Jean Jacques Rousseau, an outstanding philosopher and great thinker, deeply analyzed the concept of slavery, supporting the position that ‘everyone is born free, and everywhere he is in chains‘. (Jacobus and Gardner, 58). Slavery promoted in the period of Ancient Greece, appeared to be a central question in Rousseau’s theoretical view. The thinker concentrated on ideas of democracy and stressed that some people are born to be the dominants in the society, while others are born for slavery. The problem is related not only to ancient society, where the slavery was highly promoted, but to the modern one, where the government keeps everyone in chains.
As long as people need to obey, they remain to be under the pressure of rulers; they give their liberty to the government under the regulations of social order. Modern people are slaves as well, though the concept of ‘slavery’ is totally dissolved in the society. Nevertheless, people should dedicate their liberty to the government and state destructing personal freedom. Rousseau managed to underline the idea that the concept of slavery is interacted with human need to live in the world of unlimited opportunities and rights. People cannot alienate themselves from the society, as well as they cannot take away the freedom of their new born children. The limitation of freedom is reached at the age of reason; liberty can be renounced with the manhood renouncing. Rights and slavery are presented by the thinker as two contrary notions; Rousseau strived to provide the analysis of rights in their moral, spiritual sense; the involvement into dependence from the rulers means the involvement into the slavery, and it is being in the state of war.
It is necessary to stress that Rousseau managed to illustrate the concept of slavery as phenomenon of all times and epochs. People should live in harmony with nature and themselves to be not deprived of their rights to freedom in all its expressions. (Jacobus and Gardner, 63)
Rousseau provided political associations between the state and the family, considering the family as the oldest government form. Stressing this position the thinker identified state ruler as the father of the family, and children are all the people. The governmental form is usually identified by the character of its population and physical climate; this position depicts every state as the family, which is not united by blood, but by political associations. Rousseau was convincing in his considerations, though there is some difference between the perception of the family and the state. In the family, the father gates the love of his children for him as a reward, while in state ruling, pleasure is got on the basis of commanding other people. (Jacobus and Gardner, 60)
There is a need to identify contradictions to this theoretical point; thus, his position as to the slavery promoted in modern society contradicts the possibility of family existence, while family cannot be characterized by slavery. One should also underline the fact that the family is depicted as a primitive unit and a part of nature slavery, contradicting the position of family unity in the government and state. People are said to be slaves and cannot perform the role of ‘children in the governmental family’. Rousseau underlined the family concepts identification as the basis of government, though being characterized by slavery pressure promotion.
Work Cited
Jacobus, Lee, and Gardner, Janet. World of Ideas 8th Ed + Literature: A Portable Anthology 2nd Ed. 8th Edition, Bedford/st Martins, 2009.