How are we to take Rousseau in an age where reverting back to his ideals, back to a true state of nature, would be impossible without a massive, global reduction in population? Do we remain in society and attempt to produce a change? Or, do we reject all of civilization and camp out in a remote South American forest?
Though Rousseau was writing in a time in which most of the world had been claimed as some entity's property (thereby establishing civil society in all corners of the earth, p.161), there were still some remaining wild lands. However, we can be certain he knew these places would not remain in a state of nature for much longer. It seems that, with this knowledge, he would write something more than a speculative history of the social and political structures of human beings. I would like to think he offers some kind of guidance, a suggestion of pragmatic action, amidst the hell of civilization. I haven't found it though.
Perhaps Rousseau would suggest that we drop all of our "surrogate activities," or tasks that hold no meaning to the savage man? Perhaps we try to eradicate all appearances and falsities from our own personal existence and consume ourselves with the activities that the savage man would participate in? Of course, in modern society, with legal and social restrictions, such steps towards a state of nature are all too easily thwarted.
No matter how good this supposed state of nature is, what is its ultimate value for us, modern/civilized people, without at least having an option to take some step back towards it?
Perhaps the historical contingency of inequality and cultural fictions is of some importance in terms of how we give them value?
ReplyDeleteIf we do live in a socially constructed reality, does not exposing it as contingent give us a kind of freedom from it-within it?
If I know that my society is conforming me into a certain way, then my society isn't 'deceiving' me into going along with it. If I go along with it, I do so because I choose to, perhaps.
If I rebel against my society, my society is still informing my action, but in a negative sense. But perhaps, if I know this and the contingency of what I move against, there is a certain freedom in this.