INTRODUCTION
Underlying Adams’ quote is the important question as to whether society is progressive and has positive implications for humans, or whether its implications are negative and corrupting. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Émile Durkheim are two political theorists who battle in their writing to determine what is bad and what is good about society. This essay will consider how progressive or corrupting society is and in what ways, according to Rousseau and Durkheim. The essay will explore Rousseau’s argument about the ‘chains’ of society, and look at Durkheim’s contrasting view of the value of community in society. The essay will conclude that society is both progressive in one sense and yet corrupting in another sense depending upon the extent to which it fosters the positive values of community, and the extent to which it may degenerate if these values are not developed properly.
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM, ANOMIE AND ALTRUISM.
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM
Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762) presents a view of society as corrupting, by describing the ways in which the transition from living freely, to living enslaved by the rules of society decays the virtue of man. Before there was civilisation, people lived peaceful and innocent lives, in which they strove to sustain their own contentment and absolute freedom. In the ‘state of nature’, man was free to do as he wished, …show more content…
According to Rousseau, monarchies are the epitome of all that is evil about forming society. They represent the inequality and greed stirred in man by social integration. As a solution to monarchy, Rousseau suggest that we establish a sort of Social Contract, a republic, in which the sovereign is ‘formed entirely from the private individuals who make it up’. He felt that only then could it sustain the public interest. Is this true
Underlying Adams’ quote is the important question as to whether society is progressive and has positive implications for humans, or whether its implications are negative and corrupting. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Émile Durkheim are two political theorists who battle in their writing to determine what is bad and what is good about society. This essay will consider how progressive or corrupting society is and in what ways, according to Rousseau and Durkheim. The essay will explore Rousseau’s argument about the ‘chains’ of society, and look at Durkheim’s contrasting view of the value of community in society. The essay will conclude that society is both progressive in one sense and yet corrupting in another sense depending upon the extent to which it fosters the positive values of community, and the extent to which it may degenerate if these values are not developed properly.
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM, ANOMIE AND ALTRUISM.
ABSOLUTE FREEDOM
Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762) presents a view of society as corrupting, by describing the ways in which the transition from living freely, to living enslaved by the rules of society decays the virtue of man. Before there was civilisation, people lived peaceful and innocent lives, in which they strove to sustain their own contentment and absolute freedom. In the ‘state of nature’, man was free to do as he wished, …show more content…
According to Rousseau, monarchies are the epitome of all that is evil about forming society. They represent the inequality and greed stirred in man by social integration. As a solution to monarchy, Rousseau suggest that we establish a sort of Social Contract, a republic, in which the sovereign is ‘formed entirely from the private individuals who make it up’. He felt that only then could it sustain the public interest. Is this true