Jacques Derrida

A collectivist society seeks to control one's individual independence by forcing everyone to be equal to each other in all aspects. In Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, Rand uses Equality’s sense of morality to depict how individuality has more significance than the collectivism displayed in the society he was born into. In this society, it is portrayed as where one has to lower their level of intelligence and potential in order to meet the standards the government holds. Equality struggles with…

In the “Discourse on the origin of human inequality”, Rousseau argues that social inequality is caused by the competitions that originated from individualism, through which people only pursue self-interest and put equality in danger. Rousseau believes that the state of nature does not have much inequality, which is worsened along with the development of human civilization and political institutions and leaves a greater gap between the rich and the poor. According to Rousseau, when human…

Niccolò Machiavelli is known as the “father of modern political theory” and is known for writing The Prince. The Prince is known as an instruction manual on how to be a leader and how to run a government and dedicated the book Lorenzo de' Medici. The Prince has a lot of fantastic concepts and ideas however some of the concepts do not apply to today’s world. Businesses today need leaders that shows compassion and cares more about the workers than gaining more power. Compassion leaders are…

John Stuart Mill discusses his theory on human nature in On Liberty. Mill portrayed his belief of the Harm Principle, which can be presented as the following: as long as one’s actions are not harming another person, the government nor society should intrude. The Harm Principle also protects the three basic liberties of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to pursue tastes. Mill believes that the government should have the interests and opinions of the public in mind. On top of…

Amour Propre: the Social and Political Inequalities of Property in Society In the Second Discourse on Inequality, Jean Jacque Rousseau outlined the origin and development of private property. The formation of the hut was the first step towards the ultimate creation of society as families and communities formed. Unlike savage man who’s primary motivation was self-preservation, civilized man embraced amour propre as he started to compare his strengths and abilities to others. Although Rousseau…

Different forms of modern governments can be traced back to the philosophers Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau who had their own ideas of how a legitimate government should function. This is reflected through their view of human nature as well as their definition of a social contract that must exist between citizens and the government. A legitimate government requires that all citizens have political representation as well as having the right to speak freely. In addition, a legitimate government…

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all illustrate different forms of legitimate government based on different key characteristics from varying ideas of what the state of nature would look like. Each author’s government aims to provide solutions to the problems presented in the state of nature. Because of their views on human nature each author envisions a different levels of involvement of the citizens. A balance between power to the government and liberty to the citizens is necessary for a successful…

Thomas More's Utopia and Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince are two extremely distinctive and contrasting products created during the Renaissance. Both the works produced by More and Machiavelli concern themselves with the fundamental issues of how society maintains itself and continues to work regardless of what occurs. The two contrasting scholars may both focus on society but yet both authors created works with exceedingly distinctive purposes behind the products. More's Utopia can be seen as a…

During the Age of Enlightenment, thinkers believed in reason, liberty, and scientific methods instead of tradition and religion. Many writers published their works that stated the problems of the misuse of religion and the importance of critical thinking. Moliere was one of writers during the Age of Enlightenment, known mostly for his comedy. He was a French play writer who wrote the comedy Tartuffe, which shows the concept of religious hypocrisy, ignorance and fanaticism. In the drama, he…

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…