With the 2016 Presidential elections coming up right around the corner, the date of November 8th continues to flush dread into the hearts of the voters. Considering the almost equally divided voter pool and two equally disliked candidates, the nation is contemplating some of the biggest issues of present day society as a means of distinguishing between the two opposing arguments. Nevertheless, there is one issue that Secretary Hillary Clinton and Mr. Donald J. Trump agree on: income inequality is a titanic issue in the United States of America. Despite agreeing on the problem, Clinton and Trump provide several different solutions that are as opposite as white and black. In a state of indecision, we must look towards eastern philosophy in order
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Written in 1754 for an essay contest discussing the origin of inequality, Rousseau made a daring leap into the ongoing eighteenth-century debates about the nature of man. Discarding the biblical explanation, he adamantly decided that in isolation (or in a universe of one man), inequality cannot and will not exist. It is only when faced with other creatures, man began to observe the differences between himself and his surroundings: “The repeated counterposition of the various creatures to himself, and of each species to the others, must naturally have engendered in man’s mind a perception of certain relations. These relationships, which we express by the words large, small, strong, weak, fast, slow, timorous, bold and other similar ideas…”(Rousseau 70). It is only logical that when faced with another man, a similar situation would ensue, therefore initializing disparity. When looking at this conceptually, we have two stages: Stage 1- when man was self-interested and independent, therefore zero inequality existed and Stage 2- when man first saw the advantage of being interested in others’ welfare and being dependent, therefore ensuring inequality as an inherent quality of any human relationship. Stage two is very clearly defined by Rousseau in the following: “Taught by experience that love of well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he found himself in a position …show more content…
Or is it neither? When looking at famous historic examples of countries trying to battle inequality, the most famous one that comes to mind is Communist Soviet Union. The common pitfalls now associated with this period of Russian history is the fact that making everyone equal hampers productivity and innovation. The reason we have people specializing in areas of their particular interest is not only because it benefits them, but also because they are more interested in the work that they do and are therefore more productive and deviceful. So now we cannot safely say that inequality is inherently bad. Contemplating the other side of that argument, we look at the potential downfalls of inequality as described by Rousseau, “The origin of society and laws, which gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality, changed adroit usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the entire human race to labor, servitude and misery” (Rousseau 79). Ah! Now we can also discard the notion that inequality is inherently good. What is left is the argument of both or neither, which, in reality, are the same
Written in 1754 for an essay contest discussing the origin of inequality, Rousseau made a daring leap into the ongoing eighteenth-century debates about the nature of man. Discarding the biblical explanation, he adamantly decided that in isolation (or in a universe of one man), inequality cannot and will not exist. It is only when faced with other creatures, man began to observe the differences between himself and his surroundings: “The repeated counterposition of the various creatures to himself, and of each species to the others, must naturally have engendered in man’s mind a perception of certain relations. These relationships, which we express by the words large, small, strong, weak, fast, slow, timorous, bold and other similar ideas…”(Rousseau 70). It is only logical that when faced with another man, a similar situation would ensue, therefore initializing disparity. When looking at this conceptually, we have two stages: Stage 1- when man was self-interested and independent, therefore zero inequality existed and Stage 2- when man first saw the advantage of being interested in others’ welfare and being dependent, therefore ensuring inequality as an inherent quality of any human relationship. Stage two is very clearly defined by Rousseau in the following: “Taught by experience that love of well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he found himself in a position …show more content…
Or is it neither? When looking at famous historic examples of countries trying to battle inequality, the most famous one that comes to mind is Communist Soviet Union. The common pitfalls now associated with this period of Russian history is the fact that making everyone equal hampers productivity and innovation. The reason we have people specializing in areas of their particular interest is not only because it benefits them, but also because they are more interested in the work that they do and are therefore more productive and deviceful. So now we cannot safely say that inequality is inherently bad. Contemplating the other side of that argument, we look at the potential downfalls of inequality as described by Rousseau, “The origin of society and laws, which gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality, changed adroit usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the entire human race to labor, servitude and misery” (Rousseau 79). Ah! Now we can also discard the notion that inequality is inherently good. What is left is the argument of both or neither, which, in reality, are the same