Nature Of Inequality In Rousseau's

inequality issues. We are so wrapped up in our own lives that we “think about human society with calm and disinterested eyes” but if we look closely, its easy to see “only the violence of powerful men and the oppression of the weak” (Rousseau, 10). Is what is happening today with police brutality but a window into our systemic oppression and violence against those who have the least power to do anything about it? Our duty as “revolted mind[s]” at seeing such a truth is that we must “deplore the blindness of the others” and work toward making the world an equal and thus free place for all (Rousseau, 10). In the end, Rousseau says, “ since nothing is less stable among men than these external relationships, which chance produces more often than wisdom and which are called weakness or power, wealth or poverty, human institutions appear at first glance to be founded on piles of shifting sand,” which illustrates the nature of this dillema perfecctly. He explains that weakness or power, or wealth or poverty, are nothing but social constructs …show more content…
He says, the more we think about inequality, “the greater the distance from pure sense esperience to the simplest knowledge grows before our eyes” making it very difficult to distinguish the trith for most people (Rousseau, 18). He uses something as simple as fire to illustrate his point. He asks, “how many centuries might perhaps have passed before men were inclined to see some fire other than the fire in the sky? How many different risks did they have to face to learn the most common uses of that element? How many times did they let it go out, before having acquired the art of reproducing it?” (Rousseau, 18). Nevertheless, even through the difficulties and all the time it might take, he is confident that humanity will see the