The Contracts
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles W. Mills have identified parts of our society that have formed sorts of informal contracts about how society sees the world. In Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the first societies are discussed with the colonization of the new world. The differences in the civilization of the people and their subsequent treatment is examined. In Mills’ The Racial Contract, the treatment of different races is examined and historical reason for it is given. Rousseau and Mills have their ideals in common, however Rousseau focuses on creating laws and Mills asks for acknowledgement of the way different races are treated.
The Social Contract and The Racial Contract both share the same ideals for the way society should …show more content…
Rousseau simply recommends that some laws be put in place in order to create freedom and equality. He does not mention the protection of minorities. On the contrary, Mills focuses on races and the need to acknowledge history and repudiate the racial contract in order to create true equality. He says, “the rejection of the Racial Contract and the normed inequalities of the white polity does not require one to leave the country but to speak out and struggle against the terms of the Contract” (Mills, 107). Rousseau’s claim is that with laws in place, equality and liberty will be accomplishable. An additional difference between the two contracts is written out in Mills’ the Racial Contract. According to Mills, “not only is the Racial Contract ‘real,’ but- whereas the social contract is characteristically taken to be establishing the legitimacy of the nation-state, and codifying morality and law within its boundaries- the Racial Contract is global, involving a tectonic shift of the ethicojuridical basis of the planet as a whole, the division of the world, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it long ago, between ‘men’ and ‘natives’ (Mills, 20). The Racial Contract reaches and applies to a wider range of people than the social contract …show more content…
As previously stated, Rousseau focuses on how people should govern themselves and make the community part of themselves in order to form unity. Towards the end of The Social Contract, Rousseau spells out the need for a “Lawgiver” (Rousseau, 84). He says “to discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them…” (Rousseau, 84). This leads to the question: do people need to govern themselves, or do the people need to appoint a “lawgiver”? While Mills provides extensive evidence of the poor treatment of races in history and how they have shaped society today, Rousseau has contradicted himself, leading to less clarity in his path. For this reason, I consider Mills’ The Racial Contract to be more persuasive. While both The Social Contract and the Racial Contract bring up a lot of questions for myself, I have less from The Racial Contract. Mills has cause me to look at myself and the way I may be racist myself without even realizing it. While I would never speak out against someone of a different race or even cause our racial differences to be acknowledged, I may be racist just by not speaking out against racism every day. I have learned to be more conscious of racism that is readily apparent and do my best
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles W. Mills have identified parts of our society that have formed sorts of informal contracts about how society sees the world. In Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the first societies are discussed with the colonization of the new world. The differences in the civilization of the people and their subsequent treatment is examined. In Mills’ The Racial Contract, the treatment of different races is examined and historical reason for it is given. Rousseau and Mills have their ideals in common, however Rousseau focuses on creating laws and Mills asks for acknowledgement of the way different races are treated.
The Social Contract and The Racial Contract both share the same ideals for the way society should …show more content…
Rousseau simply recommends that some laws be put in place in order to create freedom and equality. He does not mention the protection of minorities. On the contrary, Mills focuses on races and the need to acknowledge history and repudiate the racial contract in order to create true equality. He says, “the rejection of the Racial Contract and the normed inequalities of the white polity does not require one to leave the country but to speak out and struggle against the terms of the Contract” (Mills, 107). Rousseau’s claim is that with laws in place, equality and liberty will be accomplishable. An additional difference between the two contracts is written out in Mills’ the Racial Contract. According to Mills, “not only is the Racial Contract ‘real,’ but- whereas the social contract is characteristically taken to be establishing the legitimacy of the nation-state, and codifying morality and law within its boundaries- the Racial Contract is global, involving a tectonic shift of the ethicojuridical basis of the planet as a whole, the division of the world, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it long ago, between ‘men’ and ‘natives’ (Mills, 20). The Racial Contract reaches and applies to a wider range of people than the social contract …show more content…
As previously stated, Rousseau focuses on how people should govern themselves and make the community part of themselves in order to form unity. Towards the end of The Social Contract, Rousseau spells out the need for a “Lawgiver” (Rousseau, 84). He says “to discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them…” (Rousseau, 84). This leads to the question: do people need to govern themselves, or do the people need to appoint a “lawgiver”? While Mills provides extensive evidence of the poor treatment of races in history and how they have shaped society today, Rousseau has contradicted himself, leading to less clarity in his path. For this reason, I consider Mills’ The Racial Contract to be more persuasive. While both The Social Contract and the Racial Contract bring up a lot of questions for myself, I have less from The Racial Contract. Mills has cause me to look at myself and the way I may be racist myself without even realizing it. While I would never speak out against someone of a different race or even cause our racial differences to be acknowledged, I may be racist just by not speaking out against racism every day. I have learned to be more conscious of racism that is readily apparent and do my best