![]() ![]() Though this aspect of history may not have been readily available to Rousseau, it underscores his tendency to assume human violence to be a byproduct of modernity. The problem with such assumptions, especially in regard to Native Americans, is that it misses the historical fact that American Indian peoples conquered each other for thousands of years. ![]() ![]() Indeed, what kind of yoke could be imposed on people who are in need of nothing.” This comment demonstrates a tendency by Rousseau to assume a non-violent and peaceful nature of native peoples. He then expresses a romanticized view of indigenous cultures (specifically, Native Americans), when he argues in the footnote on page 49 that the “primitive people of America, who go naked and live off what they hunt, have never been conquered. Rousseau appears to see the advancement of art and science as just as much (or more) of a loss as it is a gain to humankind. One of the most telling remarks in the early section of the essay is when Rousseau asserts that while “government and law provide for the security and well-being of people in their collective life, the sciences, letters, and arts-less despotic though perhaps more powerful-wrap garlands of flowers around the chains that weigh people down” (p. Rousseau’s First Discourse is a written response to the question, “Has the revival of the Sciences and Arts contributed to improving reality?” It reveals a substantial aspect of Rousseau’s thinking regarding the eighteenth century Enlightenment. ![]()
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