personal ego. Rousseau argues for people to be true to themselves, but not necessarily a slave to ego or instant gratification. It would be impossible to live in a society in which all people were permitted to do whatever they want, when they wanted.

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At the same time, people must seek truth within. From a position of total self-liberation, the individual participates more fully in the society. Moreover, when each member of society values and honors the other, then the world can be peaceful. Rousseau "does not claim that a whole society can be forced to be free but only that an occasional individual, who is enslaved by his passions to the extent of disobeying the law, can be restored by force to obedience to the voice of the general will that exists inside of him," ("ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques (1712-78)").

According to Rousseau, if left in nature, the human being is essentially a moral being that only seeks joy. When society and laws are imposed upon the person, those restrict natural freedom and self-expression. That in turn creates negativity and tyrannical governments. Greed and materialism are also products of inequality and injustice. The modern human being is only slightly more liberated than the human being in Rousseau's age. Today, people are enslaved by rampant consumerism and the propaganda promoted by the media. Self-liberation can return the individual to the natural state of joy.

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